Forty years ago this week, Des Wilson came close to providing Britain with its biggest by-election shock since the Second World War.

The by-election in November 1973 was in Hove, one of the safest Conservative seats in the country since its formation in 1950. Winning margins were often more than 20,000.

The by-election was caused by the unexpected death of Tory MP Martin Maddan. Tories moved swiftly to choose their candidate, Tim Sainsbury from the supermarket family.

The party was well organised, with a paid agent. It held nearly all the seats on Hove Council, with only a couple of Labour councillors in opposition.

As for the Liberals, they barely existed in Hove. They had no councillors and no real organisation. In the 1970 general election, they did not even field a candidate.

And yet Wilson, only recently a party member himself, felt he had a chance when chosen to fight the by-election. The Tory candidate was unknown and the Labour contender, Ron Wallis, was from Brighton.

The Government, headed by Ted Heath, was deeply unpopular and struggling badly in the opinion polls.

Although he was then only 32, Wilson was nationally known for his role at Shelter, the new charity helping homeless people.

By applying modern public relations techniques to charity campaigning, he brought home to Britain how vulnerable homeless people were and how Shelter could help them.

Tories, who had plenty of by-election experience in Hove, were not overly worried about Wilson and Sainsbury was a rather shy, self-effacing man, not given to stunts.

But after a couple of weeks, it became clear that the result could be close as Wilson used all his campaign skills.

The Conservatives ended up winning by fewer than 5,000 votes, easily their poorest result in Hove. Wilson had gathered 17,224 votes for the Liberals, a remarkable achievement.

He polled even more votes, almost 19,000, in the February 1974 general election but the Tory majority increased to more than 11,000.

Wilson, a New Zealander, went on to become party president and to run many more campaigns. Sainsbury became a Government minister before retiring in 1997 and was knighted. He quietly gave a large sum to Hove Museum before moving away.

One memory I have is of going to Blatchington Road to see a lifelong Liberal on her 100th birthday. She was to meet Wilson and say she’d vote for him.

Arriving at the house first, I was greeted by an old lady and said, “Congratulations on your 100th birthday.”

“Wait a minute,” she replied. “I’ll get Mother.”

I also recall seeing the less sunny side of Wilson when an Argus reporter had the temerity to ask him what he had been paid for running Shelter.

“None of your business,” said Wilson aggressively.

But the reporter insisted it was and Wilson became unnecessarily belligerent.

If Wilson had won, Hove might have become a Liberal stronghold. But it was Labour which broke the Tory grip with Ivor Caplin in 1997. Mike Weatherley won it back for the Conservatives in 2010.