Australian TV wants to make a documentary about me. Why would a black guy from inner-city Birmingham want to buy a farm in the West Country? The usual stuff follows — long interview, shots of me with my lovely Ruby Red cattle and shots with Chris, my farm manager. Then a hike north to where it all started — Small Heath, Birmingham. I hadn’t been back for 30 years and had never wanted to go. The poverty and misery of it left a scar on my soul, which meant I had avoided rekindling memories of it. But the producer is adamant: I have to visit the street where I grew up, the school — and the allotment that inspired me to own a farm.
I arrive at Bankes Road — still the same as I remembered. Two-up, two-down terrace houses with no greenery in sight. But the people have changed. When I was a kid it was a mix of Asian, Irish and West Indian families. The Irish and West Indians have long gone; it is now a Muslim enclave of Somali and Pakistani families. I knock on my old front door to be faced with an elderly woman who looks terrified the moment she sees the camera. She covers her face with her veil and says something in a language I can’t understand, but her gestures signal that she is not interested in talking to me. Her son intervenes and informs me it is time for Friday prayers and it is inconvenient. Having got this far, I want to look around the house, but it is not to be. Next, off to my old school where the headmistress searches the records and there it is — my name in black and white. So it is true, I was brought up in this miserable place.
Before returning to my own New World I have to visit the place that gave me hope and the ambition to buy a part of the British countryside, Yardley Wood allotments. So imprinted on my memory is this site that I find my father’s plot with ease. He has long since left this world, but to my surprise his handiwork is still clinging on. The shed he and I built together is still there, albeit very much the worse for wear. Perhaps it feels it cannot collapse until I have come and paid homage to it.
The news is delivered by a well-spoken woman: ‘You have been selected for an interview for the Central Devon seat.’ I am full of trepidation. Within minutes my hotmail delivers a message that throws me back to that place of uncertainty and dread. Chippenham Association has also invited me for interview. I arrive for my Central Devon interview and am greeted by the two minders whose job it is to put all the candidates at ease, but polite conversation and a lack of eye contact make me imagine what it must be like to be a condemned man waiting to be executed. I am marched to the chamber where the party faithful await. For some ten years they have kept the faith and they want to make damned sure that they choose the right person to lead them to victory. They don’t take any prisoners. One poor chap fainted under the pressure. I leave the interview like a gibbering wreck but nonetheless I am through to the next round.
The pressure is getting to me. Central Devon must have thought this so-called A-lister nothing more than a total moron, and Cameron’s initiative seriously flawed. I leave my second interview very disappointed with my performance, but grateful to Central Devon for putting me through that experience. I vow that I will never perform so badly at another selection. That determination gets me to the final interview stage with Chippenham.
This will go down as one of the most stressful yet memorable days of my life. I have been invited to Launceston, Cornwall, to showcase my products, and the Prince of Wales will be there. As it happens, this is also the day that Chippenham has invited me for the final selection. I had vowed to free up my diary so I could concentrate on preparing properly, yet I want to meet Prince Charles to thank him for helping to fund my Black Farmer scholarship; he is one of the few people who has been prepared to support my initiative to give young black people an opportunity to experience working and living in rural Britain. There is nothing for it but to do both. I thank Prince Charles, then dash to Chippenham. I feel an extra shot of adrenalin kick in as I spend the next 30 minutes giving it my all. Result: Chippenham, the gateway to Middle England, selects me as their candidate.
I know that my hero General Patton is now commanding his troops in the sky, but I could have sworn that he was sitting right opposite me. His name badge puts me straight: it announces that he is in fact Lord Ashcroft. Comfortable in his own skin, direct, clearly a person who revels in his maverick status, here’s a man who deals with the truth regardless of how a person might receive it. All candidates in target seats have been commanded to attend a round table with the ‘General’, so that he can share with us how he may be able to help finance our campaigns to win our seats. Old Blood and Guts is not a man to waste his money, so he expects us, his lieutenants, to put together a very good campaign strategy. I shall call mine ‘No Guts, No Glory’.
Wilfred Emmanual-Jones is the Tory candidate for Chippenham.
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