3 days ago
Jeremy Clarkson: My favourite season at Diddly Squat? 6.30am on May 10
After five years of being in the countryside I've started to notice the changing of the seasons. This never used to happen when I was in London. For six months of the year I wore a coat and then for the next six I didn't. There was no greenery to tell me where we were in the calendar and in the supermarket strawberries were always available. Even in December? Sure.
It's so different for me now. Let me take you back to a happy moment early last month. I'm sitting nibbling crunchily on the first of my radishes and that evening I'll go into the vegetable garden and pick some asparagus because it's in season. And that brings me on to my next point.
We are taught that there are four seasons in a year, but when you are outdoors, in the countryside, all the time, you come to realise that actually there are hundreds. Take spring. Officially it starts at the beginning of March and goes on until the end of May. But that's an aeon. Entire eco-systems can come and go in such a yawning chasm of time.
At the beginning of March my wildflower fields are green. Then they turn dark yellow as the buttercups and dandelions arrive. Then they become pale yellow as the cowslips bloom. Then they go blue with the dawn of the cornflowers and by the time spring officially ends they're a blanket of white thanks to all the daisies. One season, my arse.
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Having given the matter some thought, I've decided my second favourite season of the year is October 7 at about 5pm. The sun is low in the sky and bathing the autumnal leaves in an orangey glow of warmth and wonderfulness. But even this is beaten by the best season of the year: May 10 at 6.30am.
The dawn chorus is in full flow. Goldfinches and blackbirds are squeaking away, desperately trying to make themselves heard over the deafening shrillness of the robin. Down in the valley there's a crimson-tinged mist. The hedgerows are bright white thanks to all the hawthorn blossom, and you can almost hear the grass growing.
I rarely need to get up that early but in May I do, because the English countryside at that time of year is a match for anywhere else in the world. Northern Iraq is special for sure, so are the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe and the deserts of Arizona and the high plains of Bolivia, where the sun appears to set in the east and the west at the same time. But none of them can really beat Chipping Norton on May 10, just after dawn.
It's a fantastic time for the farm too. The calves have stopped being wobbly and are now in their pasture, fattening themselves up nicely with all the fresh grass. The lambs have all been born and, for the last time in their lives, are amusing as they boing around the place making cartoon noises. And all the crops are in the ground, on their way to becoming money.
When you put it like this, speaking of blossom and spring lambs playing in the sunshine while seeds turn into cash, it's easy to see why people became farmers in the olden days. A ploughman's for lunch, a pint in the local after the day's work was done and then home for a nice pie with your ruddy-faced children who'd spent the day making dams and scrumping apples.
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The trouble is that behind the curtain of Enid Blyton goodness, which is still to be found, there are some serious problems these days. The weather is one of them. It used to be reasonably predictable, but it just isn't any more. I started farming in 2020 and, as I recall, it didn't really rain at all, so all my crops withered. Then it didn't stop raining and everything I could get into the ground, which wasn't much, drowned. And then in February this year the rain stopped and that was pretty much that.
In March Diddly Squat had no rain at all. Not even a drop. In April we got 20mm, which in old money is bugger all. And so far in May we've had 4mm. You couldn't keep a window box going with a dribble like that. It's been drier than it was in 1976.
And while we do have about thirty springs on the farm, they're all in the wrong place. So my onions and my beetroots are just sitting in the dust, being about as lively and productive as those fentanyl enthusiasts you see on every San Francisco street corner these days. The wheat, meanwhile, is curling up, the barley won't really get cracking at all and I dread to think what manner of terribleness is being foisted on my poor potatoes.
Can you imagine what life would be like if weather was a factor in the world of brain surgery? 'I'm sorry, Mrs Miggins. We did our best to save your husband but I'm afraid there was a shower halfway through the operation, so now he's dead.'
Or accountancy? 'Yes, I know you have a well-run business and your product is much loved by a large number of people around the world. But I'm afraid it was very sunny in July and, as a result, you're bankrupt.'
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There's another thing that I still struggle to get my head round. In any other industry you work out how much it costs to make your product, add some profit to make it all worthwhile, and that's what you charge. But it doesn't work like that in farming.
I buy the cows and feed them and look after them and then someone in Chicago tells me how much money I'm going to get for them. It's the same with my wheat. There's a global price, set by people in suits, and if that's less than what it cost me to grow it, tough titties. All the farmers I speak to just accept this state of affairs, but as a new boy I really struggle.
I've even tried to get round it, selling my own barley to my own brewery to make lager. Clever, yes? No. Because if I charge myself what it cost to grow my barley and cover last year's crop that failed to make the grade, a pint of Hawkstone would cost £7,000.
It's the same story with my pub. Such a brilliant idea — farm to fork made real. Yes, but if I make it pay the right price for my lamb, the number of people who could afford to eat there would be about none. I therefore have to charge the wrong price.
So, while the countryside is as beautiful as ever and farming is still full of happiness, there are many recent issues that have conspired to make it extremely difficult. And that's before we get to the biggest issue of them all: Sir Keir Starmer. A man who plainly sees the countryside rather differently to me. He looks at a hawthorn bush in full bloom and thinks, 'I'm going to confiscate that. And build a house on it.'
