A Tree-mendous Journey

By Ian Selby

Ian Selby, former Mayor of Grantham. This is the journey and autobiography of a man who overcame adversity to proudly becoming its town Mayor. Tangled up in the depths of despair caused by the Child Support Agency (CSA) he then made a 36 hour Westminster tree top protest. Followed by a little bit of fun and humour along the way as a local c

• Language: English
• Publisher: Book Printing UK
• Release date: Oct 23, 2018
• ISBN: 9781912694518

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A Tree-Mendous Journey

Copyright © Ian Selby 2018 All Rights Reserved

The rights of Ian Selby to be identified as the author of this work have been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. No part may be reproduced, adapted, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise without the prior written permission of the author or publisher.

Spiderwize

Remus House

Coltsfoot Drive

Woodston

Peterborough

PE2 9BF

www.spiderwize.com

A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-912694-52-5

eBook ISBN: 978-1-912694-51-8

Front cover; Ian with Hercules. Also in the background Ian making his tree top protest in Parliament Square, Westminster near Big Ben.

A TREE-MENDOUS JOURNEY

IAN SELBY

SPIDERWIZE

Peterborough UK

2018

My Heartfelt Thanks

With a Special thanks to my parents

John and Anita Selby

Contents

Foreword

Introduction

My Childhood Years.

My Adult Years.

The Wrath of the

Child Support Agency (CSA)

He’s in the Tree!

Life in South Kesteven.

Becoming the Deputy Mayor.

Introduction to the Diary

May 2014

The Diary JUNE 2014

The Diary JULY 2014

The Diary AUGUST 2014

The Diary SEPTEMBER 2014

The Diary OCTOBER 2014

The Diary NOVEMBER 2014

The Diary DECEMBER 2014

The Diary JANUARY 2015

The Diary FEBRUARY 2015

The Diary MARCH 2015

The Diary APRIL 2015

The Diary MAY 2015

Thank You Very Much for the Award.

Photograph Descriptions

Bibliography

Acknowledgments

(in no particular order)

INDEX

Foreword

A ‘Tremendous Journey’ is a fascinating book. It tells of the author’s journey through life. He has an excellent memory and very interesting detail of his progress is recalled.

For example, he progresses from riding as a lad in pony competitions, to becoming in adulthood a member of The King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery.

He is a good man to have alongside in a fight. He defends his corner with grit, determination and resolution. Witness his crossing of swords with the Child Support Agency when in 1994 he sat for 36 hours in a tree outside The Houses of Parliament in order to make a pointed protest. He went on to develop a career in politics becoming the Mayor of his home town of Grantham.

He has a great love of life which he approaches with energy, enthusiasm, fun and relish. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book and I hope you do too. (dated 1-6-2017)

Betty Elmer

Author and Traditional Story Teller.

Introduction

We all have a story to tell, and this is mine. Life is a journey, and along the pathway of life we occasionally come across obstacles that impede our steps. Just like stepping stones across a river, every single stepping stone can become a daunting challenge. Some steps may be dry and firm, but in contrast, some steps may be slippery when wet. If you wish to safely cross the most demanding chasm, you will need good balance, steadfastness, and determination to overcome the most offendin g forces.

Whenever I have come across a difficult challenge in life, I have needed all my guile and steel to address the situation. During my life, I have on occasion been subjected to unfairness and injustice and consequently putting me under such intense pressure.

In the mid nineteen ninety’s environmental activists, protesters and eco warriors fought against road by-passes. These people became high profile with their dogged and determined campaigns, and in particular during 1996 with a campaign that became known as the Battle of Newbury. Also followed by Fathers for Justice in Super Hero outfits who expressed their distain against government legislation. Prior to these protests in a very cold February 1994 I expressed my annoyance in the most public manner possible against some very severe offending laws with a 36 hour’s treetop protest outside of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster.

These upsetting laws became known with the three letter acronym CSA. Otherwise called the Child Support Agency. Just the mention of the acronym CSA would send shivers down many a person’s spine.

Following on from my treetop protest I continued to object and complain about these unfair and very unpopular government practices. My next step was then to become a candidate at the European Parliamentary elections. Whilst not expecting to be elected, I did though make my point known.

Just a few months later I managed to find a dry stepping stone as I was elected as a district councillor and 20 years later eventually crossing the challenging chasm to becoming the Mayor of my home town.

It has been quite some journey. Notably, along the way my sense of humour has occasionally created a few giggles, ripples and waves of trouble. Such as the occasion when I wore a Margaret Thatcher mask during an official council group photograph. The council didn’t find out until approximately six weeks later. This rocked the council chamber to its core and my council colleagues were furious with me, but the media loved it. The national press reported this as, ‘The man in the iron lady mask’.

