Sir, - During the general election campaign of the summer of 1977, the large figure of Mr Raphael P. Burke, ushered by a freshly-shampooed, adoring local minder, swept up the garden of my house in Rush, Co Dublin. With all the forced charm of a squire visiting a tenant, the candidate suggested that I might favour him with my vote on polling day.
However, when I hesitated with an unenthusiatic but polite: "I'll think about it," he became declamatory and patronising. "Well, I'd think about it very seriously, if I were you," he boomed. Then, presuming to gauge my intelligence and priorities, he proceeded to throw money at me: "We will remove your car tax, you know. The rates on your house are going to go, once we get in!" Emphasising his grubby little manifesto with a wave in the direction of car and home, the squire of Swords disappeared with his swag bag among the more receptive and gullible of his subjects.
Such was my brief encounter with Mr Burke many years ago. But I remember and smile. - Yours, etc., Oliver McGrane,
Marley Avenue, Dublin 16.