Councillor Amrit Prakesh Devesar
Amrit was a Labour candidate
in the 1971 council elections:
"While we were canvassing
I knocked at a house
and a lady came
and I gave my usual patter.
And she said,
'Well, Mr Devesar,
you speak very good English.
The two Conservative canvassers
have been going around telling
that the Labour party
have picked up an Asian candidate
who can't even speak English'.
I said,
'That's interesting,
now you judge for yourself'.
Here you must give credit
to the fairness of the British people,
they don't like
people being misrepresented.
So I think
there might have been a backlash
and in the end I did win.
I paid a heavy price
for being a councillor.
Because of the committee meetings
and then the party meetings
I used to come home very, very late;
10, 11, 12.
And that was the time
my children were growing up.
I felt that
helping them with their studies,
their homework,
that suffered."
"If one is working in one's job,
it is physically impossible to read
all the various committee papers
we received in the post.
In hindsight,
I don't know how many councillors
can do justice to the job."
