Norman Tebbit

The Conservative peer on fat Norfolk pheasants, Brexit and combating the ignorance that surrounds game meat.

- Robert Cuthbert

Have you aired the guns this season? 

Not yet, I am getting old and don’t do a lot nowadays but I have a partridge day planned in October and then in January a day of fine, fat Norfolk pheasants. Both days are spent up in Reepham in Norfolk with a great chum of mine, Sir John White. He was much cleverer than me and contrived to be born in a very good bed, inheriting 5,000 acres of Norfolk when his father died. That is managed by a remarkable Danish guy, Poul Hovesen, who has been Farmer of The Year and is also my son-in-law.

And what do you use? 

I have a rather splendid old Beretta; it has only one demerit in that it is rather heavy for me now. I find that a bit of a trial on heavy, wet ploughed land. My younger son, another shooting man who loads for me nowadays, is currently trying to get me to use his .410, but I have not got used to the different swing. I tend to find a heavier gun has a smoother swing.

As a keen game cook myself, I was impressed by the new edition of your book, The Game Cook. What’s the killer dish in there?