Mr David Trimble chose Mr Jeffrey Donaldson's home patch of Lagan Valley to begin his tour of constituencies yesterday. But the weather thwarted any plans to appear on the streets with the four UUP candidates - Mr Donaldson was not allowed to stand. Torrential rain lashed the neat village of Hillsborough where the UUP leader met his candidates and the local press.
They then toured a bailer twine factory, UPU Industries in Dromore, which employs 35 people. Mr Trimble listened with rapt attention to a detailed description of how the twine was manufactured.
Mr Donaldson waited in reception as they left the factory, and he joined his party leader and the selected candidates in a determined show of unity and affability.
Mr Trimble immediately included him in his parliamentary plans. "We'll probably have to table a few more amendments," he said, arranging to involve him in meeting Conservative allies who would support them in trying to amend the Bill on prisoner releases. A visit to the market in Cookstown, in Mid-Ulster, had to be abandoned due to weather. One of the two local candidates, Mr Billy Armstrong, said they were expected in the local high school.
The headmaster, Mr Barry Freestone, was delighted he had come, but admitted he could offer very few voters. "I don't know what I can do for you. I can give you prospective voters, but not Assembly voters," he told Mr Trimble. Nonetheless, he had taken the sixth-formers out of class to meet the unionist leader, and they were waiting for him.
"I am more than slightly surprised," he told them, "a) to be here, and b) to see yourselves. We had other plans, but with the weather. . ." Despite this unpromising start, he soon got into his stride, addressing an audience whose assumptions and fears he knew well.
"I don't know what things will be like when you're voting," he said. "I do know it is a good thing to construct political arrangements to allow you to be fully plugged in and take responsibility. There you are. Any comments or observations?" The headmaster started the ball rolling: "What's Mo Mowlam really like?" Mr Trimble dropped his head to hide his smile. "I can understand the difficulties the Prime Minister had in finding a job for her," he said. "She's more than disorganised. . . The Prime Minister brought his own staff when he came over. If he hadn't I don't think we'd have had an agreement."
Mr Freestone asked if she would disappear when the Assembly got going. Mr Trimble said she would not, she would play a role similar to the Scottish and Welsh Secretaries.
The students then began to voice their concerns. How far would the reform of the RUC go? What was it like in the talks? Was there tension between the parties? "My colleague from Fermanagh was apt to be very pungent in his comments when certain people tried to shake his hand. He told them what he thought of them," the UUP leader said, to a ripple of laughter.
He elaborated on his experience of the talks, recalling an incident when he was woken up to find it had been claimed the UUP and the Irish Government had agreed on areas to be covered by the joint North-South body.
"It was traced back to an Irish official who was talking to one of our researchers in the bar at 3 a.m. I walked in to where the Irish Minister was sitting with the agreement in front of her, and I walked over to her," he told them, with what was clearly still fresh anger.
"I took the pen out of her hand and struck the passages out, and said, `this has not been agreed, this has not been agreed, this had not been agreed', and I threw the pen down and told her what I thought of her official." He illustrated his actions by repeating them.
"I talked to one of our officials later," he said. "And he said that of all the countries we're dealing with, the Irish are the most difficult." There was just time after this for tea with scones, jam and shortbread - all home-made - served by women members of the UUP in the local party office before the party leader dashed off to South Antrim.