Life stories “We’re such Kate Humble country bumpkins” The popular TV presenter may have left behind the big city but her life remains as hectic as ever Interview by Nicki Household Pictures by Philip Reeson

T WOULD be easy to attribute Kate Humble’s television success to her wide, Julia Roberts smile and the glorious mane of unruly blonde curls that she constantly tosses back Ias we talk in her publisher’s London office. But it would also be unfair because Kate is a woman to be reckoned with. “I’ve read that I was offered a screen test on my second day in television, but that’s nonsense” she says indignantly. “If you want to work in TV you start at the bottom. You type stuff, make tea and sweep things or you’re a runner, so that’s what I did for a company that made corporate videos. I went on to become a production assistant, researcher, director and an assistant producer and it was only after all that experience that I landed a job at the BBC, researching for Animal Hospital and then the Holiday farm in the Wye Valley near Monmouth project’. Tutored by local experts, the programme, who gave me the chance to which she and her husband Ludo Humble by Nature courses are aimed at present. So I’d actually been working in acquired two years ago. people of all ages. The first one, in television for eight or nine years before a In her new book, also called Humble by hedge-laying, took place in March 2012, presenting job came my way!” Nature , Kate tells the story of their move and since then Kate and Ludo have added That first on-screen appearance was an to a Welsh smallholding in 2007 and their foraging, keeping sheep, pigs, poultry and unglamorous report from a barge holiday recent battle to buy the farm (which the bees and ‘foodie’ workshops on salting on a French canal, in thick fog and driving council wanted to break up and sell off), and curing, charcuterie, baking and rain. But it did the trick because Kate’s “I have sheep because I sausage making. presenting career took off. Her TV credits “What’s really special is that they’re include Springwatch, Autumnwatch , want to eat them, and I held in the context of a proper working Volcano Live , Orbit: Earth’s Extraordinary raise chickens because I farm,” says Kate. “Our friends Tim and Journey and Lambing Live . She is also a want their eggs” Sarah live in the farmhouse as tenant qualified commercial diver and only the farmers and we run our courses in the second woman to be appointed President beautiful new barn.” of the RSPB. restore the crumbling farm buildings and Kate and Ludo still live on their nearby Though still much in demand as a TV launch the courses that were Kate’s smallholding, where they rear their own presenter, Kate has now embarked on an dream. Although most local people were pigs, sheep and goats and have two adored new venture called Humble by Nature, supportive, there were clashes with mongrels, Badger and Bella. Now 44, running courses in food, rural skills and bureaucracy and a few hostile individuals Kate decided long ago that she did not animal husbandry on a 100-acre livestock who regarded the venture as a ‘vanity want children. ‘I have six godchildren

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