My commitment though to my local community has always been exemplary. I always put my local community and constituents first and foremost. One of my most satisfying challenges was when I helped to guide my home village to three East Midland in Bloom titles, and a National Gold Medal certificate award at the Britain in Bloom finals.

Mahatma Gandhi once said, Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it. Gandhi is someone I admire greatly. Altruism was in his heart and veins. He was a man who fought through adversity and through some very hostile provocation to try and find some kind of justice in his life. I have no idea how insignificant my efforts will be, but here I am putting pen to paper in the hope that one day my scribes may be considered important to somebody, maybe even as a historical account in years to come.

As my debut piece of writing, I undertake it with the acceptance that there is an art to writing that can take years to master, and of that I have no doubt. Just like music has differing genres, so does writing. I’m not even going to ask myself where I fit in to the bigger picture of writing styles. Having read very few books in my life, this in some respects may be an advantage to me as I have no preconceived thoughts on how such a book should be written. This absence of reading is partly due to time constraints, and partly through the disability known as dyslexia. This may become apparent in this piece of work.

To the experienced bookworm I hope you will excuse me for what may appear to be at times a bizarre style of writing. Although I am a mere beginner in the writing world, but as William Shakespeare once said, Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

My aim with this book is to write an account in a manner that most lay-people are able to read, understand and hopefully enjoy. This is an account of my life, not really meant as a creative and analytical piece of work. Most importantly it is an honest piece of work. If you are looking for an honest book to read then I guarantee that your time will not be wasted. Honesty is my golden rule of writing.

I have a positive attitude to life and whenever I undertake something in life I always give it my best 100% effort. If I do something I do it properly and to the best of my ability, or I don’t do it at all. If at the end of the day my ability is not good enough, then and only then can I accept being second best as long as I know I tried my very best.

These stepping stones of my life will include my thoughts about how the government’s Child Support Agency (CSA) policy wrecked my life and the lives of many people and how it led to over 50 suicides in the UK.

I had become victim of the CSA even though I was paying towards the upkeep of my child and I had a court order overturned by the CSA. It was a truly horrendous experience, but thankfully I am still here to tell the story. The protest in the tree I mentioned to you outside of the Houses of Parliament was my response. I lost my job and my house because of the impact of the CSA. However, as I have always been a fighter it appears that fate had other plans for me.

I have a steely determined personality which was instilled in me through my competitive sporting childhood years. I was not going to accept unfair treatment without reply. When an injustice in life occurs, this often brings out the fighting spirit in people, and I am no different. I will explain how a winning childhood mentality would remain with me and help me through these tough adult years.

The CSA certainly changed my life. It led me on a journey to university as a mature student. Whilst at university I was diagnosed as being dyslexic which added an extra dimension of difficulty for me that I had to learn to overcome. I am so proud to have obtained my 3 university degrees. I then went on to become a Parliamentary Caseworker working for a marvellous Member of Parliament called Andy Reed in Loughborough.

One of the main objectives of this book is to give an insight into the role of a town Mayor. This is ultimately a position historically known as the number one citizen of a town, and in our case The Mayor of Grantham.

Finally, my love for music and the power of music has had a big influence on me. One song in particular resonates strong feelings for me. It’s by the American soul singer Michael Bolton which holds the lyrics, ‘When I’m back on my feet again, I’ll walk proud down that street again, and they’ll see that I’m strong’. At one point I was at the depths of despair, but with the help of a magnificent Shire horse called Hercules, I walked so proud down our town’s High Street as the Mayor of Grantham riding Hercules during our annual carnival parade. Then after undertaking the role as the Mayor of Grantham, I most humbly accepted a Local Hero’s award. Although I certainly don’t feel like a hero.

I hope you enjoy reading this honest account and it would be most pleasing to me if my journey is a positive inspiration to another person in some small way. I thank you in advance for reading it. So from the despair of a tree top protest, with a little bit of mischief along the way, to the proud tears of becoming the Mayor of Grantham, I present to you the stepping stones of my life in a book entitled; A Tree-mendous Journey. The name was chosen by my ten year old niece Lorien, and we sealed the name with a high five.

My Childhood Years.

Lincolnshire is a very beautiful English county and it has been my home for most of my life. Our family date back to 1666 in the south west area of this county. At number 30 Turner Avenue in Lincoln on 22nd September 1963 I took my first breath. New to the world and born with jaundice, I was literally a Lincolnshire Yellowbelly. A phrase that many sources suggests comes from the old Lincolnshire regiment that wore a yel low tunic.

