Of course it wasn't a national, or a well-known party. Sadly, it wasn't even the Monster Raving Loony party, but it was the next best thing, Dr Sked and the Anti-Feds. Some local anti-Europe activists had been campaigning for him, but when it came to emerging from the closet and putting up for election, none of them had the courage. They looked around for a fall guy - and their eye fell on me.

    I'm nobody of consequence, but I  write for the local paper and this has resulted in some surprising contacts over the years.  I'm not political, I write about organic gardening, and I'm not stuffy, I say what I think and stand up for my principles - so maybe someone thought I might stand up for theirs.

a man in Ramsbottom

He wasn't sure, said the Doctor, but he thought there might be a man in Ramsbottom. 

    Only one? So they wouldn't be coming round then. 

    No - I was on my own with this one.

    "I've heard", said Doctor Sked, "that your husband is German. How does he feel about your anti-Europe stance?" I thought they'd stopped asking questions like that when the sex discrimination laws were brought in, but let it pass.

    "No problem there", I said, "he doesn't want Britain in Europe, he says they'll only spoil it for the rest".

    There were some surprised looks on the reporters' faces when I went in with my gardening copy. The editor wanted to see me. Not to remonstrate but to land me with an extra piece to write each week: "My promises to the electorate".

I had to produce a publicity photo at short notice. The economy drive has hit the local press like anyone else, and they don't send a photographer round these days, they hire him by the hour and make sure his time is well used. I once told the editor that Nelson was headed for a huge disaster in 2001 (I worked it out astrologically) and  he replied:

   "Will it be on a Tuesday?"

   "I don't know," I said, "does it matter?"

   "If it isn't it'll miss that week's edition."

    I left a couple of pictures with the chief reporter - a lad who looks like a rugby prop, wears boots and red braces and has the conversational style of a standup comic. He came to Nelson on the back of a forklift truck one night when he was drunk, saw the advert for the job on his way to the station next morning, and decided to stay.

   The pictures were pretty average, I admit, so perhaps I shouldn't blame him for using one he kept in his drawer for emergencies - like when the editor was on his back and he needed a good laugh.  This portrayed me impersonating Marlene Dietrich in heavy makeup and bad light - it was taken at a karaoke competition where I won the title "Worst Singer in the Borough".  

 When the paper came out bearing this monstrosity under the headline "Contests Nelson Seat" the editor received an indignant phone call from a fellow gardener asking who was the old trout passing herself off as Mrs Thome?

    "I know Mrs Thome," he said, "and she's nothing like that."

     During the next four weeks I almost regretted saying yes. There was so much to find out, do and organise. Apart from the piece in the Nelson paper, reporters from the other boroughs were ringing up asking for copy, no doubt put up to it by my editor, who found it faintly amusing that anyone whose literary horizons included recommending lining potato trenches with his weekly paper should aspire to rulership of the nation.

    His master stroke was to get me invited onto a panel of all the candidates to appear in the municipal hall on a kind of "Question Time". This threw me into the worst panic. What did I know about current affairs? I haven't bought a paper in years, and only use other people's to soak up the droppings in the bottom of budgie cages. I calmed down when someone pointed out to me that I might not know much, but I had an opinion on everything (or did they say I was opinionated?). And I've never found talking a problem.  I'll go on for hours if anyone will listen.

The trouble was, I knew nothing about the policies of the anti-Feds, and cared even less. My only hope was to bumble my way through without making a serious hash of things. My only problem to date had been a phone call from an irate Irishman demanding to know what I meant by claiming in my manifesto that Britain had "helped out every country in Europe at some period in history". When had we helped Ireland, he  asked? As the script in question was not written by me I hadn't a clue, and Doctor Sked proved difficult to contact. Only his answering machine was usually available for comment, and that knew less than he did.

    Commonsense told me there wasn't the remotest chance of being elected, but stranger things have happened. I was already worried as to how I would cope with gardening our three allotments and travelling to London, and decided on a three-day week in the capital. In the event of a "hung" parliament, I imagined all the corrupt MPs anxious for my vote queueing up outside my London flat with bottles of wine and boxes of chocolates, not to mention offers of money and holidays. But I nobly resolved not to be bought - I've read the cards for many years, and let them make all my decisions - the way I look at it, they can't make a worse mess of it than I did when I ran things on my own. I wondered how the citizens of Nelson would feel should the tv cameras focus on me laying out the cards on the benches for a decision as to which lobby to go through!

 I needed an agent - not that I was getting popular, it is something you have to have when you stand for parliament.  No one seemed to want the job.  My anonymous backer didn't want to be seen in the town (someone suggested Margaret Thatcher was at the back of all this; ironic if the woman I hated most in the world was now responsible for the furtherance of my career!), even the woman who had put my name forward to the party refused the job, and I had to fall back on a disabled Scottish lesbian, the only person brave enough to 'stand' out front with me - actually she was in a wheelchair. Even she refused to do any campaigning, though she did her bit at the booze-ups at the town hall.

    A big stumbling block was the requirement to find twenty citizens to put their names on a piece of paper stating I was a worthy and reliable person. Not easy for someone who is a byword for weirdness. Having achieved it, I was told to go and find another twenty, in case some of them had signed for two candidates, resulting in my disqualification.

