Behind every successful relationship is a… dog!
TV presenter Kate Humble tells us why living simply has been so good for her, the secrets behind her happy marriage and the joy of her beloved animals
Kate Humble on moving to the country and living the simple life
Kate, 51, lives on a farm in the Wye Valley with her husband Ludo Graham, 59, a television producer, and their three dogs – Badger, Bella and Teg – along with a collection of many other animals.
THE JOY OF LIVING SIMPLY
Moving to the country from London 12 years ago was a natural part of life’s
progression for me. I had a very happy childhood in the country, so making that move was me going back to my roots. You almost want to capture that feeling again.
There are aspects of city living that some people really enjoy, but I don’t.
I don’t like crowds. I don’t like parties. I don’t want to go clubbing. But I do love open spaces. I love walking. I love my animals. Part of making the decision to leave London, I suppose, was identifying what made me happy, and what were the important elements of my life.
Right now, people have been forced to push a pause button. We’ve been forced to reduce life down to fewer distractions. What I hope it’s done is give people a chance to think, ‘Am I living the way that I want to live, in a way that makes me feel fulfilled and content?’
Living simply has made me feel more independent. After a year of living this way, I now have year two of learning about my garden and spending more time in it, and with the showstopping dahlias. My vegetables have worked better this year, and my tomatoes are better. I’ve extended my growing and I feel more confident. My garden seems to thank me for it because I’m getting rewards.
Now if something breaks, I think, ‘Right, I’m going to have a bloody good go at fixing it. I may not be able to do it or it may look a bit of a botched job, but I’m going to try’, rather than my old reflex, which so many of us have, when I’d think, ‘I’ll probably just throw it away and order another one online’.
I’ve never been a big clothes shopper, but now I really don’t buy anything.
In total, I have four forms of footwear and I don’t really need any more.
I have wellies, slippers, running shoes and walking boots. I don’t need anything else. I certainly don’t need a handbag, because you can’t fit anything in a handbag. I have a rucksack and it works. I look like this ancient teenage student, but I don’t really care because it’s practical.
‘Living simply has made me feel more independent’
Saying thank you for a job well done is one of the most simple pleasures
there is. There are people out there who make our lives better. A lot of the time, they’re the people who are not very visible or those who get overlooked because they’re doing something that’s a bit menial in a lot of people’s eyes.
But they’re doing really important jobs and they enhance our lives in ways that we can’t imagine until they stop doing them. It’s really important, whoever they are and whatever their job is, if they do it well and you notice, to say thank you.
MY CAREER HIGHLIGHTS
My first presenting job was around 1997, and I thought I wouldn’t do any
more after that! I’ve been working with Ben Fogle on Animal Park for 20 years now. I’ve been lucky. I’ve always been honest about what I feel my strengths are, and I have never done a show where I haven’t 100% believed in what I’m doing, so I’ve never done anything on-trend or of the moment.
I’m never going to be trendy and,
frankly, nor do I want to be! I make uplifting, often joyful, celebrations of the way people live, or about our natural world. They’re not about me; I am a conduit for people telling their stories. The programmes I’ve done are traditional and fairly timeless. They’re not terribly cutting edge, but they’re full of lovely stories, and those don’t go out of fashion.
Whatever anybody says, I’m not a
celebrity. I’m a presenter that some people recognise. I’ve just trotted on doing my thing. I do my job because
I’m basically very nosy! I love finding out about things and meeting and talking to people. I love going to parts of the country or the world that I’ve never seen before. I love finding things out and then passing it on to others, and that’s what my job is.
I was offered lots of makeover type
shows in the 1990s, because that was what was being made a lot of the time. It was the Changing Rooms era, but that wasn’t the sort of programme I wanted to do. They were very good and really popular, but I didn’t feel I could contribute much to those shows because, frankly, I don’t care what colour somebody’s curtains are. So, I did the brilliant show
Rough Science instead. It wasn’t a sexy programme that lots of people were going to watch and launch me into an amazing career, but I didn’t care about that. I’m still proud of it.
