From childhood trauma and deprivation to Mayor of Northampton

Cllr Dennis Meredith talks about his extraordinary life

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By Natalie Bloomer

Mayor of Northampton Cllr Dennis Meredith and his wife Rona

Born in Islington in 1942 during the second world war, Dennis Meredith spent the first two years of his life sleeping in the Highgate underground station after his family home was bombed. His older brother and sister had been evacuated to Cornwall so it was just Dennis in a cot alongside his mum and other brother on bunk beds.

“It was mainly women and children down there because a lot of the men were away fighting. We never knew where my dad was at that time, he was a black market man, a bit of a wheeler dealer.

“We just had the beds and this little stove to cook on. If we needed a wash, mum would take us to the public baths which you could pay to use but she couldn’t afford for us to have one each so we’d share the same water.”

Bombed out families in the area were later housed in tenaments on Holloway Road, buildings that Dennis describes as ‘really awful’.

“My siblings had come back from Cornwall by then and we’d all go to sleep with bed bugs around us, we’d wake up to them climbing over us. The place was infested with them, I couldn’t get them out of my mind, they were horrible. The tenements were like big blocks of flats but they were really awful.”

The family were later moved to a house in Harrow. This could have been the start of happier times but Dennis’ father was an angry man and he was becoming ever more violent.

“He had this very loud voice and he would really shout, it’s one of the things I always remember, it was so loud the neighbours used to complain.

“He’d also beat me and my mother - never my other siblings, just the two of us. He would hit me with a belt and punch my mum straight in her face. He once broke her teeth by hitting her so hard.

“Those beatings have stayed with me and have caused bouts of depression throughout my life. I wet the bed until I was 15 because of it, it was devastating.”

Cllr Meredith says he was also neglected, often going to school in clothes that he’d wet the bed in the night before.

“One day I went into the lunch building at school and sat on one of the long benches but none of the children would sit next to me because of the smell. For the next 11 years I bunked off at lunchtime. I’d only get bread to eat at home in the evenings so I was really undernourished”.

At 16, during another family argument, the man Dennis had grown up believing was his father told him that he was not his real son.

“I just walked out the house, I couldn’t deal with it. I became homeless at that point. It wasn't until I ended up at my sister’s house and told her what had happened that things started getting better for me.

“She really was my saviour, she helped and supported me and let me stay in her little box room which I made my own.”

Dennis left school at 14 without being able to read and write. He now knows that he has dyslexia but at the time his school wasn't interested in identifying special needs, he was just classed as a ‘no hoper’.

His first job was in a greengrocers and he then went on to work in the car industry which is where he experienced his first taste of politics.

“I joined the union and started really learning about politics. My brother helped to teach me how to read and write and I became a shop steward and then went on the negotiating committee. 

Dennis at 18

In 1970 he met and married Rona, a local nurse. Two years later, like many Londoners at the time, they moved to Northampton so that Dennis could start work at British Timkin, a roller bearing factory which employed thousands of people.

“It was really hard at first, we’d left our family and friends behind and some local people really resented us Londoners being offered council housing and jobs. But as time went by it got easier.”

Dennis and Rona

He later got a job as a caretaker at what was then Lings Lower School, a position he held for 32 years.

He was also an active member of the Labour party before leaving over the Iraq war. He later joined the Liberal Democrats and went on to become a councillor for the Talavera ward, which he continues to represent today.

“I love this part of town, it really could be great if only it was looked after better. People in Talavera are people like me, I live on the Eastern side of town myself so I understand the issues here.”

Collecting rubbish in Talavera

Several years ago Dennis’ grown-up daughter rang him with some news. The family had tracked down his real father. He was no longer alive and she wanted to take Dennis to visit the grave.

“I thought we’d be heading to London but he was buried in Kingsthorpe, just across town! It turns out he’d moved to Northampton many years ago and was living just three miles away from me and I never knew. Not only that but he also worked as a caretaker, just like me - isn’t that unbelievable!”

Today Dennis is not only a well known councillor but also the Mayor of Northampton, something he is immensely proud of.

“It really is such an honour and I am trying to fit in as many engagements as I can. I don’t want to turn things down, I’m trying to meet as many people as possible. Rona was a bit unsure of it at first but she is so supportive and is really enjoying getting out there and meeting people now.

“It’s been quite a journey from where I started to now, but what a story!”