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For a brief CV click here
For a short autobiography, read on:
Family, Work and Politics
Introduction
I was born at the Northern General Hospital, Sheffield, on 17th November 1955. I moved to Leeds in 1974, aged 18, to go to university, and have lived here ever since. I lived in Headingley until I was selected to fight Pudsey constituency in early 1995, and moved into the constituency later that year. It was a seat that Labour had never won. But despite that, I had given a commitment to move into the constituency if selected. My family and I are pleased we did. Whatever the outcome of the General Election, this area is and will remain our home. Parents
My Mum, Olive, was a cleaner and shop assistant, who worked for many years in a local laundrette (a prototype Dot Cotton or Pauline Fowler, in fact!). She is an intelligent woman who, like so many members of her generation, left school at 14 to start work. She performed the essential and unsung task of keeping the Truswell household together. In her later years she suffered greatly from osteoporosis and a number of other painful conditions. She died in January 2008, aged 86, from bowel cancer, which had been undiagnosed. My Dad, John, was a steelworker - a coremaker and moulder. He worked in a filthy little foundry about ten minutes walk from our home. My earliest memory of him was when he returned from work looking almost like a miner emerging from the pit. I remember visiting the foundry as a 10-year-old, and being frightened to death at what I thought was a vision of hell – black, dusty, and fiery, with hot metal spitting out all over the place. I didn't know about Dante's Inferno at that time – but this must have come close in the eyes of that 10-year-old. He died in October 2003, aged 82, after suffering a stroke.
Childhood
Shortly after my entry into the world, I fell victim to pneumonia. Apparently it was touch and go. It was the start of my escalating debt to the NHS. This increased up to the age of ten when I contrived to break my arm five times. When I was eight I suffered a particularly complex elbow fracture identical to one that had left my maternal grandfather permanently disabled from a similar age. Thanks to the treatment provided by my consultant, Dr Patworth, I retained the full use of the arm, though it remains a little weakened to this day. More recently, the NHS provided brilliant care for my wife and younger son when complications developed in late pregnancy. It saved the life of my mother-in-law with an emergency liver transplant. In recent years it has provided excellent care to my parents, as they have suffered heart attacks, strokes, and various other conditions. It is for this reason – and the recognition of its great value - that I am such a zealous supporter of the NHS. I was brought up in a Council house. My Mum and brother still live in the same house into which our family moved in 1949.
While we weren't exactly poverty stricken, money was tight. In fact, before going to university, I was paid more as a labourer working in a big Sheffield steelworks than my Dad was as a skilled man in a small foundry. My Dad was in his 50s before he bought his first car (in 1974: an antiquated Vauxhall Victor). A telephone appeared in the Truswell household only the following year to contact the prodigal son who had ventured off to university. My Mum and Dad were determined that their younger son should be encouraged to do as well as he could. With their encouragement - and the help of some excellent primary and secondary teachers - I went through the route of 'O' levels and 'A' levels, before becoming the first and only member of my family to attend university. Marriage and Family In 1980, I met my wife to be, Suzanne, who was then a student at Trinity and All Saints College in Horsforth. We married in 1981. She is a civil servant and works in the constituency. Our first child, Richard, arrived in 1989, and Michael, our younger son, in 1992. They go to our local high school. Like me, they are both passionate about cricket – though they display their enthusiasm for the game through playing, whereas I am now more of a spectator (apart from undertaking bowling services in the nets). Michael has played for the Yorkshire Schools' under 11 and under 12 teams in the last two years, and is a member of this season's (2005) U13 squad. He is also an international badminton player, having represented his country five times up to March 2004. Richard played for Yorkshire under 14 B team last season, and is playing for the U15B squad in 2005. Work After leaving university, I went to work as a journalist on the Yorkshire Evening Post. I left the YEP in 1988 to work for Wakefield Council. I had developed a passionate interest in health issues, and became the Council's Health Co-ordinator in the Social Services Department. I subsequently did a variety of jobs relating to social services, before my election as MP for Pudsey in 1997 led to my departure. Political Influences My