My rural heroes and heroines
The Prince HRH The Prince of Wales, 73
Champion credentials Lifelong advocate for the environment, farming and the countryside; established The Prince’s Countryside Fund in 2010 (www.princescountrysidefund.org.uk)
MY husband is a countryman to his very core. It’s the place where he is most happy and relaxed, an integral part of his heart and soul. Whether he’s hedge-laying in the pouring rain, striding, like a mountain goat, up impossibly steep Highland hills, planting trees in the arboretum or pruning at Highgrove, this is where he finds true peace.
And his knowledge of the countryside, of lore and landscape, species and rare breeds, is as broad as it is deep. He was warning of the horrors of intensive farming many years ago, fighting for the survival of British Saddleback pigs and Welsh Mountain pedigree sheep, preserving ancient crafts, singing the praises of regeneration and organic agriculture alike.
His knowledge comes not only from books, but from hard-won experience, tramping every inch of the countryside, from north to south, east to west, talking, listening, supporting and celebrating. He’s fluent in the rural tongue. Dry-stone wallers and crofters, shepherds and weavers, cheesemakers, stick-whittlers, potters and blacksmiths—he is their champion and public voice, a passionate advocate of all things rural. With The Prince’s Countryside Fund, he has provided vital financial support in the most dark and desperate times.
I have before me a list of his 68 countryside patronages, ranging from the Aberdeen-Angus Cattle Society to the Yorkshire Dales Millennium Trust. And his role is not mere honorary figurehead, rather one offering practical, tangible support and guidance to an astonishing array of group campaigns and associations. Red squirrels and Dales ponies, fly-fishermen and great bustards, woodlands, Sussex cattle and Lleyn sheep… his patronages provide a fascinating snapshot of the countryside, as well as being testament to his hard work and, above all, proof, if proof be needed, of my husband’s deep and enduring love for all things bucolically British. HRH The Duchess of Cornwall
The wildlife conservationist David Mills, 79
Champion credentials Founder and owner of the British Wildlife Centre in Surrey
I AM a London boy, but, as a child, I dreamt of being a dairy farmer and running a zoo. I never imagined that I would achieve both. After agricultural college, I farmed on Exmoor before I moved to the land my father [the architect Edward D. Mills] had purchased in Surrey in 1968. I took my prize Jersey dairy herd with me. Thirty years later,
