Tackling bogs with a garron or taking photographs as #TheHuntress, this producer, stylist and private PA says her heart is in the Highlands
MY earliest sporting memory takes me to the banks of the River Dee with my grandfather. Aged three – and dressed in a tweed flat cap, my frog wellies and the prettiest dress I could find (much to everyone’s dismay) – I caught my first, and only, salmon. I think my grandfather had a little more to do with it than I did but it remains my greatest sporting triumph and one that has proved elusive ever since. I felt I had dressed appropriately for such an occasion, my grandfather did not. He believed that you dress as a gentleman to shoot, catch, chase or stalk a gentleman.
I learned to hunt with my grandmother, shoot beside my father and cook the game we brought home with my mother.
My father introduced me to one of my greatest passions, stalking deer in the Highlands. I adore the unparalleled beauty of the hill, the insane light, the constantly rolling weather, the harsh peaks and vast distances you cover. I also love the challenge of a stalk, many of which end with us completely soaked, creeping back away from the beasts then home to the lodge.
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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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