Country Life

For four four decades, George Monbiot has been one of Britain's strongest voices speaking out on the environment.

After starting his career with the BBC, Monbiot is now best known for his books and his weekly column in The Guardian, winning a reputation as a tireless and passionate advocate for the natural world, as well as making plenty of enemies along the way. He joins James Fisher on this week's episode of the Country Life Podcast to talk about farming, development, nature and neoliberalism. Covering a huge amount of ground — from developers and corporations pushing their agenda on government, to how flawed farming practices have created monoculture deserts across huge swatches of Britain — it's a fascinating listen.

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You may not always agree with him, but his commitment to making the world a better place is fierce and unwavering. His passion isn't just directed towards the environment, but also society as a whole — something explored in his recent book on neoloberalism, The Invisible Doctrine, which he recently spoke about at the Cambridge Literary Festival.

You can find out more about George and his work at monbiot.com.

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guest: George Monbiot

Editor and producer: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

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Everyone has their passions. I, for example, enjoy collecting football shirts. Other people like stamps. Some people like vintage tractors. Oliver Godfrey, from Cheffins, is very good at auctioning them. It is important to understand people and their passions.

So we asked Oliver to join the Country Life Podcast, to talk us through the slightly niche world of vintage tractor buying, selling and collecting. He is the best man to ask. Not only is he a man of the countryside, who has a burning passion for all things tractor, his work at Cheffins sees him handle the largest sale of vintage tractors in Europe, which takes place this weekend.

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We talk about what makes a tractor great, his record-breaking sale in 2022, and crawling around people's dusty old sheds looking for hidden gems ('There's a lot of dark sheds in this country, and we've not been through all of them. You never know what you're going to find').

But most importantly, we discuss why people love them. They are fun. They bring back memories of summer. You can drive them around. And the market for them seems to be doing better than ever. Is now the time to move away from gold and invest in Vintage Tractor? We don't do financial advice.

It was a great episode, and something a little different. I hope you enjoy it.

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guest: Oliver Godfrey

Producer and editor: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

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The nature writer, children's author and journalist Melissa Harrison joins James Fisher on the Country Life Podcast to talk about her life, her career, and how she found herself creating a smartphone app to help people connect with nature.

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Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guest: Melissa Harrison

Producer and editor: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The animals we share Britain with mean far more to us than we realise. Beyond the obvious companionship, food and farming, they are a part of our folklore, our language and intertwined with our lives.

Karen Jones, professor of environmental and cultural history at the University of Kent, has long been fascinated by the creatures that populate our island, and our interactions with them. We're delighted that she came on to the Country Life Podcast to talk about the importance they have, from the fairy stories of wolves, foxes and the Loch Ness Monster to the hooting owls, the sheep we count to get to sleep and the red herrings which crop up in our lives.

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Karen has collected her thoughts in a book, Beastly Britain, published in May, which looks at foxes and hedgehogs, newts and beetles, ghostly hounds and the legendary creatures who still generate new stories to this day. It's a fascinating read and comes warmly recommended.

Beastly Britain is published on 13 May 2025 (Yale University Press, £20) — see more details or order a copy here.

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guest: Professor Karen Jones

Producer and editor: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Before lockdown changed life in Britain in early 2020, Chloe Dalton led an almost overwhelmingly metropolitan existence. A foreign policy expert, her comfort zone was in the corridors of power, around Whitehall and Westminster, a person who — in her own words — was ‘addicted to the adrenaline’ of flying around the world playing a key role in the decisions that shape the nation. 

A chance moment on a walk changed that. She came across a tiny leveret, barely more than a newborn and weighing under 100 grams, whose mother hare had been chased away by a dog. Despite being, as she says, ‘the least likely person’ to adopt and hand-rear a wild animal, that’s exactly what she did.

The resulting story is an astonishing tale of how Chloe developed a beautiful bond with a this truly wild animal, from the fraught early days — in which she almost made the disastrous mistake of feeding the leveret cow’s milk — through to the moment the now-grown hare went freely back in to the wild... only to pay her the ultimate compliment by returning to continue their shared life together.

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Chloe’s book about everything that happened, Raising Hare (Cannongate, £18.99), is a gorgeous story, beautifully written and utterly fascinating, and it has earned incredible praise as well as being nominated for several awards.

We’re delighted that she joined James Fisher on the Country Life podcast to tell us all about it. Find out more about the book, order a copy, and you can follow Chloe on Instagram @chloedaltonuk.

This episode of the Country Life Podcast is sponsored by Strutt & Parker

Episode credits

• Host: James Fisher
• Guest: Chloe Dalton
• Editor and producer: Toby Keel
• Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

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It's almost two decades since photographer Cath Harries set out to work on a book documenting London's finest pubs. As she walked the streets of the capital, however, she found herself wondering about a new project: London's most extraordinary doors. The idea took hold, and she found herself embarking upon a project which would take a decade and a half.

