Reasons for Absence 

In Norman Tarry's response to my Article 3 much was made of my absence from a Council meeting on 14th January 1975 and my absence from the afternoon session of the Boundary Commission Inquiry.  I did not respond to these points in my follow-up letter to Norman Tarry's response.  Here are extracts from Conservative to Independent which cover these points:-

 COUNCIL MEETING 

The next event was a meeting of the St. Albans District Council on 14th January 1975. It was at this meeting that the Conservative scheme for the Boundaries was put to the Council for adoption as the official St. Albans District Council scheme. The Conservative vote was made ‘A Matter of Group Policy', and strong pressure was put on members of the Group not to raise queries or be drawn by Labour or Liberal arguments. The advice was along the lines of ‘Stay silent, let the others ramble on a bit then vote it through’. As a result, the Conservative scheme became the set of Council proposals and as such had to be put out for consultation in the District before submission to the Boundaries Commission.

I myself was not involved in this vote for I had sent my apologies "due to an engagement over 25 years ago".  I later heard that when the Mayor's Chaplain, Rev. John Waller (who was also our Rector at St. Nicholas Church, Harpenden), took the opening prayers he called upon the Councillors and Officers to pray for Harold and Sheila Beck. Apparently those assembled wondered what had happened to us, until he went on to say that this very day was our Silver Wedding anniversary.  Later in the proceedings the Council expressed their congratulations and best wishes to us, as is recorded in the Minutes.

Norman Tarry wrote about this as follows:-

The working party presented its final report to the full Council on January 14, 1975.  Mr Beck raised no objection at this stage - hardly surprising as he had decided to absent himself from the meeting.

 BOUNDARY COMMISSION ENQUIRY 

The Boundaries Commission Public Enquiry took place in St. Albans on 30th October and I decided, despite the pressures to the contrary, to go ahead and make a statement so that the voice of East Ward would be heard. I had prepared a statement which drew a distinction between the numerical approach to determining ward boundaries and the community considerations. The 1972 Local Government Act made provision that subject to numerical considerations "regard shall be had to ... any local ties which would be broken by the fixing of any particular boundary". Also, in the Commission's Notes on Boundary Making, under the heading "The process to be followed by Authorities when choosing boundaries" it was stated that "Boundaries should not sever local communities except for district wards where this is essential to achieve broad equality of representation". The official Conservative proposal achieved broad equality of representation but the boundary severed Batford. The East Ward Conservative modification achieved the same or closer equality of representation without severing Batford. This formed the basis of my argument.

I was present during the morning session of the Enquiry, which was devoted to consideration of parts of the District other than Harpenden.  The Harpenden issue was to be covered in the afternoon. As I had a teaching commitment in the afternoon I arranged to make my statement immediately before lunch.

Norman Tarry wrote about this as follows:-

Mr Beck presented objections to the scheme at the Boundary Commission inquiry on October 31, 1975, and then promptly left the Inquiry.  Had he stayed for the afternoon session, which was devoted almost entirely to the Harpenden situation, he would have seen the extent to which his words gave succour to the Labour Party's representatives, a point which he could hardly expect to endear him to his Conservative colleagues.