1997-2007
As Tony Blair prepares to mark 10 years at number 10, we've a piece tonight on some of the people who were there to greet him on Day One. How have their lives changed?
They of course have changed - as you can see from these photos. No doubt the next few days will feature footage of how Mr Blair has changed in this time.
If you have a photo of yourself from 1997 and one from this year, why not send them to pm@bbc.co.uk? Legal blurb: "By sending us your photos, you are agreeing to the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳'s normal terms and conditions which can be found here /terms/ . You are also granting us permission to host your photos on a 3rd party website, if necessary". Please mark your email TEN YEARS.
Anyway. This is how Lois Saville looked that day. No idea who she's with:
And here's how Lois looks now:
And here's how two of tonight's contributors have changed. Here's Andy Briggs from 1997 and then in 2007:
And this is Mark Allison in 1997...
and 2007
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Wow! They've both changed so much! TB has aged rather than changed, I think.
I trust *YOU* will be contributing a couple of photp's Eddie?
Now then, Lois wasn't there when I first posted. I think she has simply "grown up" rather than changed. But those guys -- both of them -- blimey!
Jonnie;
Hee hee hee!
Sneaky. I like.
Well Eddie?
Si.
I'm with Jonnie - lets see your ten year old snaps Eddie - I could do with a giggle.
I think a photo of Eddie ten years ago is essential :-p
My pictures before and after are at
aitchttps://home.btconnect.com/tipiglen/credo.html
xx
ed
What IS this radio programme's obsession with photographs????
Fifi ;oD
Which one is Lois in the first picture? Is she the one with the tie? [TWACK] Sorry, Appy :-(
H.
1997 - hmmm, did we have a camera then?
Humph (7) Don't you mean "Sorry Lois"????
Hey, whatever you think of his policies, you've got to admit he's a bit of alright, haven't you? Haven't you?... Just me and Cherie then?...
I've sent you photos of my daughter at a few day's old and now, almost 10. I vividly remember the absolute joy I felt, 8 month's pregnant, waddling to my polling station in a Wandsworth primary school to help finally despatch the Tory government that had held me in impotent despair since I was barely a teenager. It was such a glorious day, and it really felt like my baby was being born into a better country. Those first few weeks were amazingly positive - the minimum wage, ban on land mines, independence for the Bank of England. But slowly the momentum was lost and now Blair's years will be forever associated with the disaster that is Iraq. A shame and a waste.
Rachel @ 11 - thanks for the photos! Once they've been processed, I'll arrange for them to appear on the blog somewhere.
Out of interest, how did you get your hands so quickly on a photo from 1997 in a digital format?!
Well, time for Labour to go now I think - people seem to hate them more after 10 years than they did the Tories after 18. Eddie Mair for Prime Minister?
Eamo (14) - with a cabinet of Froggers? Just imagine....
Quite right, Appy, so "Sorry Lois". As to the other thing, well no he has never done it for me I am afraid. Not my type. It is a matter of taste. Some tastes are different from others but no taste is wrong.
As for Fifi (8) I am sure that you would have a different opinion if you had your camera with you on Friday evening. By the way, does your mobile phone have a camera? I turned mine off before you arrived so as not to give you a hint.
H.
Humph, you are just tormenting me now.
Yes I did have my mobile with me, all switched on and everything.
* Screams and does a little dance of frustration around the room *
This man Humph is too clever by half. I may have to ban him from my music nights in future. Or start carrying a camera more often.
Still. Handsome AND clever. Hmmm......
Fifi ;o)
How have frogger's lives changed in the 10 years then? [Not wishing for this to become a depressing Have Your Say-style governmental bash-a-thon, but more of a general feel to how people's situations/outlook/events have developed]. Have things only got better?
Eamo (14), I can't let that one go -- even if you do make a nice suggestion about Eddie. How do you know what people think? Done a scientifically signifcant survey have you? Or perhaps been listening to some moaning in the pub/media and reading the "news"papers? I suspect the latter.
I remember 1997 with a great deal of fondness as I had a FANTASTIC year (yep worthy of capitals!). I travelled a lot - I had a wonderful 2 week holiday in Jamaica, then a few of us flew out to Turkey in July for a colleague's wedding which and we all had a week's holiday there, some other friends and I had headed off down to the Dordogne for a week in a house that belonged to one of the group's parents and I had my best ever business trip when I had to go out to Hong Kong and Sydney (business class no less) for 10 days! And I started seeing SO..... So definitely a vintage year for me personally.
I too was also full of optimism for the start of a new fresh political era. I hoped for great things from Blair but the years have passed and my opinion of him (and his government) has nosedived - largely due (as I think is the case for many) to the fiasco of Iraq.
On a personal level my life has changed hugely since then. Back in 97 I was a carefree single barely thirty something, out all the time, away on holiday at the drop of a hat - now I am a tired weary stressed out forty-something, a night out takes a month to organise and holidays are planned with military precision, but I have two wonderful children, SO and I are still together so all in all its changed for the better.
Marc (13) - glad you liked the piccies. I dug out the 1997 photo album and scanned the photo (hence it's rather dreamy quality).
Belinda, 10 years ago I was a working mother, still enjoying London, about to start maternity leave. With hindsight, I suppose it was the beginning of the end of my career. In as much as Blair is responsible for the economy and house price boom, I suppose I can thank him for the lifestyle changes that followed. When child no. 3 arrived, I gave up work, we sold our London house for twice what we had paid for it and bought a big house in the country. Now I grow my own veg and keep chickens - a fact that the metropolitan 1997 me would have found most amusing!
Lois is standing with her brother Ross (but you can't see him) and the man to the left of her - behind Tony Blair, is David Cairns who has since become an MP.
Oh - and it's Lois Savill without an 'e'
1997 I had three weeks holiday in Zimbabwe.
Harare, Mana Pools, Safari on the Zambezi, Victoria Falls, Climbed Mount Inyangani. I took slide film so will be hard pressed to find some piccies. But I'll try.
Later in the year we had a holiday in the Loire and various weekend trips. But we had only been married two years and kids were still not even twinkles in our eyes. I was doing Locum so could take longer holidays.
2007 as its my business and if I'm not there I make no money its a week in France doing a day at Eurodisney. Perhaps a week at the end of the summer (but may just be a long weekend) And I have to agree with fiona its a military opertaion to organise anything. But we are still married and still share the same bed and and the twinkles are two great kids.
Hi Perry (22), I'd love to know Lois's view of the last 10 years, and Blair and the Labour Government in particular.
Yes, Eddie, may we please see a 1997 photo?
Would I be right in recalling that you were still mostly wearing your 'Reporting Scotland' grey suits and ties that season (a look which rather influenced my own sense of style in the early 90s)?
For me:
1997: Election night: I was swanning down the Amazon working on an environmental project a couple of hundred miles up-river from Manaus in Brazil. In hindsight, the carbon emissions spent by my flight over there more than cancelled out any good that I may have done.
MrBelinda and I had been together for a few years and he was, bizarrely at the time, working for an about-to-be-elected Labour MP in London. Due to the lack of internet, mobile phones and other recently-developed communication devices, we communicated by the good old letter [I was home by the time that arrived]. I remember listening to the election results on the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ World Service while in my hammock and drinking about three glasses of Scotch in celebration.
2007: Still drinking the scotch but no longer for celebratory purposes.
We had been exhibiting South of the Border, and arrived at the sign which says "Welcome to Scotland", to find someone had sprayed "Tory-free"between the lines. :-))
xx
ed