You may have seen the story: the 2010 Equality Act could protect people who hunt. Here’s how it could play. An interview at the Carter Jonas Game Fair Theatre has led to column inches and TV debates. Ed Swales of Hunting Kind, a group dedicated to ‘natural hunting’ with hound, ferret and hawk, obtained legal opinion which says that people who hunt …

My faithful farm truck sits in the yard, not exactly sure how it is supposed to spend its days - or justify its hefty running costs. What's the future for such a loyal beast? Join me, if you will, in some automotive anthropomorphism, and spare a thought for Tigger the Terracan, who sits in the farmyard, having a bit of an existential crisis. Tigger…

The life of a huntsman can sound idyllic – but life in kennels is tougher than it might look For many a young thruster, or a hound-loving puppy walker, being a huntsman is the ultimate dream job. To have your very own pack of hounds who look to you for instruction; to lead the pack in your scarlet coat, and uncover the mystery of the ‘golden thread…

We pay a high price for the privilege of getting lost in the back country - but is it worth it? I was not new to it - it was my third day hunting quail in Arizona so I knew what I should expect, but the frigid air that hit me was a surprise. I had never had to travel in the small hours before. It was necessary to get where we were going and leave e…

Looking ahead to the new grouse season, I think about my own birds in Galloway and the national picture at a time of great change and upheaval in Scotland. The signs are set for a decline into autumn, and the moor grass has turned into straw. The start of the grouse season is upon us, and there’s a certain amount to look forward to in the hills of …

With record numbers of A level students shunning University courses, can Modern Apprenticeships be the means of filling the gaps in our 'lost rural skills'. For over one million young Brits, the next few days will be a time of heightened nervous excitement and anticipation. They wait on tenterhooks for the 15th August, when the results of their A l…

Come the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles, I shall be in Team GB - so long as they change the events What impressed you most at the Olympics opening ceremony this year? Axelle Saint-Cirel’s magnificent rendition of La Marseillaise, surely the world’s most stirring national anthem? The can-can dancers? Or perhaps Alexandre Kantorow tinkling away on his …

In today's increasingly urbanised and digital society, young people are more disconnected from nature and the countryside than ever before. But in the absence of any kind of national plan to re-engage them with wildlife and ecosystems, how can parents and caregivers encourage kids to take an interest in the natural world, and what are the pitfalls …

What does a country boy and angler do on holiday when he’s left his rods at home and is reading a book by Hunter S.Thompson? The answer is to reflect on really unimportant things in life, like why are cricket and fishing actually the same. Shit it’s hot. It’s 35 degrees out there, the sand burns the skin off the bottom of my feet, and I could do wi…

Sharing some of my personal experiences and stories from the moors of ground nesting birds, their parenting skills and what I have learnt along the way! One of the Scribehound team once told me that one has 3 seconds to capture to someone's attention on social media otherwise they move on. A rather sad but true indictment of our society today. The …

With demands on the public purse being extremely high, should politicians be doing more to fund and facilitate bottom-up land management solutions such as Farmer Clusters which are proven to deliver more bang for the conservation buck? My solitary four-hour drive home from Oxford to Aberystwyth marked the end of a week engaged in conversation about…

As a fishing agent, I'm often asked what the difference is between a ghillie and a fishing guide. While the two roles are similar, there are important differences. When out fishing it is often common to have a ghillie or a guide available to aid you in your adventure. The differences between the terms “ghillie” and a “guide” can sometimes cause con…

Rewilding is swiftly becoming a religion - a belief system with little evidence to support its claims - but is this a sane way to manage our landscapes? Re-wilding is a very clever idea. It is very difficult to be against re-wilding. It would be a bit like being against nostalgia. It has a vague warmth about it. It has no downside because whatever …

How Olympic history should never forget it's rural roots, integrity, or the source of so many of our medallists 24 years ago, I experienced a wonderful example of good manners - and all about a sporting event taking place the other side of the world. As Chairman of the Campaign for Shooting, I had been approached by Ian Coley, the Alex Ferguson of …

It is time that the building industry embraced change. Good for the planet and good for their profits. And good for government building targets. Currently we are building about 150,000 houses a year. The new Government plan to raise that to 300,000 houses a year to help house the 3 million odd immigrants let into the country over the last few years…

Wood pigeons are rightly regarded as a top-tier sporting bird, but what with wasps, nettles, the need for truckloads of clobber and the quarry's uncooperative nature, decoying them can be a pain in the proverbial Anybody will tell you that there is no better sport to be had than decoying pigeons. In fact, everybody will tell you that there is no be…

I got bored of waiting and got lucky with hope and practical activism Don’t laugh, but I once nearly went into mainstream politics. Never mind when and for whom, but let me reassure you that the dream was a short one. I came to the early conclusion that there was a limited amount that a thin-skinned Etonian of no settled world view and the attentio…

