Annette Brooke - life after being an MP for 14 years

Interviewed for a profile for The Stour and Avon magazine way back in June 1993, Annette Brooke said: "Politics are my hobby."

It was to become so much more than that, when in 2001 she stood against the sitting Tory MP Christopher Fraser and won the Mid Dorset and North Poole seat by the narrow margin of 384 votes.

She went on to win the seat twice more before deciding in 2012 that she wouldn't stand again.

"I'd had my second accident - breaking my hip - and realised that physically I couldn't give the job all the energy it required," she said.

Looking very relaxed, healthy and happy she said: "I didn't realise retirement could be so nice. I have been to my first exercise session - aquafit."

Annette, who is married to Borough of Poole councillor Mike Brooke, and who has two daughters and one grand-daughter looks back on her time at Westminster with great affection.

"It was amazing to be in Parliament for 14 years. On the first day I sat on those green benches, I felt as if I was dreaming."

A lifelong Liberal, and a founder member of the SDP, she was elected to the Borough of Poole as a councillor for Broadstone in 1986, having faced defeat three years earlier.

She served as Mayor in 1998.

And today she still canvasses for the Lib Dems.

She attended The London School of Economics in the 1960s where every week a politician would visit as speaker.

She had recalled in 1993: "I can remember Enoch Powell being shouted down, but eventually everybody listened."

She qualified as a teacher at Hughes Hall Cambridge.

Her first job was as a lecturer at Reading College, after which in 1971, she joined the Open University - the year of its inception - and spent 16 years teaching Social Sciences and Economics.

Her last job was at Talbot Heath School for Girls in Bournemouth.

She and Mike moved to Merley in 1976 and then to Broadstone where they still live.

In 1993, challenged to admit whether she had her sights on the House of Commons, she said she had always promised her daughters that she wouldn't fight a General Election whilst they were still at school.

Annette has the distinction of being the longest serving female MP in the history of the Liberal Democrats.

Two years ago she was awarded an OBE for her public and political service.

The House of Lords has no attraction for her.

"When I announced my retirement I said that I wanted it to be in Dorset," she said.

Only 29 per cent of the MPs in the present Parliament are female.

"It is a male dominated environment and I would like to see more women standing for election," she said.

"It's good to have young MPs, but we also need a total mix of people of all ages with real life experience."

She added she would also like to see more women standing as local councillors.

Annette worked on the all party parliamentary groups and said she became good friends with MPs of all persuasions.

"I wouldn't have wanted a Ministerial position," she said.

Annette is clearly enjoying her new life, and says she won't make any decisions about getting involved in any new organisations until next month.

She started the dementia project in Broadstone and feels very strongly that both sufferers and their carers need support.

"It is such an isolating condition."

She is patron of a number of organisations, many of which are health related. She is also a trustee of Broadstone Bowls Club.

"I would like a new challenge, but I'm not going to take on too many commitments," she said.

Marilyn Barber

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