I think the Cupar barman thought I was a cop. Either that or some kind of gangster, arrived to wreak havoc in his quiet little town.
“You’re from Cambridge?” he asked, giving me a friendly but unmistakably suspicious look.
I nodded.
“But just the one night you’re here?”
That’s right.
“You’re here for work?” he smiled.
Uh huh.
“In Cupar??”
The disbelief in his tone was quite something. Is that really so surprising?
“And you’re leaving tomorrow?”
Yes, I’ve got the guy I came for.
“…”
“….”
I, of course, explained that I was a reporter, not a cop or a gangster, and, after travelling 400 miles from Cambridge, and spending most of the day on the train, I had indeed got the man I’d come for.
Cllr Donald Adey expressed similar disbelief when I knocked on his door in Cupar, Fife.
It’s 400 miles away from home for me, and 400 miles away from Trumpington, the ward Cllr Adey represents at Cambridge City Council and Cambridgeshire County Council.
He’s been an impossible man to get hold of. He hardly attends council meetings, doesn’t live in the city (or even the country) and, according to his council colleagues, does not do very much work.
When writing about Cllr Adey, I’ve always attempted (multiple times) to contact him for comment. It’s only fair to give his side of the story. When your own council leader calls you a “parasite” and a “blight on our democracy” it’s nice to have the option to respond.
But Cllr Adey has not responded. And, in a last resort effort to get some answers for the people Cllr Adey represents, I packed a bag and set off for Cupar, his new home, to see what he had to say for himself.
The journey
The train leaves Cambridge’s main station at 10am. The guy in the ticket booth raises an eyebrow.
“Cupar?” he says.
Give me a break.
We head north in the hazy sunshine past flooded fields in the fens. A woman at the table next to me talks about how the standing water in the fields by the tracks used to freeze over years ago, and that it was safe to skate there because the water underneath was only ankle deep if you fell through anyway.
Once we get to Peterborough, it’s a 30 minute wait for the Edinburgh train. A man with a visible ankle tag and a bundle of number plates under his arm is trying to find his train. It’s a crisp, cold morning, and some kind of large bird of prey is doing loops overhead.
The train arrives. I find a table and settle in for the long four-hour haul to Edinburgh.
Speaking to Cllr Adey later, he says how much he enjoys the journey. To be fair, the views are incredible. The 10am train goes through York at 1.37pm, and Durham not long after. At 2.40pm it’s high above the river in Newcastle. Cllr Adey really is a lucky guy if this is his regular commute to work. By about 3.15pm, the train is pulling into Edinburgh Waverley where a piper is piping out Scotland the Brave (obviously).
Then there was an hour-long wait because the train I needed to catch to Cupar was cancelled due to a “lack of staff”. Cllr Adey assured me this is not an unusual occurrence.
After crossing the impressive Forth railway bridge, I finally arrived in Cupar at about 5.20pm. More than seven hours after I’d set off from Cambridge. Cllr Adey says it’s a journey he does often and that he gets lots of work done on the train. Which is fine, while the Wi-Fi lasts.
The interview
All the way to Cllr Adey’s house I was worried I’d have the wrong address. Communication hasn’t exactly been his strong point. This is the address I had found for him, but what if he’d moved without telling anyone? What if it was the right address but he wasn’t in? What if he took one look at me and slammed the door in my face? All entirely possible scenarios.
Calling him to check would have been out of the question. He probably wouldn’t have answered anyway.
I think it’s fair to say I was pretty relieved to see Cllr Adey open the door when I rang the bell. He was home! I think it’s also fair to say he was utterly flabbergasted to see me. Almost speechless. We’ve spoken before, but out of context, on his doorstep in Cupar, Cllr Adey took a moment to place me. I introduced myself properly and told him what I was about.
And reader, he invited me in.
Cllr Adey explained he wasn’t in the habit of turning people away from his door. He would not consent to filming on his property, and wasn’t keen to do a radio interview but, to his credit, he was mostly welcoming and frank during our interview while I took notes in shorthand.
I explained I had some hard questions to ask, and that a lot of people in Cambridgeshire were very unimpressed with his behaviour.
From his poor attendance record at the councils he sits on, to his unresponsiveness to the press, colleagues, and residents, we had a frank talk. We spoke about claims he was doing no work while still claiming more than £14,000 in allowances from both councils.
At times I felt uncomfortable sitting in his living room asking unpleasant questions about whether he really deserved the money he was getting from the public purse. But I felt it important to get answers from the man.
It’s important for him to have a chance to speak up, and it is important for the people of Trumpington to hear him. They deserve an explanation from one of their civic representatives for why he is absent from so many meetings and lives so far away from his ward.
What he said
I felt Cllr Adey needed to be brought back to the point several times during our talk. I think it would be unfair to say he was evasive (he didn’t have to talk at all) but I felt he was guarded in some of his responses.
“I don’t want to pour fuel on the flames,” he said a couple of times.
When he told me he planned to resign from Cambridge City Council, I asked whether this was a response to his city colleagues’ claims they were having to take on more work because of his alleged lack of activity. He said not, but only after acknowledging having a new member for Trumpington would help take the pressure off them if they were having to take on more work.
The Cambridge councillor who lives in Fife
As for quitting the county council, Cllr Adey said he wouldn’t be going anywhere soon. He claimed he would be able to give more focus to the county council if he didn’t have to do his city duties as well. On top of this, he admitted he is a community councillor in Cupar, and acknowledged there are only so many responsibilities one can take on before being spread too thinly.
Cllr Adey also admits the email address listed on the county council’s website is not a good way to get in touch with him, and that he has not been able to get to all the letters sent to him. He also claims not to have seen phone messages left on the number provided on the council website.
We spoke for more than an hour. I told Cllr Adey it would not be the last time I wrote about him but asked if, in the future, there might be a more convenient way of getting comment. Lovely as Cupar is, it is not sustainable or easy to make the journey on a regular basis, no matter what Cllr Adey might say.
More about Josh's odyssey to Fife:
