The Member of Parliament for Stockton-on-Tees Mr G.R.Chetwynd talking to The Duke of Edinburgh during the Queens visit to Stockton-on-Tees in 1956.
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
The Member of Parliament for Stockton-on-Tees Mr G.R.Chetwynd talking to The Duke of Edinburgh during the Queens visit to Stockton-on-Tees in 1956.
Picture Stockton Archive 
In the fifties, my mother and I, posted leaflets supporting Chetwynd, and they had me singing this little ditty.
“vote vote vote for Mr. Chetwynd, here comes Laverick at the door, well we’ll buy a penny gun, and we’ll shoot him up the bum, and he won’t come voting anymore”
No longer P.C…
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My friends and I also used to walk around singing this song. Mr Chetwynd was very popular around Parkfield.
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Me too! There was an old man who would come with a megaphone and all the kids used to follow him around the streets singing the song. A couple of Chetwynd’s conservative opponents I remember were a guy called Coles and one called Longbottom. They had no chance in Parkfield!
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Harold Wilson did not become leader of the Labour Party until 1963 on the death of Hugh Gaitskill. George Chetwynd was appointed to the NEDC in late 1961 by Harold Macmillan, a Tory P.M. I think that George Chetwynd felt that after 16 years as an MP it was time to move on. Had he stayed he would almost certainly have been offered a ministerial position in the Wilson government of October 1964. He was well liked locally and a good constituency MP.
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George Chetwynd was appointed the first Chairman of the North East Development Corporation (Neddy) by Harold Wilson. Apparently Mr Chetwynd was somewhat a bit of a thorn to Wilson and by giving him that job he was out of parliament.
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I can remember standing at the side of the road, by the black huts that were used as classrooms in Roseworth Estate waving to the Queen with my little Union Jack. Happy days.
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Not entirely happy. If my memory serves me, we had to practise standing in a line in the yard at Mill Lane Juniors the day before and then line up and hang around outside a garage on Yarm Lane for a considerable time. Those in front of a garage alongside were treated by the proprietors to ice creams. Eventually, Her Majesty whizzed by. Perhaps my republican sympathies were incubated then.
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Geo Chetwynd’s resignation meant the 1962 by-election and the attendant national attention. Bill Rodgers [then, I think, sec of the Fabian Society] was selected by the Labour Party. But the main event was the re-appearance in his old constituency of so-called Supermac. He spoke at a rally at the Maison, saying ‘it was nice to be back, but where are all the balloons?’
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Just as well there was no OH&S with those guys standing on the front of Hodgson & Downs overhang. There appears to be only 2 support rods secured to the wall. A disaster waiting to happen. Nice photo though
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