The chef-turned-farmer
JULIUS ROBERTS would stare at the producers delivering fresh food to the Noble Rot restaurant in London, where he worked as a chef, and envy their sunny, healthy demeanours. By contrast, he felt withered from lengthy shifts in a scorching kitchen. Eventually, fearing the onset of burnout, he handed in his notice and headed for his family's holiday cottage and its eight acres in Suffolk.
'It was a leap of faith, but soon I found myself connecting with Nature,' reveals the former sculpture student. Mr. Roberts's first purchase was four hirsute Mangalitsa piglets that arrived in the back of their breeder's car. 'I watched them walk into their pen in the woods shell-shocked and then sniff and come alive. It was a defining moment for me. It made me want to change perceptions and show consumers how much intellect and sensitivity there is in animals and how important it is to shop right.'
Mr. Roberts, 29, set up an Instagram page to chart his sustainability story (@juliusroberts), which included, two years later, taking his pigs to slaughter. He now has 150,000 followers and various spin-off opportunities including a programme for Channel 5 called A Taste of the Country that will air at 7.30 pm on July 5.
Having now relocated to a small farm in Dorset, Mr Roberts is kept relentlessly busy caring for 50 Hebridean sheep and 30 British Primitive goats, a flock of Copper Marans and Cream Legbar chickens and his garden is overflowing with hearty vegetables and herbs. 'I generally sell goats for breeding and the lambs for meat,' he reveals. 'However, it's not so much about the money you're making; it's more about feeding yourself, as well as boosting biodiversity. It's a way of life that I love and I could never go back to the city.'
The goat-fleece spinner
Denne historien er fra June 29, 2022-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra June 29, 2022-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.
