Hap-hap-happy Shirley and her Shirley Girls applaud the latest campaign song.

‘Good morning, I’m Shirley Temple Black, running for Congress. Can I pin a Shirley button on you?’  The old man’s face wakes up: ‘Shirley Temple? Gee, I never thought I’d see you as a full-growed woman.’

Shirley’s dimples dance into the corners of her cheeks. ‘It’s been an honour to meet you sir’ She pins the button into his lapel. SHIRLEY it says between the horizontal stripes in red white and blue. She shakes his hand and moves on, bouncy as a robin, down Main Street, Redwood City, California, USA.

‘When they let me pin them I just know I can depend on their votes.’ We fall in alongside her, two conspicuously polite young Englishmen, shooting out longer and longer strides to keep up with her clickety-click bounce-bounce.

We try to throw in the occasional serious question as she burbles and lilts and laughs from one prospective voter to another.

Hidey-hi and tum-te-tum. Suddenly we feel that the whole thing could easily be a musical. And because this is like the Main Street USA we once saw in a Doris Day movie we wouldn’t be surprised if Shirley and everyone else burst into song. They make napalm for the Vietnam War right here in Redwood City so there’s great scope for lyrics, whether you’re a hawk or a dove.

Fortunately for us there are not too many voters around and our calls are on shopkeepers.  It’s 10.30 and the sun is strong in our eyes. Most of the men of Redwood City are at work in the factories that manufacture electrical components, tape recorders and napalm – which brings us back with a blink to former child movie star Shirley Temple, now 39, an all-American matron in a calf-length skirt, who is saying:  ‘We’ve got to end this war quickly and honourably.’

She’s addressing the owner of a hardware store. He nods his head thoughtfully and so do his two assistants. They obviously admire her - the kid sister who’s grown up, wised up and stayed as sweet as she was.

What does Mrs Temple Black mean by honourably and how does she think a quick ending might be achieved? ‘Well, I was talking to some military people back in Washington DC and one theory I heard was that we should sink some ships in Haiphong harbour to block it for their supplies. But then, of course, the Communists could blow the ships up pretty quick, so I reckon this other theory I heard is better – and that’s to mine the harbour. You see it’s just one big gaping hole through which 80 per cent of their supplies are being brought in, and a general told me that if we stopped it up we’d end the war in eight weeks and be able to bring our boys back home.’

It’s such a beautifully simple theory - and there’s that lilt in the voice again. Argument seems futile. The musical fantasy recurs. Perhaps a quick chorus here by the hands of the hardware store of ‘Bring the Boys Back Home.’

After covering most of the shops we adjourn to Henry’s Luncheon Delicatessen where it is a little easier to discuss her campaign. First we establish the reasons for her political motivation. ‘I first became interested in politics during the Korean War when my husband’s business took us to live in Washington DC and we met members of the joint chiefs of staff, Congressmen and labour union leaders at dinner parties. I’ve had such a good private life from this country because of my movies that I thought I ought to give something back in return through public service.’

In the primary election on Tuesday the public will decide whether it wants her to be the Republican representative in Congress for San Mateo County, California. She has the support of State Governor Ronald Reagan, but even so she is not optimistic.

The large Dutch lady who rules Henry’s Luncheon Delicatessen brings our coffee. ‘Hi there,’ says Shirley, ‘I’m part Pennsylvania Dutch on my father’s side.’ We digress for a minute into a discussion on childhood and child rearing. ‘I had a kind of Germanic upbringing. You know, pretty strong discipline. But I was never physically punished.

‘With my three kids now we have a ritual of the whole family eating together every night and a different member of the family sits at the head of the table to preside. The presiding member has to choose a subject for us to discuss. After I’d been asked to take the Republican nomination it was one of the things I wanted to discuss to get their approval. It was four days before my turn to preside came around. But they’d all been talking about it among themselves and when I brought it up they all agreed that I should go ahead.

‘I spent two months researching this district before I finally made my mind up. I talked with newspaper editors, labour leaders and people people.’ Puzzled frown from English journalist. ‘Yes, er, people people?’ ‘Just like I said - people people.’ That musical is with us again - maybe we can work Barbra Streisand into this show?

But in a minute we’re back to reality. Shirley is attacking the failure of the Great Society. ‘I’m for cutting back on the Poverty Programme where it hasn’t worked. The spending in some of the poverty areas has been too permissive.  Some of the money is being spent to build hate schools. Places where they teach kids to demonstrate and to hate the whites.

‘I’m also going to fight the declining moral standards of the country. The traditional family unit is breaking down. It’s all to do with TV dinners, husbands getting home too late from work and children staying out too much. As for the war, I think it’s being run too much by civilians, with Robert McNamara picking the targets. He should leave it to the military men.’  

That evening we attend a rally in the Recreation Centre at Daly City, farther up the freeway towards San Francisco. She repeats, word for word, all the planks in her platform apart from the ‘hate schools’ bit.  She has learned her lines well but we yearn for a good heckler to attack the bland façade ro see if there’s a tooth and claw politician underneath. We content ourselves with more thoughts on the making of an American political musical, which have been stimulated by the appearance of the Shirley Girls - bright schoolgirls in striped blazers and plastic straw hats - and the Singing Williams Sisters from Woodside.

At the end of the campaign song – We’ll do it with Shirley Temple Black on Election Day she’s the one we’ll back - the local Republican machine minder drawls a folksy invitation to everyone to stay on for some coffee and genuine home-made cookies. Shirley suddenly remembers something else.

She skips up to the microphone, dimpling and lilting. ‘By the way, folks, I meant to tell you - I’m for more local control and less interference from Washington. We local people know best how to run local affairs.’

She’s done it. She’s given us our final triumphant chorus.

© The Sunday Times, 12th November 1976