A friend rang to sympathise over the newspaper photo, and to suggest I engage her son - who was doing a photography course - to take a new set. He hadn't progressed as far as colour, so I chose a black jacket and dug out of the bottom of my wardrobe a hat I once bought in Harrods - a kind of black felt bowler sprouting grouse feathers. I came out like a demented Mary Poppins, but at least it was a step up on the old trout.

    I was a bag of nerves as the "Question Time" ordeal approached, and it did not help when a 'briefing letter' arrived telling me it had been arranged by the federation of Christian Churches.  My status as an ordained priestess of wicca looked slightly shaky. Still, no one would know.

     In spite of thinking I had an opinion on everything, the first question, on education, threw me, especially as they put me on first. My own children are in their thirties, and I've never been interested in anyone else's. Had I been more experienced, I could have asked someone else to go first - the others all had prepared speeches. This later turned out to my advantage. I could say whatever I wanted without fear of anyone breathing down my neck - whereas they had to watch their words. I floundered through the first question and after that it got better.   It was then that I discovered a previously unsuspected gift for comedy. After receiving my first remarks in a sticky silence, the audience decided I was funny (perhaps the Harrods' hat?) and everything I said was greeted with unconfined mirth, even when I was being perfectly serious.

     When asked what I thought about the shocking state of the  Health Service and the long waiting lists, there was a gasp as I replied that it was a good thing - the longer people stayed out of the doctors' clutches the greater their chance of survival. They thought the notion of the ancient Chinese doctor, who only got paid when his patients were well, was funny too.

 Similar amusement greeted my solution to homelessness - use setaside land to give everyone who wanted it an allotment, seed for a year's crops, and a pile of logs with which to build their own homes.

    I was beginning to enjoy myself, becoming more outrageous by the minute, to the consternation of the other candidates, one of whom leaned over and whispered:

    "If they held the election now, you'd win hands down", when someone came to the front of the hall and handed a piece of paper to the Chairman.

    First apologising for the departure from procedure,  he announced a surprise question which we need not answer if we did not wish:

    "On what personal faith do the members of the panel base their lives?"

    They left me until last, so I had plenty of time to consider. I felt like Peter before the cock crows. Witches are pretty reclusive about their faith, not because we're ashamed of it, but due to the bad press we get when we "come out".  

    I was surprised to hear one candidate I'd always believed to be Jewish, professing himself a Christian - whether he perjured himself I don't know, but I knew I wasn't going to. I declared myself a believer in the "old religion", and in the powers of earth, rocks and trees, and said my faith was my business, just as theirs was theirs. To my relief I heard someone shout 

    "Quite right!" and then the applause came. I was not about to be lynched! 

 The highlight of my campaign was the Parade. The anonymous backer wanted to splash out on the 'ire of a 'all, where all comers could ask questions of the candidate. I disagreed with this on the grounds that not only would I not be able to answer said questions, but as an entertainment it would be the height of dullness, even should anyone turn up, which I was sure they wouldn't.

    A lifelong trad jazz fan, my dearest wish has always been to have a jazz funeral, though the way my finances go, it's doubtful whether I'll achieve anything more than a pauper's burial in a paper bag. I now saw a way to have my funeral while I was still alive, by hiring a marching band. I'd always wanted to be the "man with the umbrella", and it was my parade, so that is exactly what I was!

    We hired the band for two hours. I wore a pink leotard and spangled tights, and a short black circular skirt that stood out round my waist when I spun. I unearthed a huge multicoloured golf umbrella we once rescued from the river, where it must have blown during a gale, trimmed it with white silk fringes off an old lace shawl, and I was ready!

    As the parade waited in the spring sunshine for the band to emerge from the pub so we could  strike up and start off, our staunchly British slogan was mistaken for the National Front. A small crowd of boys had collected to stare at us.

    "What does that mean?" one asked, pointing to the banner that the man from Ramsbottom had run up in his spare time. I was struggling for an explanation when a spotty child cut in:

    "Does it mean all t'pakkis gerroutta Nelson?"

    "No it doesn't", I said firmly, but before I could lecture him on the values of integration:

    "Yer no bloody good then, are yer?" he said disgustedly, like a latter day William Brown, leading away his troops in search of better fun.

    At the count, all candidates started equal, with four long rows of tables waiting to receive the ballot papers. As time went by, and Conservative and Labour's piles grew in length, my tables began to be taken away to be added to theirs. I lost my deposit, but I got more votes from my constituency than the Great Doctor did in his, so I think I could at least have been elected Leader of the Party.

After it was all over, I received a letter of commendation from the Party, and a telephone call from my backer asking me if I would consider standing in the European elections the following summer. For a moment, but only a moment, I was tempted. 

    "But what would I do if I won?" I asked him, remembering that the sole purpose of his party was to keep Britain out of Europe.

    “You would refuse to go, of course," he replied - refuse to go!  Just try me! The vision of a flat in Strasbourg swam before my eyes, just over the Rhine the Black Forest, Wolfram's home, and all those orderly German cycle lanes!  But no, standing for Parliament is a thing you can only do once for laughs, the second time you have to be serious about it, and I wasn't prepared to put in the time.

    I put down the phone, considering, not for the first time, that there are people in this world madder than I am.