IN a turbulent political year, Jon Snow, often presenting Channel 4 News live from the Palace of Westminster, has seemed like one of the few calm voices on the scene. Perhaps it’s because, unlike many covering the events, he’s never been a Parliamentary nerd, losing sight of the wider picture when disclosing the latest dodgy update from some undisclosed Government source.
He led an exciting life as a roving reporter before settling into his present role. His encounters with Idi Amin, Fidel Castro and Margaret Thatcher were recounted in his book Shooting History, things he now describes as ‘old news’. However, the early pages recall a picturesque childhood in the ‘green and rustic wastes’ of the Sussex Weald. He’s keener to talk about that and his memories of the setting are still vivid.
‘From my bedroom window in Ardingly, I could see the Balcombe viaduct on the London-Brighton railway line, about half a mile away,’ he says. ‘I’d watch the Brighton Belle in late evening bringing businessmen home, the little lamps shining on their tables. Between me and the viaduct was the most fabulous countryside, which meant I came to love trees both as a vista and then more intimately, because to go for any walk around there was to walk though woods of oak and ash.’
Denne historien er fra December 04, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra December 04, 2019-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
