I am tap tap tapping this out in Canada looking on, in wonderment and disbelief, as events unfold in the UK. Nothing, absolutely nothing, prepared me for a Lib/Con coalition. It won’t last.

I shall have much to write about.

And, tomorrow, the re-election, or not, of the Speaker, John Bercow. It will be a fascinating day.

But, first things first.

I decided well before my decapitation at the election on 6 May that I would continue to blog about things, but only as and when the fancy takes me.

Hey! I am a private citizen now!

Well, I am driven to the keyboard by news of the shocking stabbing of Stephen Timms at a constituency surgery. I am relieved he is on the mend but who knows what psychological damage occurs after such a traumatic event.

The former Lib Dem MP for Cheltenham, Nigel (now Lord) Jones, was attacked by a crazed constituent at a surgery. His agent was slain and Nigel, who I count as a friend,  was left with lacerations to his hands. How on earth do you put that behind you?

I have my own story.

I take you back to 5 in the afternoon on a lazy sunny Sunday in August 1998.

I am at home in Barnoldswick, pottering about.

A sixth sense tells me I am being observed. I turn around and see the face of a man in his early thirties pressed up against my dining room window. Nose squashed against the window. My heart is pounding.

Now I hear a hellish battering on my kitchen door. The commotion is deafening. It sounds as if the door will come off its hinges.

Startled and shocked, I race from my dining room into the kitchen and stupidly unlock the back door. I am wearing an invisible policeman’s uniform. No-one will harm me. I am an MP.

I open the door and nothing prepares me for what I see directly in front of me.

A young man with a contorted angry face is holding a huge sledgehammer aloft, ready to bring it down on top of my head.

My mind races. I have never seen this man in my life before.

I have a second before I meet my maker. Aaaaargh!

One part of my brain calmly informs me this is what it is like when you are about to die.

Amazingly, another part of my brain swings into action in a milli-second.

I scream at him. “I don’t know what this is about but we are going to talk about it!”

“Come inside, NOW!”

I am truly astonished as he steps over the threshold and, on my instruction, puts down the huge sledgehammer.

He goes into the dining room. I point to the kitchen table and tell him to sit down.

I tell him I am going to get a pen and paper and close the door between the dining room and the kitchen. I am safe!

I am about to race out of the house when I glance at that fearsome sledgehammer, propped up against the wall.

Running away, I instantly conclude, is a bad idea.

This guy is all muscle and very mean. And deranged.

So, swallowing hard, I go back inside and talk, talk, talk. Calming him down. Reassuring him. Keeping that conversation going for 45 minutes.  It was an eternity for me.

I find out he has a load of problems. He has been sacked from his cleaning job for refusing to do really dirty work without proper clothing. He is being evicted. He can’t get help from social security. He has a million problems. He is raging at the world and looking for someone to blame. And he thinks of me.

I still have the sledgehammer.

And, although the memory of that day will never leave me, I continued to do my regular surgeries telling myself it was a one-off.

It made me more street wise.

Never again did I wear an invisible policeman’s uniform.