Getting the call to work on Blue Planet
was a career highlight. I’ll never forget filming a 22ft prehistoric sixgill shark in the Cayman Islands. It was a real reminder of how extraordinary the world’s wildlife is. Plus, I’d wanted to work for the BBC natural history department since I was three!
You need different people, faces and
points of view on TV. It would be boring if I was on everything! I’ve been lucky to do this job long enough that I don’t feel down on other people’s successes. I don’t feel a rivalry with anyone. There’s work out there and there are programmes that need to be made.
Regretting things is a waste of time that none of us have. You can feel sad about something that you haven’t done, but, you know what? You’ve got to stand by a decision. If, in hindsight, you think it’s the wrong decision, learn from it rather than wringing your hands and thinking you should have done things differently. Life shouldn’t be about ‘shoulds’.
LOVE IN THE COUNTRYSIDE
I was 16 when I first met my husband,
Ludo, and he ignored me. Quite sensibly, it turns out! We’ve been an item since 1989, and got married in 1992. The secret to our long relationship? It helps that
I’m not at home all the time as absence really does make the heart grow fonder. When you marry, you become two
pillars holding up the same roof. You don’t become one entity. You’re both there supporting the same thing. I love that sentiment. Of course you’re going to depend on each other at some point in your relationship, and at some point, it’s going to be me supporting Ludo or the other way around, but it is a partnership.
Each of us has our strengths and
weaknesses. We give each other space. We don’t have the sort of friends where everything has got to be in a couple.
It’s also being respectful of what the other one wants. I’m never going to be a fan of cricket, and Ludo knows that. But when he’s watching a match, I go and do something that I love. It’s about give and take. It’s about space and trust. It’s about making each other laugh.
Probably, at the root of every successful
relationship is a dog! I would say that comes to the fore – and we’ve all had it – when you go, ‘I never want to see you again’, but you can’t possibly leave because of the dog. It’s the best anchor anyone can have!
‘I’m never going to be trendy and, frankly, nor do I want to be!’
ANIMAL MAGIC
We have three dogs. Badger, who we got from the RSPCA when we moved to Wales 12 years ago, is pretty much deaf, blind, had cancer and has very shaky legs, but he’s so loveable and the neediest dog you’ll ever meet. We completely adore him.
Bella was a rescue, too, and she’s completely blind with dodgy legs. We found a canine osteopath to help her. While I can’t believe I’ve gone for anything so faddy, the osteopath is terribly handsome, so I forgave him for any faddiness! It’s been incredible. Bella could hardly move when she first went to him and now she can scamper about, even though she can’t see.
Teg (right) is our working
sheepdog. She’s amazing. She helps out at a friend’s farm in the Brecon Beacons for two months, gathering the sheep off the mountains for shearing. On our farm, I have so few sheep, she just looks at me like a supermodel as if to say, ‘I’m sorry, I don’t go out for less than 10,000 sheep.’ So we go running together instead.
We have lots of animals and I love them all.
I have two Oxford Sandy and Black pigs; my smaller Kunekune pigs, Delilah and Duffy; some ewes and lambs; about 20 hens; a handsome cockerel called Ernesto, who we re-homed; eight ducks; and a very funny little drake, who we also re-homed from somebody and two feral cats.
MY FARM THERAPY
Animals help keep your mental health in
check. They are also key to the success of long-term relationships. Ludo knows I’d be horrendous if I didn’t have animals!
The first thing I do in the morning is go for
a run, and feed Duffy and Delilah their water, make their straw all lovely and have a moment with the cat. I come in filthy, sodden and looking like hell, but really happy because there’s something lovely about that kind of relationship you have with your animals. You feel needed, and we all like to feel needed.
If you’re feeling gloomy, animals really pick
up on that. My pigs know when I need a bit of love, as do the dogs. Even hens are quite empathetic. If your brain is a bit scrambled, hen therapy is good. Just sitting and watching hens pecking about is meditative.
You have to be grounded when you’re always dealing with animals because you’re
covered in mud from head to foot. It’s very balancing. Animals don’t care if they wipe their nose on your jeans. I had clean ones on this morning that are now covered in pig snot, but I quite like that! They make me laugh.
‘All you need is animals. I’d be horrendous if I didn’t have them’