Former councillor keeps pictures of Boris's early fight

* Boris Johnson canvasses in Castle Street during the 1997 General Election.

* The rosettes worn by Conservative supporters in '97.

* The first letter on Daily Telegraph notepaper.

... and side two.

* The letter from the office of the Mayor of London.

... and the letter's flipside.

* Boris Johnson's supporters wait anxiously for the result of the 1997 Clwyd South election.

Former Llangollen county councillor Stuart Davies has displayed various treasured items he keeps as mementos of the time 22 years when Boris Johnson fought the local Parliamentary seat.

The poll battle came in May 1997 when the man who became Prime Minister yesterday unsuccessfully contested the Clwyd South Seat during the General Election in which Labour won a landslide victory across the country.

He picked up 9,091 votes compared to his Labour opponent Martyn Jones who received a winning total of 22,901.

Stuart Davies acted as Johnson’s press officer and has since kept a number of pictures and souvenirs of the occasion.

These include a couple of Tory blue rosettes worn by supporters during the campaign and two letters sent to him from the candidate.

The first is dated just after the 1997 election and is written on the notepaper of the Daily Telegraph where Johnson was working at the time as a journalist.

In it he says - in at least foreign languages - that the “struggle continues” and the second came in October 2015 after Johnson had won the London Mayoralty for the first time. In it he tells Mr Davies that he fondly recalls visiting Brymo steelworks during the Clwyd South campaign.

There are also two pictures in the collection, one of which shows party supporters gathering round during the count and the other featuring the candidate back in 1997 canvassing from the doorway of a people carrier in Castle Street, Llangollen.

Mr Davies said: “I remember him from the campaign as being something of a man of the people who liked to meet and was able to talk easily to everyone right across society.

“I think that if he’s not able to push through Brexit we’ll see him call an early election and then I reckon he’ll win hands down.

“By the way, there are lots of jokes these days about his modern-day vehicle being messy all the time. Well, it was the same was back in 1997.”