Bill Boaks - Later Life

Later Life

Boaks eventually moved to Wimbledon in south west London, where his own usual mode of transport was the bicycle. He continued to stand as a candidate in elections from time to time, but his campaigning took off in the mid-1970s, when he took to travelling around the country to fight most by-elections. He would find the ten registered voters he needed to fight the election, but would not usually spend a long time in the constituency. He would campaign intermittently by cycling around the target constituency, wearing a large cardboard box daubed with his slogans. He was limited to six words of description on the ballot paper, and usually described himself as "Air, Road, Public Safety, White Resident" or "Democratic Monarchist, Public Safety, White Resident".

Boaks usually obtained a tiny number of votes and often finished at the bottom of the poll. His highest vote was 240 in Wimbledon at the February 1974 general election. At the Glasgow Hillhead by-election in March 1982, he received just five votes, a record low for any candidate in any Parliamentary election; the record stood until the 2005 general election. Growing infirmity forced Boaks to give up contesting elections after standing simultaneously in the by-elections in Peckham and Birmingham Northfield in 1982, though he attended the count in Bermondsey as counting agent for Screaming Lord Sutch in 1983 while recovering from being knocked down by a motorcycle. But there was also the simple matter that his money was running out. The plans, mooted at Bermondsey, for him to be part of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party roster for the 1983 General Election, standing in Sutch's and Boaks's own home constituency of Streatham, never came to pass.