Kate Humble’s Book- ‘Humble By Nature’

Buzz caught up with Kate as she returned from the Dartington Hall Ways with Words Festival where the television presenter had just given a book talk. The idea for the book came about when Kate and her husband bought a small holding in Wales and heard about a nearby tenanted council farm that was going to be sold off. In an effort to keep the farm tenanted, Kate bought the farm and it is now home to new tenants who live there, farm the land and also work closely with Kate and Ludo on their ‘Humble by Nature’ business based on the farm. Despite Kate’s connection with the outdoors, owning a farm has never been on her to do list even when she lived in the Berkshire countryside as a child, “I lived next door to a farm and I think that is what inspired my interest in nature but in a way I didn’t really notice the wildlife because it was so much a part of what I grew up with. I had a good old fashioned childhood of being encouraged to go outside whatever the weather and make my own fun.”

 Kate the explorer

Kate’s parents moved to Bray in Berkshire from Wimbledon and Kate lived there until she left home aged 18. Kate did not want to continue her schooling and decided to educate herself through travelling, “I went travelling across Africa for a year as I had a yearning to go and experience something different and Africa seemed to be about as different to Berkshire as life could be. I started in South Africa and ended up in Egypt.” Travelling is a huge part of Kate’s life and work, “I love being somewhere new and unfamiliar. Africa is a very entrancing and there is an area of Afghanistan called Wakhan Corridor which is a truly special part of the world. With every journey there is always an element of exploration and discovery that I find very exciting.” Most recently Kate presented the three-part series “Wild Shepherdess” on BBC Two in July where she visited three countries and explored their shepherding techniques which have existed for thousands of years.

Career in television

On her return from Africa, Kate moved to London and tried to break into the television industry as a researcher, “I liked the idea of making television and I did this for a very long time although I started off as a runner making tea. Then in the late 90s, I was working on the Holiday programme and they asked me to do a screen test. I agreed knowing that I would be rubbish. A few weeks later I was asked to present for the Holiday programme and that is how it all started.” In 2003 Kate joined Bill Oddie and Simon King to film a series of programmes called “Wild in your Garden”. It was successful so they continued to film the following years until it eventually became “Springwatch”. Her genuine interest in nature and the outdoors made Kate the female face of nature programmes and Kate believes there is one man in particular who inspired her, “I shouldn’t think there is a single person interested in the natural world who hasn’t been inspired by David Attenborough. He is the most astonishing broadcaster of our time. His longevity and astonishing appeal across every age and class is remarkable. I have been lucky enough to meet him and he was one of the most courteous and delightful people I’ve ever met. Not just as a broadcaster but as a human being I would cite David Attenborough as a huge influence.” Kate has been involved with many different programmes and projects during her career and picking her favourite overall is difficult, “I’ve been really lucky that there hasn’t been one thing that stood out above the rest in my career. I loved a series I did for the Open University called “Rough Science” where I worked with some astonishingly brilliant scientists in some challenging parts of the world but then diving in the Amazon had its challenges as well. I loved doing domestic stories on Springwatch. No one could imagine that 4 million people would tune in to learn about the fate of a Blue Tit but they did. Then there was working at Longleat where the first thing I would do at 8am would be to bath an elephant.” If you were to ask Kate her biggest career achievement though there is one memory that stands out, “I think one of the loveliest things as a result of what I’ve done was a little boy came up to me once in a supermarket and asked if I was the Springwatch lady. He then asked if he could talk to me about the hedgehog in his garden. That made me realise what an incredible responsibility being on television is and it can be an immensely powerful force for good. It introduces people to things that aren’t within their reach and as far as our natural world is concerned we need people to fall in love with it and understand what conservationists are trying to do. I was really proud of that moment because that little boy could be the Attenborough of the future.”

 Off screen

Kate is very involved in national and worldwide causes that help the environment and the developing world. She is currently President of the RSPB and is founder of the Stuff your Rucksack charity (www.stuffyourrucksack.com ) where travellers can find small organisations near to where they are travelling that are need of something such as a school that needs a world map to teach geography. They can check the website beforehand and pack what they need. Kate also wants to make people more aware of the environment and the things they can do just by taking a proper look at the space around them, “Whether you are in a flat or a house, that outdoor space can provide food or habitat or both for a whole host of wildlife.”

 The book and the farm

In her own words, Kate describes her book as a love story about reconnecting with the countryside. Since leaving Berkshire Kate has spent most of her time in London but her roots were always in the rural world, “It’s not an autobiography which you can only write if you have led a full life. It is about the joy and perils of owning a farm and the livestock and how rewarding it is to be connected to the land. “I am not a farmer but to me it was really important that the farm remained a farm. We could provide the farm and the farming tenants could provide the expertise.” They have been running the farm for just over a year with tenants Jim and Sarah and their livestock and Kate and her husband’s own livestock which includes various breeds of pig, goats, chickens, ducks, geese, rare breeds of sheep and lots of dogs. The farm also holds various courses for anyone to enjoy including pig keeping, bee keeping and hedge-laying. Kate’s husband, television producer Ludo Graham, shares Kate’s enthusiasm for reconnecting people with nature, “His support has been invaluable and I certainly would not have thought about doing this without him. He is much more practical than me though. I wanted to get donkeys and he asked why if I wasn’t going to turn them into salami. He proved himself right as I realised donkeys are tremendously hard work and not right for a Welsh farm.”

For your chance to win a copy of ‘Humble By Nature’ simply fill out the form below. Entries close on 30^th September 2013.