EQUINE portraitist Madeleine Bunbury, like a magnificent mounted Phileas Fogg, has declared her intention of going Around the World in Eighty Horses. When we spoke she was already in America and about to paint an iconic Western mustang as well as a racehorse and a hunter.
“It would be a different breed of horse in each country, although I’m not even sure if there are 80 different breeds,” confesses Bunbury, and then we start counting: “Well, I’m off to Argentina next, so I could do the Criollo, and then I’m in India this winter, which means the Marwari with those incredible ears. And Lipizzaners in Austria, and Andalusians in Spain, oh, and I definitely want to do a Mongolian…”
Bunbury has made a good start just in England, with a wonderful collection of near-life-size hunters, thoroughbreds, polo ponies, hacks and riding ponies in her portfolio. She explains: “Coming from Martinique originally, I didn’t really have anywhere to live when I first came back to England from studying in Italy.” So she more or less stable-surfed in the shires. “I would stay with different friends who had horses and would paint their horses in return for board and lodging. Mainly it would be their hunters and riding horses.”
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Rory Stewart - The former Cabinet minister and hit podcast host talks to Alec Marsh about the parlous state of British politics, land management and his deep love of the countryside
The gently spoken 51-year-old former Conservative Cabinet minister is a countryman at heart. That's clear: he even changes into a tweed waistcoat for the interview, which takes place at his London home and begins with a question about his precise career status. Having resigned from the Commons and the Conservative Party in 2019, the former diplomat and soldier has reinvented himself, first with an unconventional but promising run as an independent for the London mayoralty (abandoned because of COVID19 in 2020) and then as a media figure, co-hosting one of the country's most popular podcasts, The Rest Is Politics, alongside Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor.
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