Me, Jack and Harriet Harman
Down Shep!
It’s 1977 and me, Jack Dromey and Harriet Harman are on the picket line at Grunwicks. Harriet is the legal advisor to the strikers’ committee and Jack… well Jack is Jack. He is a bluff, charming man with a quick mind, a loud voice and strong, well argued opinions. I am this skinny, long-haired teenager with acne, a smelly Afghan coat, and for most of my time on the picket line, a large lump on my forehead – testimony to the firmness of SPG standard issue truncheons in those days. It’s no wonder Harriet noticed the loquacious Jack rather than me.
Wind forward five years and Jack marries Harriet and they now have two children, both boys, both bearing the surname “Harman”. Given a choice of that or Dromey, they’ve probably both regretted not picking a partner called Smith or Booth or whatever…
To tell the truth, she wasn’t a raving beauty or anything, in fact she looked like a Blue Peter presenter without the sex, but that’s not what turned my head in those days. Instead, I favoured cerebral, left-leaning older women, with strong opinions and attitude. I still do, but I can do without the attitude and the older bit. Anyway, Harriet was something of a fantasy girl for the young UKHamlet in the seventies – I’m sure she’ll be delighted to hear it – but it wasn’t in a prurient way. Well, not often anyway.
No, I put Ms Harman on a mental pedestal. This is because I worked hard at not regarding women as sex objects in those days, and it would have been a betrayal of my principles to actually fancy getting jiggy with Harriet.
