BIRTHS, MARRIAGES AND DEATHS

Today would have been my mother's 83rd birthday. She died 22 years ago but there are still times when you choke up a bit. One is today and another will be on May 14 as she won't be there when I have to get up and make first speech as most left-wing Mancunian Mayor Hebden Bridge has (probably) ever seen. Frankly, the shindig would have been far more her thing than mine so I'll raise a toast in her absence.

On a happier note, tomorrow I'm heading down to London for a friend's 50th birthday party. We have known each other since we were titchy 11-year-olds at Loreto College in Manchester and it's frightening to think how the years have flown.

Bernie's 18th seems like only yesterday - actually it seems a lifetime ago. I well remember having a row with a fellow member of the LPYS about Tony Benn - then standing for Leader - who insisted he was a "right-wing reformist." How times have changed , eh?

Later in life, my friend married the heir to the fortunes of the Johnston Press - the wedding was a lavish champagne on tap affair which will no doubt please journalists who every year struggle to get pay rises from the newspaper-owning dynasty. They are now divorced.

So tomorrow we will be raising a toast to the next 50 years in a marquee in her back garden . And no doubt I will still find someone to argue about politics with.....PS: Note to the young: Tony Benn stood as Leader in 1976 then for Deputy Leader in 1981. Sadly for all of us , he lost on both occasions.

TIME FOR TROOPS TO COME HOME

I can't make tomorrow's Stop The War march in London as I have been invited to the 50th birthday party of an old friend in Cambridge and will be meeting people I have not seen for nearly 30 years. Which is a pretty scary thought.... Attempts to turn back time and lose copious amounts of weight in the two weeks since I was invited ( well, the stone or so I've put on since 1980) have proved predictably fruitless but I daresay none of us will look the same as we did all those years ago.

It may be a place of undoubted privilege but in those days of universal grants student life was pretty radical stuff. I was a member of COLS - Cambridge Organisation of Labour Students - which had a fair smattering of Marxists, Militants and Fabians . In short, a broad church.

Even in those days, the Labour Party was not fashionable. But campaigns like Rock Against Racism and the Anti Nazi League certainly were and I was at the famous 1978 event in Victoria Park featuring Tom Robinson, The Jam et al. It's frightening to think how long ago it all was. We were also opposed to nuclear power at Windscale ( now Sellafiedl) and campaigned on issues like gay rights and women's right to walk the streets at night without sexual harassment. Long ago. Some - but not many - of those battles have been won.

I hope tomorrow's march goes well and would normally be there but I can't help thinking that with each march the numbers diminish and the publicity gets less. This week's announcement that the MoD is spending MORE despite the troop reductions only serves to emphasise the fact that it really is time to get the troops home from both Iraq and Afghanistan. With each day that passes, the terrible kiling goes on. We must continue to put pressure on the Government. Just not sure marches are the way to do that anymore.....but best of luck to all involved.