EXACTLY 25 years ago today Jack Straw was on tenterhooks as Blackburn went to the polls in the General Election which put Margaret Thatcher and the Tories into power.

He was waiting to find out his he was going to succeed his mentor and boss Barbara Castle into the House of Commons as the town's MP.

Now Foreign Secretary he tells our political correspondent BILL JACOBS about some of the good times and bad he's had representing the town. . .

LEANING back in his leather chair in the grand surroundings of his luxurious room in the Foreign Office having kicked off his shoes, Jack Straw leaves little doubt where is heart lies - back in his constituency.

He said: "I like Blackburn because, fundamentally, it's a big village. There are big differences between representing a town and part of a big city.

"It's a special privilege to represent all of a community. I'm proud to represent Blackburn. It really is a big privilege.

"Provided you do the work and stand up for the town people more than reciprocate.

"People will tell you what they think. They're not slow in coming forward and locally it's fun.

"It's also very hard work. There are many memorable moments in my time here, some of which are not repeatable. Many of them make me smile in recollection, though.

"In 1975 I went up to Blackburn to help prepare their submission to the boundary commission for about their local government, national and parliamentary boundaries.

"There was a big problem. I was working for Barbara Castle then. I worked very hard with them. We did what I though was a first class job and won at the commission hearing.

"This led to a minor national scandal when questions were asked in the House of Commons of then Prime Minister Harold Wilson about why I, as a special adviser, was in Blackburn doing something that was rather plainly for the Labour Party.

"Barbara and Harold crafted a reply that I was on holiday at the time which led to a celebrated tongue in cheek editorial in the Guardian headed "Making hay with Mr Straw" and went on to say: 'Everybody knows that Blackburn is the Acapulco of the North'.

"Anyway I think Blackburn has had the last laugh on that. Quite a lot of tourists come here now."

Mr Straw, an active student politician during his time at Leeds University, added: "The first time I saw Blackburn, I was familiar with industrial towns anyway. My father came from Barnsley and I went to university in Leeds from 1964 to 1968 which is a similar industrial area, if a bit bigger. Blackburn is similar in size to Huddersfield and Halifax, which are near Leeds, so I was familiar with that kind of town.

"People talk about smell being the most nostalgic sense. There was a very particular warm, rather sweet but pleasant smell about the town hall and also about Tom Taylor's office - he was leader of the council at the time.

"I was very struck then about the sense of pride in the town. People were very happy that it punched above its weight and they expected it to be on the national scene.

"Barbara Castle was a national figure and I have happily been able to repeat that.

"I have pleasure in the fact and it's a great reflection of the way that Blackburn aims high that out of no more than six or seven MPs in the last century three of them have been in the Cabinet - Philip Snowden, who had been MP for Blackburn from 1906-18 and was Labour's first Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1923-24 and then 1929-31, by which time he represented Colne Valley.

"Then there was Barbara and then me."

Mr Straw says football brought him closer to the town and to his children Charlotte and William with whom he watched Rovers. Mr Straw added: "My support for Blackburn Rovers has been a support of great happiness to me as a dad because Blackburn Rovers provided a reason for my children to come up every other weekend with them becoming first enthusiastic and then fanatical.

"It also gave them an opportunity to see the town and become fond of the town themselves and made a lot of sense. It also gave my wife 24 hours off to be herself.

"Charlotte is now captain of the Manchester University Medics football team.

"I wasn't really a football fan before I came to Blackburn. When I was a kid I was brought up in Essex. There nearest clubs were West Ham and Leyton Orient.

"But without a dad at home there wasn't enough money at home so football was off the agenda.

"When I went to Leeds University I used to go to Elland Road and I also used to go and watch Headingley Rugby League because I lived not far from the ground. I had also played rugby union at school.

"I used to go football games in the early 1980s when I could as a backbencher and then I started to take the children. That's when it started snowballing. I took them to the final of the Full Members Cup at Wembley and we won.

"Obviously winning the Premiership at Anfield, of all places, was wonderful, but another high points include being made a vice president of the club in 1998 by Jack Walker - a wonderful man - and I've got the rose bowl he gave me here in the office."

The piece of glassware stands in pride of place in his Whitehall office as Mr Straw reflects: "When I started going to Rovers I did not know I was starting on a lifetime addiction for which there is no known cure. I am still somewhat surprised."

Characters make it a fun town to represent

JACK Straw stressed how much fun it has been representing Blackburn so far by talking about the way he used to collect former council leader Frank Higham from his house in Sandpiper Close to conduct surgeries in his Brookhouse ward.

He said: "He had a great sense of humour and a caustic wit. I used to be in stitches before I left his house.

"When I proposed doing 'round the streets' surgeries between elections by visiting constituents' homes, he was mystified.

"He told me: 'Why are you doing that Jack? They'll only complain.'

"Another great character I also remember is Joe King, a former senior police officer who became chairman of the party.

"We were canvassing in Whinney Lane, in Lammack, when he knocked on the door of a really posh house and asked the residents if they were voting Labour.

"The man replied: 'We don't vote because we only believe in One God.'

"Quick as a flash Joe looked at the large car in the drive and said: 'Well, you'll have difficulty getting that through the eye of a needle into the kingdom of heaven!'

"And I also remember doing surgeries in an old congregational church in Audley Range, which is now knocked down.

"There was no central heating and it was absolutely freezing. I used to go up in a sweater, jacket, scarf and coat and gloves.

"The only way to warm the place up was to light the gas oven and leave the door open.

"The only problem was that flames kept leaping out from the oven and it wasn't easy taking notes from worried and frozen constituents wearing gloves and all those clothes!"