Mo Mowlam

Mo Mowlam will be remembered as a feisty and unconventional Labour minister, whose down to earth style and courageous battle with cancer won her the sort of popularity that most other politicians can only dream of.  For me,  though,  she will always be my Politics tutor during my first year at university.

When I first met Mo,  she was teaching Politics at Newcastle University.  Back then,  even on laid back Arts and Social Science courses,  some of the lecturers were a bit distant and superior.  Not Mo though.  She would take off her shoes and put her feet up on the table during seminars,  just as she did years later during the rough and tumble negotiations in Northern Ireland.  Her lectures and tutorials were always lively affairs.  Mo's questions and challenges would always provoke a good argument.  On one occasion, we were discussing social class and she went round the room telling us all where we fitted in the social spectrum and what sort of school we went to.  She was right about most of us but when she got to me she wasn't sure.  "You are pretty classless,  Steve,"  she said.  For years,  I took that as a compliment,  until Lady P pointed out that she might have meant that I had No Class!

Of course,  many of my views differed from hers.  I remember having a dig at her when she came into Rosie's Bar on Stowell Street,  after campaigning for Labour.  In 1983,  that was a lost cause if ever there was one.   She would always give back as good as she got though.  Another time,  in the same pub,  she caught sight of me sitting with some friends in the corner,  surrounded by pints of beer.  "You used to be slim and sylph-like when you first came here," she said,  "now look at you.  Too much beer!"  One evening,  she took her tutor group out for a drink  (which turned into several)  at The Hotspur,  on Percy Street.  Mo and I got into an argument about nationalism,  nuclear weapons,  immigration and Law n' Order.  All the areas where we disagreed.  At one point she turned to the rest of the gang and said,  "Why can't I hate him?  He's saying all this stuff that I should find really offensive but I still can't hate him."  This was after several drinks and I never did find out why she had decided that she didn't want to punch my lights out.

Mo was still in her early 30s then and able to keep up with the best of the students in the drinking stakes.  She was also vivacious and sexy.  At one point,  she told us that she was getting dirty letters from two male students and that she reckoned she knew who they were.  This gave us all a good laugh and of course,  the news soon got around.  Shortly after that,  apparently,  the letters stopped.

Despite the banter that I had with Mo,  I did turn to her for advice when a friend of mine became very depressed and seemed almost suicidal.  As you would expect,  she listened to me with empathy but also gave me some sound advice and offered to speak to my friend in confidence.  I will never forget that mixture of touchy-feely concern with straightforward practical help.  So many people can only do one or the other.  Mo could do both.

She left Newcastle to move on to another college in 1983.  I was sorry to see her go.  I had been looking forward to studying with her during the rest of my degree course.  There was no-one else who was quite the same.  A few years later, she was in Parliament and progressing rapidly to becoming a household name. 

Then suddenly,  she was ill.  The terrible disease gripped her and devastated her in the way cancer does.   I lost someone very close to me to a brain tumour in 1997,  at the same time that Mo was fighting hers.  I thought that Mo had been one of the lucky ones who had escaped the Crab's clutches but in the end,  it came back to claim her.  I don't believe in Hell but if there is a Devil,  he probably invented cancer to take the good people away from the world.  I hope that she didn't suffer too much.

Mo did great things as a politician and they have been well covered in tributes elsewhere today.  The way she was in her political life was entirely consistent with the person that I knew in the early 1980s.  There was no mask with Mo.  What you saw was what you got.

I will always remember her, though,  sitting with her feet up on the table arguing with a bunch of undergraduates,  or exchanging banter in one of Newcastle's pubs.  Goodbye Mo,  you were one of the good guys and if I'm wrong and there is a heaven after all,  stand me a beer up for when it's my turn.

Comments

[David Vance]

Steve,

An elegant tribute. As you know I saw a different side to her, but I think it's good to hear the best of people at times like this. Where I get annnoyed is at the revisionism that has been going on with regard to the NI dimension - I took part in the Belfast Agreement negotiations, met with Mo more than once, and hold a very dissenting view on her political skill/belief.

Like you, I hope she rests in peace and hope her family are comforted at this sad time.

[Edwin Greenwood]

Steve,

Thank you for that.

[GZ Expat]

I saw a tribute on BBC the other day about Mo. It sucked, compared to this...no other way of putting it.