WE SAW history made. As my father's generation lived through 1945, I with millions of others lived every minute of yesterday morning, May and 1997 As the Tory party lay broken before our eyes, we literally felt the political earth move. Indeed Jim Callaghan - Labour's last prime minister and now a lord said it was exactly like 1945 "but in spades".
We shall tell our children and grandchildren of this moment for years to come.
Nothing, no one, had prepared us for this seismic change in the politics of Britain. Even the pollsters who sighed with such relief had not believed their landslide forecasts. Certainly Labour never did, nor - in their worst imaginings - did the Tories.
Until a week ago some Conservative strategists clung to the belief that a hung parliament was achievable. Finally acknowledging that the game was up, some could just about contemplate a Labour majority of around 40. Mr Tony Blair would happily have settled for that. Nor was his repeated warning against complacency an act. Chastened by four consecutive defeats, never in its wildest imaginings could Labour have envisaged a record breaking majority of close on 180 seats.
Yet it now seems obvious that the electorate knew all along what it intended to do. Those memorable crowd scenes on the South Bank, outside Buckingham Palace and in Downing Street yesterday showed it awoke on the morning after quite delighted with its handiwork.
The Tory chairman, Mr Brian Mawhinney, suggested the result was not a reflection on five weeks of a campaign but five years of a government. And he is right.
Mr Major's Tory critics feared (and in many cases believed and hoped) that Britain's ejection from the European Exchange Rate Mechanism in September 1992 marked a loss of authority from which the Major government would never recover. Certainly the events of "Black Wednesday" cast a long shadow over the 1992 parliament, as the Conservative Party - under cover of Maastricht - fought and re-fought the final days of Margaret Thatcher, and consistently and conspicuously failed to reconcile itself to her successor.
Arguably the British people should not have re-elected the Conservatives in 1992. Had it not been for English antipathy to Mr Neil Kinnock the Welsh man - and the tabloid demonising of him - perhaps they would not have done. Reducing Mr Major to a barely workable majority suggested little appetite or enthusiasm for a fourth Tory term.
In any event, the love affair, ended soon thereafter. And if Black Wednesday marked the turning point, then the disposition to be rid of them was compounded by the perception of sleaze, scandal and incompetence which played with such deadly effect when the votes were cast.
Yes, it is now clear that the electorate decided to be rid of the Tories a long time ago. But it didn't just eject them. It did something more than that. It spat them out of office with quite breathtaking contempt.
And that raw, deep-seated contempt was startlingly revealed by the rejoicing which greeted the fall of Mr David Mellor in Putney, of Mr Michael Portillo in Enfield, of Mr Michael Forsyth in Stirling - and more personally, of Mr Neil Hamilton in Tatton and the likes of Mr David "the mouth" Evans in Welwyn Hatfield. Mr Evans distinguished himself early in the campaign with a foul attack on his Labour opponent as the mother of three "bastard" children. And many will have had their belief in justice restored as Ms Melanie Johnson sent Mr Evans packing into political oblivion.
The poison simply didn't wash. Nor did the "bigotry" deployed in Exeter against Mr Ben Bradshaw, Labour's openly gay candidate who swept to victory over his deeply hostile, homophobic opponent, Dr Adrian Rodgers.
Watching those declarations one wondered about the obvious contradiction between the "moral" mood engendered by tabloid leader writers, and the mood and disposition of the people. As they exacted their revenge on the Tories, these results betokened a generosity of spirit, a liberal instinct, which the headlines would sometimes suggest has been all-but-extinguished in Britain.
And there was no mistaking the generosity of spirit which bathed Tony and Cherie Blair and their three children as they prepared for life in Downing Street yesterday.
Tears ran down cheeks, lumps stuck in throats as they embarked on a great personal adventure which people want - for this time at least to believe can make for a better Britain.
It may be true, as they say, that all political careers, all governments, end in failure. The hard part is certainly just beginning. Mr Blair transformed his party with ruthless determination, and has promised to do the same for the country. To get the Tories out, he assembled a coalition which surely cannot hold. This famous victory was aided by a combination of the Sun's conversion, and the deafening silence of Old Labour. Some, sooner or later, are bound to be disappointed.
One fancies it will be the Left, if it imagines Mr Blair embraced Tory economic orthodoxy intending to subvert it. His contract with the British people is rooted in his promise to preside over a dynamic, competitive, low tax economy. The challenge will be to combine the more efficient operation of the Thatcher model with his promise to restore a greater sense of community and compassion for others.
His pledge of "a world class education system, for the many not the few", will be sorely tested by his undertaking to live within Mr Kenneth Clarke's spending limits for the first two years. He inherits the dilemma of the ever- increasing welfare demands of an ageing population.
He is vague about his promised reform of the National Health Service. The pledge to end Britain's isolation in Europe sits uneasily alongside the Euro sceptical expectations of the Murdoch press. And Mr Blair has sounded as unconvincing as Mr Douglas Hurd and Mr Major when they proclaimed they were winning the argument in Europe.
However the sheer scale of Labour's victory will permit an improvement in the Euro-atmospherics. The problem was not with Mr Major's "wait and see - negotiate and decide" approach to the Single Currency, but the determination of Conservative candidates to foreclose on his option. Having effectively ruled out membership before 2003, Labour should feel neither reason nor compulsion to similarly torment themselves.
If and when the British people come to decide in a referendum, they will do so with benefit of experience and evidence. They will also do so against the backdrop of dramatic constitutional change.
Again the size of victory - combined with the Tory party's extinction in Scotland and Wales will smooth the passage of Mr Blair's devolution proposals, the flagships of a comprehensive programme which will reform the House of Lords, inaugurate a Freedom of Information Act, and open the possibility of electoral reform. Indeed the sweeping nature of the mandate will make it next to impossible for the Tories to mount any effective opposition. Battles which a putative Labour government faced on Thursday suddenly look to be already won.
There will be problems, for sure. And it isn't fanciful to think that absence of effective opposition could loom large among them. But time enough for problems in months and years ahead.
This is a moment to savour change on an epic scale - change embodied by a cull of cabinet ministers and the reduction of the Tory party to an English nationalist rump. But change embodied too in those images of Mr Blair, his working wife and their three youngsters for whom 10 Downing Street is now going to be home.
We have truly never seen the like.