Labour leanings are inherited. My Dad was a shop steward and fervent Labour supporter (though he did waver a little in the late 1970s). He lost his job in his late 50s and, thanks to the recession the Tories inflicted on the UK in the early 1980s, did not get another permanent job. The Tories' misguided and pointlessly painful monetarist experiment also ejected my Mum, brother and a number of near relatives from their jobs. That experience of Thatcherism - and the callousness of Conservatism - did a great deal to shape my political outlook. Disraeli described his party as "an organised hypocrisy." I couldn't put it better. Following his redundancy from the company he had worked for over 25 years, my Dad was destined to work in temporary labouring jobs until he reached pensionable age. Apart, that is, from the summers he spent working as a gateman at Butlins. For this, he received just a few pounds a week more than if he had remained at home on the dole – but having a job was part of his self respect. He was a man who valued honesty and integrity more highly than any other qualities. He also had a strong sense of injustice, and a determination to fight for the underdog. I'd like to think I have inherited these characteristics. My Mum tells me how he cried the evening I was elected (I think it was out of pride rather than feeling my life had taken a wrong turn!). His death in October 2003, aged 82, from a massive stroke, is something that still causes me great sadness. From Activist to Councillor to MP I had never really had a long term ambition to become an elected representative - either Councillor or MP. They are jobs that have tended to find me, rather than vice versa. So I've always regarded myself as basically a decent bloke fallen among politicians! I first became actively involved in politics in the late 1970s, immediately after leaving university. (I had not found student politics particularly engaging.) I joined the Labour Party in 1977, and became secretary of the local Branch Labour Party a couple of years later. In 1982, the Party was looking for a candidate to fight Headingley Ward. I was asked if I was interested. The retiring Labour Councillor had defected to the Social Democratic Party (SDP). The SDP - which later amalgamated with the Liberals to form the Liberal Democrats - were at the height of their fortunes. They had won Parliamentary and local council By-Elections, and were expected to win in Headingley. Six candidates were interviewed at a meeting of around 70 members. I was selected, and we won the election by over 900 votes. I was a Councillor for 15 years. It gave me a knowledge of local Government and the local NHS, and a solid grounding in dealing with bureaucracy and casework. This has been invaluable in my work as a local MP. It also gave me a broad knowledge of the city, and of the communities that make up the parliamentary constituency that I would eventually be elected to represent. Working with local people, I was able to help them to secure a number of facilities for my ward, including several community centres and day centres for older people.
I chaired the Working Party that put together the Council's Freedom of Information procedures, which were many years ahead of their time, and which won an award from the Campaign for Freedom of Information. I also chaired the Council's Green Strategy Working Party. The Green Strategy we put together, based on the Friends of the Earth Charter for Local Government, led to Leeds receiving Environment City status. As chair of the Credit Union Working Party, I steered the work that led to the setting up of the Leeds Credit Union - now one of the foremost in the country. I served for many years on the Social Services Committee and was, at various times, its Chair and Deputy Chair. One of the initiatives of which I am particularly proud was pressing for Council funding for community care projects like Pudsey and Horsforth Live at Home schemes, and AVSED – the Aireborough voluntary service for older and disabled people. During my time as Chair of the Council's Community Benefits and Rights Committee I was able to secure resources for a number of facilities in Pudsey constituency. These included the One Stop Shops at Pudsey Town Hall and Micklefield House, and funding for Guiseley Youth Project, Yeadon Tarn Activity Centre, Pudsey CAB and Yeadon CAB.
Between 1982 and 1996, I also served on a number of NHS bodies, including Leeds Eastern Health Authority, Leeds Community Health Council, and Leeds Family Practitioner Committee. This gave me a good knowledge of the workings of the NHS.
In late 1994, I was approached by Labour Party members in Pudsey asking if I would be willing for my name to go forward for the selection of the parliamentary candidate. As with Headingley, there was a shortlist of six, and I was eventually selected.
As I had promised, I moved into the constituency in 1995, and was elected in 1997. We secured a swing of 13%, one of the largest in the country. I was re-elected in 2001 and 2005. | 