Did saucy poems spell defeat for former Darlington MP?

Not only was he the town’s MP, but he was a published poet – in fact, his poetry was perhaps a little too fruity for the townspeople and it may have contributed to his electoral defeat.

The Northern Despatch cartoon showing David Rennie Hardman, the MP for Darlington from 1945 to 1951. What does the screaming baby symbolise?

Born in October 1901 in London, Hardman moved to Ireland as a child before going to study at Christ’s College, Cambridge, having deferred his place to serve in the First World War.

Raised in a left-wing family, with both parents members of the Fabian Society, it was perhaps destiny that he became the first Socialist President of the Cambridge Union in 1924 and then looked to advance his political ambitions.

He was only 28 when he stood unsuccessfully in the 1929 General Election in Cambridge, increasing the Labour vote in a safe Conservative seat.

He spent the Second World War lecturing to troops, and then, in 1945, he was selected to stand for Darlington. He ran with the slogan “Don’t Vote for the Profiteers… Vote to Control Them”, and ended 14 years of Conservative dominance in the seat by winning with a majority of 8,289 votes.

The election was a surprise and great victory for Labour led by Clement Attlee, and the new Darlington MP rode the high-tide of British socialism to become the Deputy Minister of Education.

Hardman’s new ministerial responsibilities did not prevent him from pursuing his literary ambitions, though, and he published his first, and only, anthology, Poems of Love and Affairs, in 1949. It contains writing that would have been considered rather risqué from a politician in the 1940s, and, the new exhibition suggests, excited much comment in the local newspapers.

In one notable stanza, Hardman declares: “I’ll consume you with my love, We two straddled in ecstasy.” (See full poem below)

By the wonders of the internet, we were able to track down a signed first edition of David Hardman’s slim volume, Poems of Love and Affairs, in a north-west bookshop. It cost us £3.99, although delivery was a fiver

Our £3.99 first edition of Poems of Love & Affairs is signed – what does green ink signify?

Another poem in the slim volume, entitled The Penny Fell The Other Way, is about him meeting after many years a lady, called Daisy, who, if life had turned out differently, he might have had a relationship with. When they meet again, the old spark flares again, and he says:

“We maundered, lamented, tingled in our separate way,
She with delight, me, for I was lazy
Knew she’d drive me crazy –
Clinging, clacking, ample-bottomed Daisy.”

But such passion was clearly not shared by Hardman’s voters. He was re-elected in 1950 with a reduced majority, but ultimately faced defeat in rapidly called election in October 1951, unable to survive a broader shift towards the right in British politics.

His saucy poetry was not mentioned in the newspaper coverage of his defeat, but he lost by a very slim margin of just 813 votes – might his racy rhymes have cost him a few crucial votes?

His subsequent attempt to revive his fortunes by running as MP for Rushcliffe in Nottingham in 1955 (the seat Ken Clarke would later represent for 49 years) was not successful.

David Hardman (left) is greeted by General Hugo Cederschimold, of the Swedish army, during a visit to Sweden in 1951. Picture: wikipedia

After his political career, Hardman, an expert on Shakespeare, became a professor and Doctor of Literature and led a UK delegation of UNESCO in many areas of the world.

Outside his career, he was married twice and had four children – is that one of them that appears in the Northern Despatch cartoon in the exhibition, or is it a more profound image, saying that the new Darlington MP had to look after the infant peace immediately after the war?

How The Northern Echo reported the death of the “MP poet” in 1989

When he died on December 6, 1989, aged 89, The Northern Echo headlined its report “Death of post-war MP poet”, so nearly 40 years after the politician had left Darlington, his contribution to its artistic world had not been forgotten.

• The exhibition, Who Was Who in Post War Darlington, features cartoons from the Echo’s former sister paper, the Northern Despatch, as Memories told last week. It runs in the Centre for Local Studies in Darlington library until February 26.

No Love

By David Hardman
MP for Darlington

I’ll take you apart,
I’ll make you mine,
I’ll consume you with my love,
We two straddled in ecstasy.

So I made her mine,
Kindled with elation,
Withered her deep cores
To a papless, juiceless joy.

Slowly strangled, the generous cankered,
Because alone I fought out my battles
Upon the smooth curves of her body.
So, dazed, her early fire ashened
Into the bright glinting chatter
Of the heavy-hearted social round.