In a couple of month's time my Mum will be 84. Seems like a lot of my mates, the age we are, have parents around that age.

What’s scary, in this period of heightened political activity and focus, is that when she was born not everyone in the mother of Democracies had the right to vote!

It wasn’t until two years later that all people over the age of 21, whether or not they were property owners, had the right to shape the way their country was run. It took some pretty determined women suffragists to wrest away from vested interests, what we now take for granted. A hard fought for, precious, envied around the world, right.

Now everyone over the age of 18, who are registered as entitled to vote may do so.

Our general election is imminent. Presidential-style TV debates (missed them all, sorry) have transformed, probably now irrevocably, the kind of telegenic/soundbite people that will be on offer for us to choose.

What shapes how we vote? Our background? Our parents? Our experience? Our priorities and hopes for the future? Who knows?

People around the World, including Britain, have gone to prison and died, striving for the right, in their own nation, to put a cross in pencil on a piece of paper. Sounds simple doesn’t it? Probably takes 10 – 15 minutes. You can ask to do it by post too.

And yet 1 in 3 or 4 of us this week simply won’t do it: “They’re all the same”, “I can’t choose”, “I can’t be bothered”!!!

In the time it takes to have a cuppa, you can have your say.

I say, get off your backside and go and vote!