I have an older brother called Andrew and he is nearly two years older than me. We soon moved to a village just a few miles south of Lincoln called Branston. A place name that is synonymous with pickled relish, which I understand is actually produced near Coventry. I don’t have many memories from my very early years at Branston, I was a little too young to remember them.

When I was 3 years old we moved to Pinfold Close, Bottesford in Leicestershire. It was a small village at that time. It was well known for the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy that visited the village whilst they were on tour. In 1952 the duo stayed at the Bull Inn where Stan Laurel’s sister Olga Healey was the landlady.

As youngsters we played in the fields that were soon to be developed into a housing estate. We played in the dirty coal yard that was established by the Coal Merchant Tom Samuel in 1949 in Pinfold Close. We played by the nearby riverside where I caught my first ever gudgeon fish. It was also an adventure for us to run through the waist high corn fields along the riverside.

One of the local farm yards was another adventure to behold, but that place had a rather sticky encounter for me. Or as Oliver Hardy would have said, well that’s another fine mess you’ve got me into Stanley. Whilst playing hide and seek in the farm yard I had the misfortune of the farmer chasing me through his cattle shed. I ran so fast that I didn’t even dare to look ahead of me to what was awaiting me behind a big farm yard door. I ran and kept running, right through a rather large and a very deep, sloppy pile of cow dung. I was up to my knees in it. When I arrived home, with Mum’s scorn I was then up to my neck in it.

I was a typical young lad, often getting myself into trouble. I wasn’t really much of a role model for my younger brother Paul who was just over five years younger than myself. Paul had curly ginger hair and a bad temper when he was little. So much so, he would throw his Tonka toys across the living room at us. Tonka toys were heavy toys, or as the TV advert used to say, ‘real tough toys, for real tough boys’! Andrew and I would have to take some serious evasive action to avoid the toy missiles.

As a young lad, if I wasn’t climbing an apple tree, scrumping in the local orchard, then I’d be climbing on my Dads garage roof. This was very nearly a ‘fatal’ mistake for me at the age of 7. I fell off the garage roof, cracked my head on the concrete below, and then rushed to Grantham Hospital. I had stitches put in my head wound, and the scar remains today as a reminder. Well you would think that should teach me a lesson or two. I often wonder whether this accident would become the cause of a disability that I would face during my school days. I will tell you more later.

I attended the local Bottesford Primary School. Mr Poyser was the head master. My teacher was a tall man called Mr Jones. School days had their fair share of unhappy memories. I recall we used old porta-cabin huts as class rooms. On one occasion upon arriving at school in the morning we discovered that some horrible people had broken into our hut during the night. Not only did they break in, caused some damage, but they also killed our little budgerigar too.

Football is our national sport and like most young lads my love for football started at school. I played goalkeeper for the local 1st Bottesford Cubs. On one occasion we played a Cubs team from Grantham, I think they were the Barrowby Cubs. I recall that they played in an all-orange coloured kit. Despite making a terrific diving save, alas to no avail as I had to pick the ball out of the back of the net nine times, we lost 9-0. But we never gave up trying our best.

My happiest memories from the Bottesford days came from learning to ride a pony. I was only 8 years old at the time when Mum and Dad took me to a riding club at Orston, and also to a riding centre at Stathern in the vale of Belvoir. I learnt to ride a pony without using stirrups and it was a good lesson. It was hard work, but it gave me great balance on a pony, which stood me in good stead in the years to come. Good balance is one of the keys to success in most sports. Showjumping was a difficult art to learn and you need a quality horse if you want to be successful in this sport. First though we would start the long road to learning to showjump as a kid by putting a pole on top of a couple of barrels. Time after time I would trot up to the jump, and time after time I would fall off on landing the other side of the jump. But time and time again I would get back on again. The joy of jumping a pole on top of a barrel just a couple of feet off the ground and eventually staying in the saddle on the pony was a wonderful feeling. Such a feeling that stayed with me through all my teenage years, the happiest years of my life.

The television in the 1970’s gave such great coverage of my favourite sport. Showjumping was a very popular sport in the 1970’s with David Vine as the commentator, and with all the golden greats; David Broome with his horses called Sportsman and Philco, Alwin Schockemohle with Rex the Robber, Paddy McMahan and Penwood Forge Mill, Mike Saywell and Chainbridge, the fabulous Caroline Bradley with Marius to mention just a few. Caroline really was a superb rider. I watched her at some of the county shows and all of her young horses performed in a similar style and I never saw Caroline carry a whip. It was sad when she died at an early age of 37 years at the Suffolk Show. Let’s not forget Nick Skelton who was on TV in 1978 breaking the British high jump record on a horse called Lastic. They jumped over a fence 2.32 metres high, or 7 foot 7 inches high.

