PEOPLE YOU WOULDN'T THINK I'VE MET, BUT I HAVE#9: DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER JOHN PRESCOTT

I met John Prescott 'back in the day' in John Ruskin House, Croydon.
When people say back in the day these days they usually mean when the E's worked or at least when the pills worked and they didn't have to take the kids to school the next day.
Back in the day in this case was 1987. Thatcher had begun her third term in office, and something called a computer was mooted to be coming to a journalist's desk, as opposed to the 1950s typewriters that dominated news rooms up and down the country.
Because computers meant that whole swathes of costs of making a newspaper could be cut out, journalists realised that it was a chance to get a bit more of the cake, since they would now be doing the work of typesetters and printers no longer needed to get a paper out.
At the time, the average local hack earnt £11k, the average local printer earnt £18k.
It only seemed fair.
As the leader of my local union, at the tender age of 20, I led a newsroom of some 30 journalists on a strike, as management had told us we were to get nothing.
The Labour party was a bit of a shambles, but John Prescott MP, always up for a fight, came down to give us what we thought would be a bit of a rallying speech in John Ruskin House.
As it was, he was quite good at shouting, but was also paid by the print union rather than the journalist's union, so didn't really understand what we were moaning about.
Still never mind.
He told us stories of his time as a union leader on ships, and banged his fist on the table.
We liked that kind of thing.
The Government's disastrous April 2006 continues, as news comes that Mr Prescott has been having an affair with a secretary.
It's all true, but I still find it hard to believe that anyone apart from his poor wife would ever shag him though.
Jesus.
What a thought.
By the way, after 3 months picketing, we won the battle, and secured a 22% pay increase for journalists nationwide using these pesky computer things.
On the day I returned to work after leading the strike, I found a letter on my new computer, and myself and the two other union representatives involved, were made immediately "redundant".
Cunts.