Finding a copy of Trout & Salmon from 1994 shows that we’re still talking about the same environmental, and geopolitical, issues three decades on. A wormy start “Look what I’ve found Papa!” I held up an oozing earthworm, my hands blackened by Hebridrean peat. The year was 1994, I was five years old, and we were on a family holiday to the Isle of Le…

Creating a wildflower meadow will put you in touch with nature and feed the soul. Here's how any old fool can do it... At the bottom of my garden there’s a long wooden fence that, in my mind’s eye, performs a vaguely-similar function to the Berlin Wall of the late 1970s. On one side, you find a small paddock grazed by half a dozen Jacob sheep. They…

A day out with the Eastern Counties Mink Hunt is never dull nor dry. I ventured out with this wonderful group of eccentrics to recapture my lost youth and pass on the mink hunting baton to my son I learned many life lessons on river banks in my early teens. I gleaned the art of stealth and concealment when watching wild trout and chub take naps, th…

The latest plan to help Scotland get back in touch with its true wild self is to reintroduce lynx, a big cat and apex predator, to control deer numbers. But can Scotland follow Switzerland's lead? Or is this all just land reform by stealth? Tales of the riverbank with a difference - the story of the beaver, the big cat and the eagle. Sounds like th…

A few months ago, I wrote a column on Scribehound called Ancient Hunting Stories: The Origins of Human Culture?. In it I explored the idea that aside from opposable thumbs, the thing that really sets humanity apart from other animals is our love of stories. Stories follow (or subvert) patterns, and our brains are essentially pattern recognition eng…

Working summer jobs on farms did me a world of good. Could a programme to put 18 year olds to work on farms make the country a better place and help to fix our food systems? I’m sorry to bring up the election again - it has been a fortnight so I’m sure you’ve been happily getting on with your life not thinking about politics, but something that was…

Some love it; some hate it; but is the ‘back gun’ a symptom of a wider problem in game shooting? I have a confession: walking gun is one of my favourite places to be on a game shoot. I say that even as a member of the gun trade who, when asked to ‘go with the beaters’ invariably ends up with a performance review committee of customers past and pres…

Before I continue I'd like to just confirm I couldn't smell any patchouli (or BO) and there were no hairy armpits on show (to my knowledge). Back to this in a moment. The first was a screening of Isabella Tree's Wilding. A documentary shot at the Knepp Estate in Horsham, West Sussex. The second, I was on a panel at a local agricultural college host…

This July marks my ten-year anniversary working in the media and rather self-indulgently, I have been reflecting on the very exciting, albeit chaotic journey my life has taken and where it all began, at the BBC. I’m aware that the BBC often gets a bad rep in farming circles, receiving criticism for not showing enough interest in rural issues or sen…

One of my favourite sayings is, “Live as if you will die tomorrow; farm as if you will live forever.” And I have tried to follow that policy as far as my finances have allowed. There is always a temptation to think short-term and scrimp, or take a shortcut. To avoid thinning a young plantation or re-establishing a grass ley, or carry out building r…

If you sup with the devil, use a long spoon. The RSPB has an odd approach to polluters. If you are big enough and rich enough it may not be a deal breaker to pour untreated sewage into rivers and lakes. United Utilities obviously has a very poor relationship with many of the people it is supposed to serve. This is not just because of how it treats …

We all know commercial shooting is often one of the Achilles heels of the shooting debate but why do they need to survive, who do they help, what benefit do they bring and how do they need to adjust? Commercial shooting seems to be a close second when it comes to criticism of the shooting community by the shooting community, as well as from outside…

Damage a tree and its reaction is to try to heal itself. A lot of this action happens below ground in increased root growth. This leads to 'Carbon Capture.' So next time you see a tree, bash it and help save the planet. So goes the new theory... Coming soon to a cinema near you, Wilding. According to The Guardian, this is “The film about the farmin…

Decades of mismanagement and poor policy has left our rare and precious chalkstream environments in a perilous state Two rare environments are close to my heart – Heather Moorland and Chalkstreams. Both are almost unique on a global scale and thus massively important. You might think these are two very different environments; well, yes, they are – …

It’s hard to believe but during the Second World War it was only legal to make one type of regulation Cheddar in Britain – making any other sort of cheese was banned. Sixty years on, however, the British cheese industry is flying. There are over 750 different types, some of them ancient and others very new, and prizes for cheesemaking are hotly con…

The classic Macnab - salmon, stag and grouse - may be costly but try one of the variants and the experience will never be forgotten What would be your choice for Desert Island Discs? I pondered on this while the Sealyhams worked a brash pile for a rat. Plastic Bertrand’s Ca Plane Pour Moi definitely, along with Noel Coward’s Mad Dogs and Englishmen…

