Derbyshire's High Sheriff

Pat Ashworth talks to Annie Hall who was sworn in as High Sheriffon 6th April.

- Pat Ashworth

SPRING is arriving in Ashford-in-the-Water and the view from Annie Hall’s living-room window is of a rural idyll, as English as they come. The house, built into a former quarry, stands high above the road and the windows look out beyond the meadows and winding river to the green and gentle slopes beyond.

It’s a little like sitting in an observatory, but there’s not going to be a great deal of time for that in the coming year. Not that Annie has done much sitting around in her life so far, to be honest: born and brought up near Wincanton on the Somerset-Dorset border, where her parents were both involved in the family business. She went to local Catholic schools from the age of five and diplomatically describes her secondary school, St Antony’s Leweston, as a place where scholastic excellence was not important.

‘I remember going back some years later and saying to one of my former teachers, “You know, I don’t think the education was really that good.” And she said, “No, my dear. Leweston aimed to turn out charming young ladies who married well.” I don’t think anyone ever told my parents that. But it was a nice education and a beautiful setting.’

She embarked on training to be a psychiatric nurse at Herrison Hospital near Dorchester. ‘It had originally been the county asylum and still retained many of its features including its own farm,’ she reflects. ‘A number of patients had been there for years, mostly for illnesses that nowadays do not require hospitalisation. Thankfully it has long closed but working there gave me an insight and a lifelong interest into mental illness.’