Worlds Apart (20 page)

What was it all for?

‘Good little Muslim girls shouldn’t be drinking.’

I spun round to see Briggs, who was supping a pint, then felt my fingers tightly clench the glass in my hand.

I nodded, not knowing what else to do, and took a gulp of ginger ale. It went down the wrong way and I tried to choke inwards, hoping he wouldn’t notice, before turning away and spluttering uncontrollably.

‘Well, Ahmed,’ Briggs continued, oblivious to my sounds. ‘You got treated the same as everyone else … no special treatment…’

I wasn’t sure what triggered this, but I wanted to stop him and say that I never expected to be treated any differently to the lads, which is why I respected him and the other trainers. What perception did they have of me? That I was a winger?

A few lads barged into our one-way conversation.
Briggs became engrossed with them, laughing and revealing the big gap in his teeth.

Twenty minutes later I was stood in the rain on the empty platform at Godstone, staring down at the tracks. How surreal to see the trainers and my colonel again. It was hard to believe I once belonged to this world. I wondered where I would be if I’d got a brown envelope through the post, calling me up for service. Would I have done it? If it meant helping to stabilise countries of conflict, I would be proud to be part of it, but I couldn’t help wondering if this war was worth dying for? How long will it go on and will it prevent a bigger war from happening in the future?

Was this what John was thinking when he went out there? I wondered. He was a good man, always looked for the best in everyone and would always go out of his way to support the weakest. I now realise how big an impact he had on me during the training; always asking me how I was getting along, encouraging me every step of the way. He was the only one I could share my tears of pain with. I have a lot to thank him for and regret not telling him this when he was alive.

O
N THE UPSIDE
, my toenails have regrown, my blisters have gone and I can shave my legs.

The training was an opportunity of a lifetime. I have become a different person, my whole outlook on life is different. Perhaps if I hadn’t done the training I might still have been engrossed in the corporate rat race, with more money but not the priceless life experience the army has given me.

It should come as no surprise that my parents were still on my back about marriage. They began to show signs of desperation by saying that I could choose my own husband as long as he was Pakistani, spoke Punjabi
and was from the same caste. After months of radio silence they came up with another suggestion; I could choose my own husband as long he was Pakistani and from the same caste. Later, this dwindled down to marrying anyone as long as he was from the same caste, down to ‘Just marry someone!’

So far, I haven’t.

Perhaps they thought I was a lesbian?

My reaction was to defend myself or just plain ignore them. But as time went on, things began to shift around me. My friends settled into relationships – real relationships, similar to the ones my siblings had. Those who remained single, like me, felt they were missing something and became active in finding that special person to share their life with.

I couldn’t understand why I didn’t feel the same way and found myself on a journey of self-doubt, confusion and even forcing myself to match these feelings. Perhaps my father was right that I was too self-sufficient, perhaps I didn’t carry that particular chromosome, or perhaps having witnessed the attitudes of recruits towards relationships I was scared. For some men at the barracks it was a way of life to have a few women on the side while married and it was accepted as part of the squaddie culture. So what was the difference between them and the Muslim men who had three wives and treated women as
second-class citizens? The values I had run away from were here again, but just in a different environment.

I do wonder what my parents’ reaction would have been if they had discovered that I was once in the army. The best scenario with Mum would have been for her to realise I was just a reflection of herself; fighting for recognition as something other than a subservient figure in the family. Her need to get me married was to prove she was capable of also carrying out the family duties.

As for my dad, perhaps he would have been proud of my military life, causing a special bond to be formed between us. Perhaps a part of me wanted to do the training to prove to Dad that I was just as capable as his sons, and that I could step into a man’s world and do just as well. His army life was one he never shared with anyone; a life I wanted to be a part of.

I’m saddened my parents are not here today to read my book. They never did find out about my life in the army. Perhaps Dad would have been proud that I had entered his world after all.

Outside my home life, my relationship with Becky grew stronger once we left the army. We’d been through a unique experience together and the loss of it had left a big hole in our lives on a physical, mental and emotional level.

Becky went on to pursue a career as a climber and
became a successful motivational speaker. Some of the other recruits went on to join the regulars in Hereford, others left the army and joined private security firms, and a few decided to get out altogether and headed for a career in the City. Silently, I watched from the sidelines, feeling a deep void forming inside, wondering where to go.

