THE Tories' 1978 Labour Isn’t Working poster marked a seminal moment in political advertising – but it would have been nothing without the Hendon Conservatives. REBECCA LOWE speaks to the only surviving local participant.

Patricia Sparrow had no idea on that warm morning in July that she was making political history. All she knows is the ice-cream was fantastic.

“When we were taken off to do the advert, I don’t think any of us knew exactly what we were doing and why,” she said.

“But I seem to remember they fed us with lovely ice-cream all day, so everyone had a great time. It was just a big party.”

Mrs Sparrow, now 77, was one of seven Hendon Conservatives to answer a call to turn up at a park “somewhere near Tottenham” for a mystery photoshoot in the summer of 1978.

She was taken to there by the then-agent of the group, a youthful and enthusiastic Stephen Payne, who simply told everyone they were going to make an political advertisement.

Around 60 people turned up to the shoot, some unemployed, most just young Tories keen to help their party in any way they could.

Few of them, if any, suspected the poster in which they would feature would become one of the most popular and most vilified political images in the history of British politics, and act as a key weapon in the defeat of James Callaghan’s Labour administration.

“We had no idea it would be so iconic,” said Mrs Sparrow, who is now president of Hendon Conservatives. “We didn’t even know what the image was going to be used for.

“It was a bit embarrassing, I have to admit, when we found out, because all we knew was that it was to promote Conservatism.”

In fact, the poster was used to depict a long, snaking unemployment queue – and not only were many of the people in it employed, they were also multiplied, to give the impression the line disappeared far into the distance.

The ad's designer, Martyn Walsh, of Saatchi and Saatchi, came up with the idea.

"The number of people was a problem," he told the BBC in 2001. "At one point I though briefly about calling it all off. But the deadline was very tight and it was a case of 'it's now or never - we've got to do it today'."

He said he used a long rope to mark out the shape of the queue, which volunteers walked along, but Mrs Sparrow says she doesn’t remember this. She also denied signing a form that Mr Walsh claimed was produced to stop volunteers suing the Tories if they objected to the final result.

“The photograhers took two pictures, joining them together. It wasn’t the seven or eight pictures that people have said since, only two, but I suppose it was a little dishonest.

“There was no rope and no form, as far as I can recall. All I remember was a long wooden partition, like a bridge, that we had to walk under.”

According to Mr Walsh, even after the ad was completed it was relegated to a minor bit-part in the election campaign, and almost never made it to the public eye at all.

But when it was finally released it made a huge impact – both positive and negative.

“It didn’t go down so well at first,” said Mrs Sparrow. “I think a lot of people and MPs thought it was fraudulent. But things were different back then. There was a lot more honesty.”

It was largely thanks to Labour's Denis Healey’s accusation in Parliament that the Tories were “selling politics like soap-powder” that the poster gained such noriety, and secured its position at the forefront of the 1979 election campaign.

Now, on the 30th anniversary of the Thatcher election victory, the strategem of creating a deliberately inflammatory advert and then benefiting from the free publicity generated by the ensuing media fuss has become the norm.

But Mrs Sparrow wishes it had not.

“Now that’s always the way with advertising and politics, isn’t it? It’s very corrupt, built on all sorts of lies. Things have gotten to a low ebb.”