My favourite and childhood hero though was Britain’s most colourful sportsman Harvey Smith and it didn’t matter who he was riding, whether it was, Matty Brown, Salvador or any other horse. Harvey even entertained the television audience on a Saturday afternoon with ITV’s World of Sport and professional wrestling. Furthermore, the working class Harvey even took up singing and in 1975 he produced a single called True Love. A slightly better singer than our family can profess to excel in. So much so, our late uncle Stim was in church one day singing in his deep husky voice. The Vicar passed comment to uncle Stim as he was departing after the church service about his husky singing. Uncle Stim merely replied, The good Lord made the crows as well as the nightingales.

Dad remembers uncle Stim fondly. Dad worked with Grandad Harold Selby 15 miles away in a small very old fashioned limestone built Lincolnshire village called Skillington. The village is steeped in history with connections to Sir Isaac Newton who was born in the neighbouring village of Woolsthorpe by Colsterworth. It was a cloth cap village and at one time it had several shops and two pubs and a post office that kept the village practically self-sufficient. The elderly gents congregated in the middle of the village for their daily nattering’s. Their little group were referred to as ‘Tom town’. It was possibly named after one of the local residents Tom Burrows. When I was aged 9 our family moved from Bottesford to Skillington.

My enthusiasm for pony riding and showjumping continued when we moved to Skillington. In fact, the move was a positive turning point for my riding as I had the facilities to progress to a much higher standard. We had the use of two large fields that were known as the Cringles. All the local fields had names.

What became strange was that most of our ponies were named after drinks, a coincidence or what! Shandy, Brandy, Whisky, Cognac, Dubonnet. All our ponies were special to us. Dubonnet was a 13’2 hands high bay gelding. He taught me to ride over the bigger show jumps. We came 3rd in a national small ponies championship. Cognac and 13’2 hh a grey gelding was by far the fastest against the clock. No other pony in the country we came across could beat him for speed. Before we bought him, he had even won a midnight steeple chase. Such a character pony who was impossible to keep in his field if it was in his mind to jump over the hedges. The field had a five barred gate. We put another bar on the gate, on an up-hill slope too, and he took the micky out of us as he still jumped out of the field.

We had another very special pony. A palomino coloured pony called Peppi who was 14’2 hands high, the maximum height for a pony. Junior showjumping finishes at the age of 16. Prince Peppi was his official name. I rode him to the top class level for two years from the age of 14 to 16. He was good enough to ride in senior horse classes, although I was a growing lad and becoming a little too big for him. Just a few years later a young girl called Vicky Leatherbarrow had the pleasure of becoming European Champion with him. Well done to Vicky.

We travelled many miles enjoying our favourite sport. It was difficult competing in a world where our competitors were not short of a penny or two. Our pony Peppi cost us £800. A lot of money to us. Our competitors were paying up to £20,000 for their ponies. However, it was a greater satisfaction knowing that we were competing and beating many of them at the very highest level and qualifying for the national 14’2hh final at the world famous Hickstead jumping arena.

My pony riding was my priority during my school days. I was bored with school work and had a preference to play truant to ride and exercise my ponies. School was just not a priority for me, I didn’t particularly enjoy it. The Charles Read Secondary School in Corby Glen didn’t exactly have a good reputation in the 1970’s. A much improved Academy school today. My boredom at school became the grass roots for a mischievous personality that grew during my teenage years. Despite having a mischievous personality, my sense of humour and my practical jokes all had one thing in common and that was they never caused any physical damage. However, I did get the whole school wet through one day. On a rainy day I was a naughty school boy who decided to ring the fire alarm and the roll call was undertaken in the rain. Corporal punishment followed with the cane. Ouch! The cane wasn’t a deterrent though, and the mischief would continue.

Believe it or not, but I was on the receiving end of the cane on only two occasions. Some of my school mates were administered with the OXO on several occasions, one of whom was a naughty lad named Paul. Like many others who were not so interested in schoolwork, Paul grew up to become a thoroughly decent man.

So what is the OXO you may well ask? Well we had a teacher who gave us the OXO if we misbehaved. He would get the large blackboard ruler out, it would be a couple of foot in length, he would write OXO in chalk on it, then when he administered the OXO the chalk mark would appear and remain on the backside of your trousers for the remainder of the day. As you walked around the school everybody knew you’d been naughty. So did I ever receive the OXO? No of course not, I was a good lad, I say in jest.

