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Heathcote residents will no doubt have noticed the election
hoardings that have suddenly appeared around our valley. It's a sign
the campaign is just around the corner. We tracked down a volunteer responsible for putting some of them up and asked him how it
was all done.
The Labour Party has a total of six hoardings in Heathcote. Luckily for Finlay Laird, he doesn't have to put them all up on his own! "It's a bit of a task by yourself. There's usually three people, you need two people holding and one hammering. By the end of the day, you have to use the hammer so much that your aim starts to get out, so it's good to have a pair of fresh arms."
One look at some of these hoardings and it's clear they can be quite heavy.
"They have a wooden backing, and some of them are quite large. With a
lot of the wood being donated, you don't get to choose the lightest of
wood and it's quite old." At least Finlay doesn't have to remake the
signs each time: "Every three years they get trundled out for the
elections".
With a job like this, Finlay is clearly grateful for the help he gets, so I asked him about his willing helpers. "This time there were four people in the team: myself, two Johns and Tony. Anybody who is available is in, nobody is refused a chance! We are organised by the campaign manager, who does the leaflets, signs and various other tasks." With this help, the job takes about an hour or two. The team didn't need to talk about politics on it's way through Heathcote with "so much of it in the papers".
Finding the perfect spot for a hoarding looks like a task in itself. "We check with the person before hand so we have a fair idea of where they want them. The campaign organiser has a look to see which is the best, most prominent place. Then when we get there, we check with the person to make sure it isn't in the middle of their daffodils or prize bulb bed." Often it's easy because "Quite a few of them are people who do it on a regular basis". It's not just the people who get to choose where the hoardings go, but the wind too! In the Heathcote Valley though, with it's famously sheltered microclimate, Finlay says he hasn't had one blow away on him.
With all this work, I wondered if Finlay and his team were able to stop and enjoy some of our Heathcote hospitality. "Well we haven't got time to stop for a cup of tea. If you had a cup at every place, you'd only get half of them done. Once you start, you want to get stuck in and get through the lot of them, so we usually have a cup of tea at the end. If you stop the boys, you might not get them started again!"
Of course, somebody will have to take down all these hoardings down again. Will that person be Finlay? "They have to be down the day before the polling date and it's generally done by a different team. I'll still go down to the shed and organise putting them away again for three years. They generally come back full of nails so the wood has to be denailed and tidied up. Then I put them away out of the rain for the next time they're required."
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