My interest in the military continued. I started a civilian job with the MOD by chance, working on campaigns to recruit soldiers for Afghanistan. It felt good to be back on old territory; working with retired colonels, officers and majors who were brought in to assist on marketing strategies. It was then that I realised there were other ways to pursue my interest in the armed forces other than on the ground – by pursuing a political interest.

Politics had never been on my radar, though I had been influenced by my mother’s salute to Margaret Thatcher on which party to support.

My hopes now were to give something back to my country and contribute to help make Britain a healthy society. I wanted to gain a better understanding of how our political conflicts around the world originated. Pakistan, a country close to my heart, puzzled me – why it had always remained corrupt and unstable compared to India, which it was a part of for many years. How a country whose name was invented by Cambridge professors – in fact an acronym comprised of the homelands
that Britain owned – has now become Britain’s biggest continuous threat.

I began reading the national news, then decided to dip my toe into the world of politics. Many doors closed on me, including my local council, which I had called numerous times and never received a response. How does one get into politics from the cold with no contacts in this world? I wondered.

By fluke, I came across a talk occurring at the House of Commons about women on the front line. Anything related to the army still interested me, so I decided to go, though later I realised the talk included journalists and aid workers working in areas of conflict. There was one high-ranking lady from the army who attended.

It took ages to get through security, then finally I arrived in the small, packed room. The panel was made up of several women and the three organisers were stood to the side. The army lady began to talk about her experiences of being a high-ranking female in the army, and what she saw as the future role of women in the field. Something made me put my hand up with a few others during Q&A afterwards and I asked her if she had ever heard of women ‘perhaps’ training with the SAS to also determine if there was a role for them in that unit.

‘Never,’ she said. ‘I’ve never heard anything like that before and don’t think it will be on the army’s agenda.’

I sat back in my seat. If someone as senior as her had not heard about it then it had definitely gone into a black hole.

Afterwards I approached the three organisers, who were surrounded by ladies all wanting to ask questions. They were from the Conservative Women’s Organisation (CWO). I managed to get the attention of one of them, Carol, who invited me to one of their workshops.

I rocked up in jeans and trainers and thought I was in the wrong place when I saw the ladies dressed in suits and pearl necklaces … God knows what they made of me. Thankfully, Carol welcomed me with a warm smile. The workshop kicked off with a branding exercise where we were put into pairs and asked to write first impressions of each other. My partner put me down as ‘friendly but reserved’, ‘streetwise’ (probably because of my dress sense), and ‘from somewhere in the north’.

We moved on to selection questions, where each of us had to stand in front of the group and answer questions based on current affairs, with a few personal questions thrown in the mix. When it came to my turn, I froze at the first two questions; firstly because I’ve never done any public speaking, and secondly they were asking
my opinion
. Nobody had asked for my opinion on anything before.

‘Ah, this is a popular one…’ Carol wrapped up with a final question for me. ‘Is there anything about your
past which would embarrass or jeopardise the party or yourself?’

I asked her to repeat the question to give me more time. Paranoia kicked in, was it important to tell her about my army training, and that I hadn’t completed the course for reasons unbeknownst to me?

Carol waited a few moments and then interrupted my thoughts. ‘Think front cover of the
Mail on Sunday…’

It took two years and a very steep learning curve to get through the applications, interviews, assessments, campaigning initiatives and political knowledge pool to finally be selected to stand as a parliamentary candidate in the 2015 elections.

People kept telling me I’d got into politics at the right time, when parties were looking for people with a variety of backgrounds and experience, rather than just career politicians. It was good to hear, but, at the same time, I didn’t just want to be a tick in the right box.

My first stab was at becoming a councillor. I called up my local council and nobody bothered to get back to me, until Carol got in touch, at which point they returned my call. It was very hard to come in from the cold with no background in politics. The council I became involved with was friendly but distant, a different bunch. It wasn’t a support group like CWO – we were all out for ourselves to get councillor positions.

The experience was not brilliant. Most people had an extremely high opinion of themselves, which I didn’t like at all. And, for all that self-importance, when I got to the bottom of some of them, their day job was nothing to write home about… I’d done so much more with my life, but perhaps with my northern accent, ethnicity and gender, they didn’t feel the need to ask about me and had maybe already made up their minds. I couldn’t be sure this was the case, but I could sense it was.