Mischief continued around our home village of Skillington. We used to enjoy ‘button tapping’. This was usually practiced on somebody in the village who had previously wound us up over something. I recall a guy called Tom Burrows, affectionately known as Bocky who was on the receiving end of one of our ‘button tapping’ sessions. Tom was one of the village characters, he was not a tall guy, and you would often see him walking the country lanes with a dog, just like many others. We all knew that if one of the villagers had a little dog and went out into the countryside, they were going rabbiting. It was just what the locals did. Anyway, I’ve digressed a little, back to button tapping, this is how it happens. You get a fishing line and tie a button 3 or 4 inches from the end of the line. You then pin the end of the line next to the corner of a house window, then stretch the fishing line out 50-60 metres down the road to a location that may have you sitting underneath a hedge and out of sight. Then you would flick the fishing line, and the button starts tapping on the window. The person in the house, Bocky in this case, would come out, and he knew we were up to mischief, he would shout, I know where you are! But he didn’t, he couldn’t see us behind the hedge. Then when he went back in, we’d do it again, and he would try and catch us out. We liked Bocky and our game of cat and mouse.

Official Mischief Night 4th November was always one to look forward to. One year we took all the gates in the village off their hinges and piled them up on the village green. Well the confusion this created the following day when residents were trying to find their own gate was just a hoot to see. Another joke was undertaken on a row of four terraced houses facing the village green. We would tie all the doors together, then knock on the doors and then run away quickly to a place where we could watch at the residents trying to open their doors at the same time. If there was a schoolboy joke to be played, we knew about it and executed it, but we never caused any damage, just a few feathers ruffled amongst the local residents. Obtaining a respectable school report with high grades never happened. Although in my final year at school I made every effort at PE Physical Education. We had a large school playing field that was used as a cross country running course. We were expected to run around the playing field with up to half a dozen laps. During that final year I excelled and won every single race, week in, week out, lapping all but two of my school mates. Such a determined effort concluded with only a B minus grade on my school report. The PE Teacher underestimated my effort and achievement. Tight fisted so and so, but a very likeable chap. That just about summed up my school days. I left school with very low exam grades and poor school reports. Very little to be proud of at school and even less to encourage me into adulthood.

My Adult Years.

Upon leaving school I enlisted in HM Armed Forces and undertook training at Woolwich in London. Training was tough, as you would expect. It was tiring too. I recall we were allowed out of the barracks occasionally, so long as we were back by midnight. The guards at night walked around the barracks site with pick axe handles. One evening my mother was working in London and was in a restaurant with her colleagues, so I arranged to join them for a social event. The evening was most enjoyable, however my return journey on the train was a little longer than I had anticipated. I was actually extremely tired and I fell asleep on the train and missed my stop at Woolwich Arsenal. I was awoken by the train guard in a place called Gillingham, which must be approximately 30 miles from Woolwich.

Well I had no idea where Gillingham was, I’d never even heard of it. I found a taxi driver who advised me of where I was and how much it would cost to get back to Woolwich. I didn’t have enough money to get me all the way back. I explained what had happened and that taxi driver very kindly offered to take me back for the money I had remaining on me. I would have been about 10 miles short with how much money I had in my pocket. It was also getting late. It was well past midnight and into the early hours of the morning. I knew the duty guards would not have believed my story. The taxi driver dropped me off, I thanked him and then I climbed over the big boundary wall, sneaked past the guards with pick axe handles and crept back into barracks. Training had its moments, but I got through it.

This then led me to The Kings Troop Royal Horse Artillery at St John’s Wood. It was a good experience. I attended the Royal Tournament, and county shows such as the Royal Norfolk Show. I also recall attending a show near Doncaster and we had snow on the ground. I was a marker man for the famous musical drive on that occasion. Quite a hair-raising experience especially as it was extremely hazardous in the wet weather. As a marker man you stood around the periphery of the display and you had to keep an eye on the gun carriage coming towards you. You were told to take a pace backwards if the gun came too close. Well the guns were sliding all over the place and I ended up taking at least a dozen steps backwards. Suddenly one of the guns tipped over on the exact place where I had originally stood. These guns weigh over a ton in weight. Apparently, the sergeant major had smiled in relief that I had moved my position. I made some very good friends in the army and the horses were fabulous, even if some of them were temperamental. One horse in particular had a reputation for biting the soldiers, and to the extent that he would draw blood. He was a crafty horse and he knew exactly what he was doing. He would wait until you weren’t looking and then he would take a lunge at