Sir Roger Daltrey comes from his Jacobean manor house on the hill to chat fishing, farming and brewing. We might talk about My Generation yet you sense he’s happiest speaking about the next one and those who will tend the land long after The Who legend has belted out his…
When Alice Plunkett was given a day riding out for trainer Roddy Armytage for her 16th birthday, she turned up at his Berkshire yard dressed in her hunting gear complete with a Patey. “I remember feeling really uncool,” Plunkett tells me when we meet in the Dorset village where she…
Sixteen years ago, I met actor Robson Green at the Radisson Blu Edwardian Heathrow during a cage-fighting event. Dressed for a hunt ball, I fought my way through a sea of meatheads, flavoured with the fug of sweat mixed with cheap cologne, to secure an interview for The Field. At…
Prue Leith is insatiable. One of her earliest memories is her father saying “never get between Prue and her victuals”. But this hunger and passion is for pretty much everything: gardening, the countryside, food production, fishing, The Great British Bake Off, universities, television, British Rail, cats, her dogs Tattie and…
When David Ross celebrated a recent milestone birthday, he asked friends whether they could give him trees as presents. “I’m obsessed by them,” says the landowner, entrepreneur and philanthropist. “I love seeing them grow; it gives me a real sense of excitement – even though it’s a slow process.” Some…
It’s a cartoon-worthy, perfect spring day at Minette Batters’ rambling red-brick farm in south Wiltshire, the spire of Salisbury Cathedral peeping in the distance from her favourite vantage point. “I defy anyone not to think that this is the best time of year,” she says. “You’ve survived the winter and…
Has any job a greater test of heart, nerve and sinew than that of a National Hunt jockey? Triumph and disaster are constant companions, as Harry Cobden was reminded again earlier this year. No sooner had his new appointment as retained jockey for the most powerful owner in jump racing,…
Unsurprisingly for someone who has spent most of his life gripping a paintbrush, pen or gun, it’s with a firm handshake that William Garfit greets me on the doorstep to his studio: a treasure trove befitting such an artist and countryman. Paintings of rivers, coastlines and flowers adorn the walls…
Racing presenters roving the pre-parade ring are never happier than to spot Lucinda Russell. With corkscrew curly hair and time for everyone, no one exudes more enjoyment for their sport. A licensed trainer now for 30 years, with 1,095 winners to her name, Russell is one of only two Scots…
Patrick Grant goes through life at quite the clip. Brought up in Edinburgh, he played rugby for Scotland at under-18 and under-19 levels. An injury ended his career but not his love of adrenaline, and after graduating from the University of Leeds in materials science he worked in Vail as…
