WITH the passing of the 'Iron Lady' Margaret Thatcher it has given me food for thought — well actually it has put me on a bit of a guilt trip.

You see, I've never voted Conservative in my life. Why the guilt you may be asking? It's a long story which goes back to the early 1920s, before my time.

Way back when my dad was in his late teens he worked as a gardener for Winston Churchill. This was at 'Chartwell', Churchill's house which is now in the hands of the National Trust. One of my dads jobs was to take Churchill's children to school in a pony and trap.

After my parents were married in 1926 they moved not too many miles away to a village in Sussex called Horsted Keynes. This was also the home of former Prime Minister Harold MacMillan — he lived two miles outside the village in a big house called Birch Grove. But St Giles Church in our village is where he went for the Sunday service, and he and his wife are buried in the churchyard.

As a young boy I would often see him there as our school was just at the back of the church. One of my older brothers worked for him and lived in one of his cottages on the Ashdown Forest.

Later on in my life I moved to a vullage called Ticehurst in Sussex.

Just four miles up the road and over the border into Kent is the village of Lamberhurst. Guess who lived there in a big house in the middle of the village? Margaret and Dennis Thatcher — later to take over a flat in Scotney Castle also in Lamberhurst.

When she became Prime Minister in 1979 she not so long after gave me the right to buy my council house after renting for 20 years.

So now you know why I'm on a bit of a guilt trip, I do owe them something. But I'm still working class and always will be.

To me the Conservatives and the working classes have never seemed to gel. Sorry but I just had to get it off my chest!

David Luckhurst