There was more to Mary’s time as
Mayor. “One young sergeant at RAF
Fairford was a biker, and he’d set up
a group that were going to do a big
charity event,” she tells me. “They
asked me if I would do the official
opening, and said they could give me a
lift to the event. So one morning I was
stood at Carterton Town Hall wearing
my chain waiting to be picked up and I
heard this noise; about 20 motorbikes
and a motor tricycle turned up. They
sat me on the back of the tricycle
and off we went. They raised nearly
£4,000 but the next day there was a
very angry letter to the Town Council
about the Mayor bringing the Mayoral
chain into disrepute.”
As well as being Mayor, Mary was
on the District Council and in 1990
was one of 18 rebel Conservative
councillors who resigned the party
whip over the government’s stance
on poll tax and council house rent
increases, thus becoming independent
councillors.
But Mary was taking a stand on things
before she was Mayor or a district
councillor, and before she was even a
town councillor.
“I was involved in the fight to get
Carterton Community College,” she
says. “When the RAF came here most
of the RAF children had sat the 11+.
Burford Grammar School was one of
the first comprehensive schools in the
country, certainly one of the first ones
in Oxfordshire. Children there were
streamed according to ability (there
were A, B, and C streams). My eldest
daughter and my son were both in A
streams, but they were put in lower
ones to let in RAF children who had
passed their 11+.
41
