ALTHOUGH HE WAS BORN in Yorkshire, Simon Palmer’s father’s job – in the London head office for British Rail – meant that as a small boy, his family moved to Bromley, in southeast London. But the countryside was and is his natural habitat. When he got back from family holidays to places like Cornwall or Wales, he would descend into a slight depression for a couple of weeks, the time it took him to re-acclimatise back into a suburban way of life. It was when he was in his teens that he fell in love with North Yorkshire after visiting Lastingham. “It was one of the most defining moments in my life,” he admits. On leavingcounty – and it has since become his spiritual home.