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The resulting work has come together in a book, Doors of London, which sees Cath's photos partnered with words by historian Melanie Backe-Hansen. There are wooden doors, glass doors, scary doors, brightly-coloured doors, mural doors and even a door which is — quite astonishingly — some 50ft high... complete with knocker which only a fairytale giant would be able to reach.

Cath joined James Fisher on the Country Life Podcast to talk about her journey, how she went about pulling it all together — and the one door in London which she was banned from photographing, despite it being one of London's most famous.

Doors of London is published by Sheldrake Press, priced at £25

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guest: Cath Harries

Editor and producer: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Wildlife cinematographer Dan Abbott has travelled the world documenting marine life from the peaceful turtles of the Mediterranean to the iconic great white sharks off the coast of South Africa.

More recently, though, Dan has hit the headlines for the videos he has shared of the colonies of whales who have made the British coast a regular stop in recent years.

We're delighted, then, that Dan was able to join James Fisher on the Country Life podcast to talk all things marine wildlife, from the disarming curiosity of the blue shark to the alarming rudeness of the bottlenose dolphin.

And yes, we also spoke to him about great white sharks, the awe-inspiring predator which actually inspired him to get in to a career as a wildlife film maker. Dan speaks about what it's like to come face to face with a creature which — thanks in large part to Steven Spielberg's Jaws — has a reputation as one of the scariest on the planet.

Not only will Dan's insights make you think again, he'll also have your eyes widen as he talks about the predator even scarier than a great white in full flow. It's an amazing episode with a fascinating guest.

You can find out more about Dan's life and career by following his Instagram page @sharkman_dan.

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guest: Dan Abbott

Producer and editor: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Guy Goodfellow and his Creative Director Steven Rodel have carved out a reputation as two of the finest interior designers working in Britain today. We're thrilled, then, that they were able to join us for the Country Life Podcast, to discuss the unique qualities of British design, the country house look, and what it feels like to see your cushions in the background while watching The King on television.

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After training as an architect, Guy worked for Sibyl Colefax before striking out on his own, later bringing Steven on board — a designer with whom he 'almost always' agrees.

The pair talk about their working relationship, their inspiration, and the keys to a great project. They also discuss some of the work that has made Guy Goodfellow a permanent fixture in the designers among the Country Life Top 100, and reveal how their show-stopping drawing room at Wow!House 2024 came to fruition.

You can see more of Guy and Steven's work at their website at guygoodfellow.com or on Instagram.

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guests: Guy Goodfellow and Steven Rodel

Editor and producer: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay 

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After starting her career writing about student life, Eleanor began to write about Britain's great country houses, and — more importantly — the people who live in them. Over a decade later she has travelled to over 150 of the finest country piles in Britain, interviewing their owners to discover the ups and downs of their lives.

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Eleanor has a book coming out in September, Heirs and Graces: A History of the Modern British Aristocracy, which details some of her most fascinating experiences. Ahead of that, she joined James Fisher on the Country Life podcast to talk about the people in Britain — and there are fewer than 5,000 of them in existence — who can claim to be members of the aristocracy.

From dinner with dukes to the peer who programmed his car to welcome him by saying 'Good morning, your Lordship', it's a fascinating glimpse in to a mysterious world that's hidden from view for most of us.

Eleanor's book Heirs & Graces will be published by Penguin in September 2025. See more details or pre-order it here.

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher

Guest: Eleanor Doughty

Producer and editor: Toby Keel

Music: JuliusH via Pixabay

Special thanks: Adam Wilbourn

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Should we have a right to roam? It's something that we've talked about a fair bit at Country Life in recent times — not least with our articles from opposing sides of the argument from Alexander Darwall and Lewis Winks.

Rather than just listen and read, Patrick the author and journalist Patrick Galbraith decided to travel the length and breadth of Britain to discover for himself what access really means — and what it's really like at the moment.

Coming in to contact with everyone from county lines drug dealers to nudists who happily petted his dog, Patrick discovered that the truth is far more complex than it might seem at first — and that a lot of what you think you know about land rights is almost certainly wrong. He joined James Fisher on the Country Life Podcast to talk about what he discovered, and how it spurred him to write his latest book, Uncommon Ground: Rethinking our relationship with the countryside, which is published in April 2025 (William Collins, £22).

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This episode is Patrick's second appearance on the Country Life Podcast; you can listen to his first, in which he recounts his adventures living on an uninhabited island, here.

Episode credits

Host: James Fisher 

Guest: Patrick Galbraith 

Produced and edited by: Toby Keel 

Music: ‘Summertime’ by JuliusH 

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