58 • The Sunday Times Magazine
The local council supremo and viral video star
on “that meeting”, sudden fame and her legacy
Jackie Weaver
A Life in the Day
W
eaver, 63, was born in
Motherwell and grew up
in Alsager, Cheshire. She began
her career in computing before
working in management at
Mothercare. In 1995 she became
a clerk and then councillor for the
parish of Dodcott cum Wilkesley
and is now chief officer for the
Cheshire Association of Local
Councils. In February a video
of Weaver presiding over a
tempestuous Handforth parish
council meeting went viral,
catapulting her to global fame.
She lives in Prees in north
Shropshire with her husband,
Stuart, a retired engineer. They
have three grown-up sons.Believe it or not, we
are woken up every
morning by the
Teasmade. We have my parents’
old one with the metal teapot. I’m
usually a coffee drinker but it has
to be a cup of tea when I wake up.
I will quite happily not get up
until nine o’clock if I can help it.
I’m not a natural morning person,
though some might argue I’m notan afternoon or evening person
either. I don’t usually eat breakfast.
I have a green juice that Stuart
makes. It’s an incredibly healthy-
looking slurry. He tells me it’s
going to make us live for ever.
I am obsessive about emails.
I’ll check them in the night and
first thing in the morning. I’ve
definitely received more than
usual this year. For a little while
it was rather overwhelming.
I don’t want to make it sound
like the start of War and Peace but
there were clearly two factions on
the Handforth parish council for
a long time. We’d had code-of-
conduct issues, among others, so
I was very much aware of what was
going on in the background. They
had no one to facilitate the meeting
[in December 2020], so I was asked.
It seemed to me the chairman
was determined that the meeting
would not take place. He kept
trying to challenge my “authority”,
but I wasn’t claiming any! I was
shocked by the behaviour. There
are often strong personalities but
that level of anger and hostility
was quite unbelievable. I left themeeting with a renewed sense
that something had to change.
The first I knew of it reaching the
outside world was a Thursday night
in February and a colleague texting,
“You’re trending number three
[on Twitter].” It meant nothing to
me, so I just replied, “Ha ha, catch
up tomorrow.” Off we went to bed
and the following day it was mad.
I’m eternally amazed that
anyone has any interest in what
I’ve got to say. I don’t watch myself
on the telly. I prefer to picture
myself very much like Helen
Mirren and watching would really
burst that bubble.
It was huge fun to be part of a
sketch to open the Brit awards
earlier this year. I was on Celebrity
Mastermind, although my legs are
so short that my feet didn’t touch
the ground in the famous chair.
And I was asked to turn on two
sets of Christmas lights. When
you become well known, there
is an unrealness about it. It must
be so difficult, particularly for
younger people, to be constantly
told you’re wonderful because
you start to believe you might be.
My biggest fear was that we’d
bring the sector into disrepute but
lots of people have some resonance
with that kind of behaviour in
their business or personal lives. All
three of the worst offenders from
the meeting eventually resigned
just before the outcome of the
monitoring officer’s investigation.
I’m sure that’s not a coincidence.
Handforth now has new councillors
and things are much better.
The attention will go away; that’s
inevitable. What I hope is that I’ve
built some sort of legacy, so more
people know what local councils
can achieve. I finish in my office at
around 6pm, then sometimes I’ll
have to drive to another parish for
a meeting, so I’ll just eat a sandwich
in the car. When I’m done for the
day I’m like a zombie. I usually go
up to bed at about ten and I read
a bit of the paper. I need proper
headspace to read a
book and haven’t had
a lot of that this year nInterview by Hannah Swerling (^) REBECCA LUPTON / THE TIMES
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