Not surprisingly, I was put in a ward where I wouldn’t have a chance, but perhaps all this was for a reason. As soon as I realised that I didn’t have a cat in hell’s chance of winning, I moved onto plan B: I would go for the elections the following year.

First, however, I had to pass the Parliamentary Assessment Board (PAB). I went into it a little late but was still determined to go for it. It would be an amazing experience to pass my PAB and run for a parliamentary seat. Both the Conservative Women’s Organisation and Conservative Campaign Headquarters (CCHQ) were very supportive and steered my application in the right direction, and within weeks my assessment was arranged in Cambridge.

Before I left, Carol gave me two pieces of advice for the assessment: have an opinion on anything they ask, and be yourself. And that was exactly what I did. I had no idea about some of the questions asked, but I
still said something. I also mentioned running my own business, my army experience, working for a homeless charity and being a governor at a special needs’ school. This, if nothing else, set me apart from the others – lawyers, lawyers and more lawyers. Perhaps this is what got me through, as my political knowledge was definitely inferior to theirs.

I was thrilled when I got a letter to say I had passed. Next came the application, which needed to be well thought through. I lost count of the number of drafts I put forward to Carol to look at until I got the template right. To my surprise, I received quite a few invitations for interviews, from Sunderland to Wales, but the ones that drew me in were from Manchester and its surrounding towns.

A
s the train pulled into Manchester Piccadilly, it was raining as always. I headed out before the crowds and made a beeline for the exit. I was very grateful to have been invited to the initial interview for the Oldham and Rochdale seats. They were unsafe seats, but that didn’t matter to me – I wanted to go for it and experience what it was like to be on this journey. I had no idea what to expect.

As I walked through Manchester town centre towards
the tramlink, I looked across to Piccadilly Gardens and noted how much the place had developed. I reflected back on when I first left there for London many years ago and how much the place had come on since then.

The tram went through Oldham, then finally Rochdale, which felt like a different world – only half an hour earlier I was on the dazzling stage of Manchester, now I was definitely backstage. I could smell the poverty – the young mums pushing prams, teenagers hanging around with nothing to do. The roads didn’t look clean, shops were either boarded up or had grills over their windows even though they were open. I almost stood on a used condom as I came out of the tram station.

It was like being in a time warp. The media coverage surrounding Rochdale since the last elections had not been good. Sex abuse and sex grooming – in the place where I’d grown up. My feelings were very mixed. The last time I was here was just before my father died and it had been too painful to come back since. However, the familiarity of the Rochdale and Oldham seats drew me to applying here. I didn’t think I would get as far as an interview, but here I was.

Going through Oldham on the tram didn’t feel right; I was so used to the big orange bus chugging away. Oldham town centre was busy, there were new shops and even a Muslim college. It felt like the English and
Muslim communities were more integrated here than when I was growing up, even with all the media coverage of terrorism in the last ten years.

Times had changed for the better, I thought. I recalled the dreadful Oldham race riots back in 2001. Though I was living in London and was in the army at the time, I would visit Oldham and encounter an unpleasant sting in the air.

The Rochdale Premier Inn, where I was staying for the duration of my trip, turned out to be miles away from the tram station, but it gave me a chance to see the place. I finally arrived and, within an hour, I was in a local taxi taking me to Rochdale Conservative Club.

Twenty minutes later and eight quid shorter, I arrived. It was pouring with rain. I hadn’t thought my wardrobe through and, for some stupid, stupid, stupid reason, I had decided to wear a dress with flesh-coloured tights and heels.

The first step I took outside was into a big puddle, which resulted in murky water splashing all up one leg. The committee had decided to have the meeting in the pub below the Conservative Club, as the hall had been booked for another event apparently far more important than selecting a candidate for Rochdale.

The panel was sat on one table – all white, English people – with their wines and beers. On another table sat the
candidates – all Pakistani men, bar one who was English. I could feel their disapproving eyes on me as they looked me up and down, no doubt noting my ensemble of dress and (now partially dirty) tights. I felt as if I had gone back twenty years; it was as if I were doing something shameful. I managed to raise a smile and joined the candidates.

‘What’s your name?’ one asked, who introduced himself as Khalil.