No social conscience

The death of Margaret Thatcher was a reminder of how I first became politicised at the tender age of seven years back in 1970.

My job in my local primary school in Newcastle, Co Down, was handing out the free milk and orange bottles to my fellow classmates — a job that my older brothers had done for years before — and being told by my headmaster that I no longer had this prestigious position because of this new Education Minister, Mrs Thatcher.

From that day on a small seed was planted in my brain of about the power a politician can have on our lives.