EXHAUSTION, grief and rebooting was how a close friend described what standing down from the National Farmers’ Union (NFU) would feel like. After 10 years, I always knew leaving would be a rollercoaster of emotions. I can say now, my friends are right—it’s taking time to decompress. More than anything, I miss the people, staff and members alike.
When I was elected deputy president in 2014, it was a big news story: the first woman to become a national officeholder. I was on the front page of the Daily Telegraph and remember being infuriated that it was all the media was interested in. I said at the time: ‘Success will happen when being a woman is no longer newsworthy!’ However, I joined two brilliant women as ‘firsts’: Dame Carolyn Fairbairn, then director-general of the CBI, and Frances O’Grady, TUC chief executive. We might have seemed an unlikely alliance, but we shared a common goal in achieving a ‘good Brexit’.
Esta historia es de la edición April 10, 2024 de Country Life UK.
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Esta historia es de la edición April 10, 2024 de Country Life UK.
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Under the Cornish sun
From the late 19th century, artists attached themselves like barnacles to Cornwall's shores, forming colonies that changed both art and the lives of local people
The contented garden
George Plumptre returns to the garden of the American artist John Hubbard and finds it basking in comfortable maturity
Safe havens of the West
Wildlife and people alike can thrive in four magnificent estates in Wiltshire, Somerset and Devon
A bit of light relief
Why paler hues are back in favour
A wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom
As he prepares for another season on the fly, our correspondent considers what it is about fishing that has long enthralled the great and the good-from Coco Chanel to US presidents, Robert Redford and Eric Clapton
Walking with giants
On a meander around the mighty summits of Dartmoor, Manjit Dhillon recalls tales of warring giants, complex marriages and clotted cream
Romancing the stone
His walls are works of art, but it is Tom Trouton's innovative trees, fruits and even newts that set him apart as a master of dry stone
Claws for celebration
Caught in a pincer movement? Feeling the need to scuttle away? You're not the only one: Helen Scales gets under the shell of the UK's crabbiest crustaceans
Why we love (and hate) the A303
Sometimes, it is the journey we remember, rather than the destination. Julie Harding travels the long, winding-and sometimes frustrating road to the West Country, taking in the sights along the way
A valley of delightful beauty
In the first of two articles, David Robinson considers the medieval abbey at Hartland, beginning with its nebulous origins as an ancient religious site associated with the cult of St Nectan