MY COUNTRYSIDE

The Countryfile presenter and naturalist discusses her wild childhood, the healing power of the great outdoors and the permanent nature of change

Ellie Harrison discusses her roaming childhood, the healing power of nature and how quiet time is key to creativity.

I grew up at the end of a lane with high hedges that wound down the valley-side and terminated at our house. Beyond us was just fields. We played in the woods behind the house and in the stream at the bottom of the valley. It’s the reason I love Cider With Rosie, being able to picture a cottage in a green valley. My dad raised chickens and was a carpenter. He was Steiner-educated and you could tell: home-made yoghurts, leather sandals and a sharp early computer programmer. My Mum worked night shifts as a midwife. There wasn’t much money. We picked ragwort for the farmer sometimes and I watched (with sadness even aged 4) the hunt going across the valley. When I was six, my parents divorced and we moved to the edge of a town with a steep rambling one-acre garden. I left home at 18, moving to London and New York, and only returned to the countryside in the last 10 years. I’m a town mouse as well as a country mouse. I think most people are a bit of both in differing amounts. Now I’m immersed in it. I move around experiencing the many faces of the countryside: uplands, coast, forest, mountains, fenland… It’s varied. But even in the Highlands, it isn’t true wilderness. The hand of man is everywhere. That’s OK, it’s what has brought us to where we are. But the idea that rewilding could pay excites me. My favourite outdoor pastime is fun on the water. My mum was raised by the sea, so she taught us to swim by the time we were three. Swimming, snorkelling, diving, paddle boarding, kayaking are the things I love doing. But I really feel the cold, so watersports in Britain for me are limited to warmer weather. I recently went on a retreat and, as a group of about 20, went on a silent two-hour walk. Midway we paused in a meadow, looking out at a wide river where I felt as though the rain was rising to meet me and the wind was reaffirming my connection with nature.

A successful countryside is one where people are working towards the same vision and not warmongering in the process. There needs to be more diplomacy in countryside issues. Often the end goal is more similar than people realise. I also think sentimental attachment to tradition keeps us from progressing. As Tom Sawyer sings: changes aren’t permanent but change is.

Everyone needs to get outside more. I do not look back misty-eyed to an age before screens and walking to school with a hoop and stick. There is no better time to be alive than now. But everyone feels better after quiet time spent in nature. It doesn’t need to be a half-day hike wearing crampons, armed with encyclopedic knowledge of every plant. Even sitting in the grass for a while is good.

I’m inspired by life stories. Hearing honest accounts of a life lived, its lessons and emotions. Shared knowledge. People who work towards a calling greater than their own. Declining wildlife and farm animal welfare are my greatest countryside concerns. I’m also acutely aware that we need nature for our mental health. Countryfile has covered many stories about how nature makes us well. A friend and I are opening our own place for people who need an appointment with nature, to come and feel the love. I loved snorkelling with a basking shark; para-hawking with a red kite; being chased by hounds and horsemen in the Peak District; cycling up Bealach na Ba in the Highlands; and sea kayaking around Ireland.

To get away from it all, I go home. Or into nature to meditate or run. Even the long drive back after shoots is great thinking time. It’s time to sharpen the axe rather than hit the tree with a blunt tool. It may look like I’m doing nothing, but creativity happens then. When we don’t know what to do, we should get still. My ideal day depends on the weather. On a hot day, it’s waking early to run or do yoga outside, hanging out on the beach and in the sea then dinner outside with friends. When it’s cold, go walking up high, do art or write, then dinner outside with fire and huge coats. I think the ‘how’ of farming needs to be much more visible. It impacts upon every single one of us at least three times per day. We need to be connected to the process and use our wallets knowledgeably. I laugh at... Humour in the darkness. Selfdeprecation. Good standup. Dead Ringers. My boots are my most treasured piece of outdoor kit. They’ve taken me up mountains and through rivers. And they’ve been true to me on the wettest and coldest days.

“Everyone feels better after quiet time in nature, even just sitting in the grass”