When June weedcut is done and peace returns to the chalkstreams the trout become fickle and the fishing is engrossing The time of the Mayfly hatch on the chalkstreams has long been one of the highlights of our fishing calendar. Normally through May and early June this wonderful insect that even us uneducated entomologists can identify have fisherme…

What if our uplands are already producing good biodiversity and tree planting will damage this and their potential to capture carbon? Is there time to rethink, or has the expensive rewilding express train already left the station? Whilst few could argue that our country needs more woodland, the difficulty is agreeing on where we plant all those tre…

I unearth some home truths about nature writing and try to explain why it matters For the last three mornings, I’ve been up at 4.00 am murdering adverbs. I have just finished my book on Britain’s coastline, and my agent thinks I need to reduce the word count by about 4,000, of which at least a quarter will come from adverbs. She is right. Adverbs a…

The Norwegian Government has shut down salmon fishing on some of the country’s most storied rivers. Should it serve as a warning to us all? Tom’s grandfather had a fine death. He was discovered lying on a gravel bank of the river Orkla in Norway, his hat tilted to shield his face from the sun. His fishing rod rested neatly beside him, and next to t…

Living and working in the countryside often requires a creative approach to problem-solving, best demonstrated by the improvised solutions we come up with. They may not be pretty, or even terribly safe, but they get the job done You will, I am sure, be familiar with the concept of a ‘life hack’. Social media and the press are awash with videos and …

Fieldsports, along with Israel and private schools, are red meat for the rabble of Labour backbenchers. As a public-school-educated trophy-hunter with a Jewish surname, I'm off to an internment camp. Good intentions are wonderful things. In June 2024, they paved the way for 60,000 people to march in London alongside Chris Packham, Extinction Rebell…

We’ve undoubtedly all seen wood pigeons but did you know they are one of Britain’s biggest agricultural pests? It’s estimated they cause over £75m-£100m worth of damage to farmers’ crops every year. They are also delicious and are highly prized, gastronomically, in pubs and restaurants. Patrick sets off for the Cotswolds to shoot some pigeons over …

We’ve probably all heard the term ‘regenerative farming’ but what does it actually mean, how do you farm regeneratively, and what does it achieve? Patrick heads to North Norfolk to meet Jimmy Goodley, a farmer in the Stiffkey Valley who is trying to create a financially viable and sustainable farming business for his young children to one day take …

It's often said that, within 25 years, the turtledove will be gone from England's hedgerows. When they go, if they go, we will lose something that is a huge part of British culture – they are present in our folk songs and our poetry and for centuries the sound they make, a sort of sweet purring, has been synonymous with springtime. But in Suffolk, …

Around half of Britain’s farmers rent some or all of the land they work, but in Britain's changing agricultural landscape, where significant profits can be made through rewilding, tree planting and renting out rural properties to city-dwellers, it is becoming harder and harder for aspiring farmers to find any ground. They were once a cornerstone of…

Inspired by the chance discovery of an egg vending machine deep in rural Norfolk, Patrick Galbraith reflects upon the changes to village life that have occurred over the last hundred years or so. Patrick goes in search of the farmer who owns the pickled egg dispenser - David - and discovers that his family has farmed the land around Great Snoring (…

Patrick Galbraith meets Marcus Armytage, Grand National-winning jockey and Scribehounder, at his home in Berkshire to find out what it takes to win the most famous horse race in the world. Patrick learns about Marcus’ route into racing and why he never made the step from amateur to professional, despite still holding the record for the National. Ne…

Patrick Galbraith learns about offal and why chefs love cooking with it. First, he heads to Norfolk with his friend Sachin Kureishi to shoot some woodpigeons and some squirrels. Mission accomplished, he returns to London where the young butcher, chef, and offal devotee, Flossy Philips, comes over to his flat to cook some really impressive dishes, u…

Patrick Galbraith plunges into the fascinating world of English wine. He chats to Henry Jeffreys, the celebrated drinks journalist, about his highly-acclaimed new book Vines in a Cold Climate: the people behind the English wine revolution. Henry tells him that the world of English wine is still very much in its infancy – he also paints a picture of…

Patrick Galbraith shoots a Chinese water deer and learns about Britain’s growing deer problem. There are more deer in this country than there’ve almost ever been and they are causing all sorts of problems. In Scotland they are destroying pine forests and in England they are browsing out scrub and bramble where nightingales used to sing. It’s very e…

Patrick Galbraith learns about hedges and what they actually mean. With the help of Dr Leonard Baker, who is an expert on enclosure and those who rose up against it, and Richard Negus, a Suffolk-based conservationist, Patrick discovers that the history of the hedge is thorny and very political. In the nineteenth century hedges were seen as symbols …

Patrick Galbraith delves into the world of sustainable farming and its impact on Britain's rural landscape. With the help of a farmer, an upland conservationist, a restaurateur and a butcher, he explores the environmental benefits and gastronomic delights of native cattle. Patrick begins his journey by meeting up with fellow Scribehounder and best-…