AFTER the Second World War, many young people voted Labour in the first general election for a decade.

But the teenage Andrew Bowden joined the Young Conservatives instead and became one of their leading figures. He made two unsuccessful attempts to become a Tory MP in North Hammersmith and North Kensington. Then he lost again, but only narrowly, in Brighton Kemptown before winning the seat in 1970.

Today Sir Andrew Bowden celebrates his 90th birthday, still active in local politics.

When he was young, Conservative MPs tended to be old and rather stuffy. They made few visits to their constituencies and normally did not live in them. Often they regarded being an MP as a part-time job.

Andrew Bowden was a new type of Tory. They were active, vigorous, full-time politicians. He won Kemptown, a highly marginal seat, by copying the previous MP Dennis Hobden and working prodigiously hard for his constituents. When he was finally defeated he had been MP for 27 years, far longer than anyone else. In an extraordinary move, some of his admirers even held a thanksgiving service for him at St Peter’s Church.

There were bad times as well as good. The level of abuse he had to endure from some of his detractors was disgusting. The Kemptown Conservatives were riddled with rows which often fell to the MP to resolve. But overall he loved his job and never lost his enthusiasm for it. He was happy to be a backbench MP while Julian Amery next door in Brighton Pavilion was a statesman.

He was able to pursue his pet interests such as animal welfare and old age pensioners while helping huge numbers of his constituents. During one general election campaign, he brought down Sir Geoffrey Howe to help him. Standing at the foot of St James’s Street, the Cabinet minister was ignored while residents flocked to see their MP.

I first met Andrew Bowden almost 60 years ago when he was trying to win North Kensington and I was a reporter on the local paper. He conducted a good campaign against an attractive but lazy Labour MP. Even that was not enough to give him victory in 1964 when Labour swept back into power.

We got on well and resumed our friendship after we had both settled in Brighton. We have remained on good terms ever since. Politically we don’t always agree, particularly on the vexed question of whether Britain should stay in Europe, but that does not lessen our regard for each other.

I have seen how sincerely he cares for people and he was extremely kind to me when I almost died from malaria.

In later years he has carried on campaigning for the Tories even when at times there seemed to be no one else doing so. He has found old age a trial but has managed to retain the Bowden bounce and is keenly aware of what is going on. When relaxing, he has a crop of good stories from his long political career which keep him going during what I term his anecdotage. He still lives in the constituency he represented in Parliament with his wife Benita who, despite poor health, remains his strongest supporter.

Success was a long time coming to him and if he had lost the 1970 election, I doubt if he would have been given another chance to become an MP. Even when he won Kemptown by good margins during the Thatcher years, Andrew Bowden always contended it was a marginal seat and so it proved. In 1997, as Tony Blair swept Labour to a landslide victory, Andrew Bowden lost to Des Turner. He made a gracious little speech and departed, not to return.

There are only a few politicians left who remember those days after the war when Winston Churchill was defeated and the National Health Service started.

Andrew Bowden does not like all the changes he is seeing now. He believes Parliament is a shadow of its former self. But he jokingly refers to himself as a dinosaur and realises that many new Conservatives are markedly different from those of his generation. Equally they do not have his talent for making a well-constructed and delivered election speech complete with policy, jokes and a jibe against his main rival. If he ever walks down a street in Brighton, it is likely that one of his former constituents will implore him to stand again as an MP.

He is far too ancient but there is a wistful look in his eyes when he says how much he would like to fight the Brighton Pavilion Green MP Caroline Lucas. Still relishing a good political scrap, he remains one of the best known characters in Brighton. Happy 90th birthday Sir Andrew.