“Tending to my father’s in Birmingham aged 11, I made a promise to myself that I’d own a farm one day. To me, that small green patch was an oasis and an opportunity to escape from the cramped two-up, two-down terraced house I shared with my family of 11. It took 30 years of hard graft – from leaving school aged 16, to the army, to a career with the BBC and starting my own marketing agency – but in 1999 I moved to Devon to become a farmer.
As a child of the Windrush generation, it means something to own land. It’s a stake in the ground and a statement of belonging: I'm not temporary. Still, my urban friends thought I was nuts moving here.
A lot of Black Brits feel that the countryside is not for them. They think they’ll be disapproved of, told they don't belong. They worry they’ll be stared at, and they may be right.
But having lived in Devon for over 20 years, I know that if any face is unfamiliar, whether black or white, people will be curious. When I first arrived, I certainly stood out at agricultural shows and many people thought it was polite to use the word ‘coloured’. But the allegedly backward corners of rural Britain are a lot more open minded than people give them credit for.
Perhaps even more than the cities where the criticism comes from. Racism in the city is more sophisticated. Black populations may be higher but walk into an office and it will be a sea of white faces.
I feel far more secure in rural Britain than I ever did growing up in Birm.