Book covers life of farming, cider and cricket

FORMER Western Morning News farming columnist and the South West regional director of the National Farmers’ Union for many years has published his autobiography, to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the serious foot and mouth disease outbreak in the UK.

In “Westcountryman – a Life in Farming, Countryside, Cricket and Cider”, Anthony Gibson looks back, not only at foot and mouth, but also at the other great threat to Westcountry farming over the past 35 years, BSE, or ‘Mad Cow Disease’, as it became known.

Both are vividly recalled, in chapters in which the author also has some trenchant things to say about how the crises were handled by the politicians of the day.

In a career spanning almost 50 years, he also writes of the 1976 drought, the 1978 blizzard, the floods of 1981 and 2014, the battles on Exmoor and the Somerset Levels between farmers and conservationists and the running sore which is bovine TB and badgers.

But it has not all been “crisis and controversy,” he writes, “I have also been able to give a helpful shove to some of the most positive developments in the consumer market, like the growing demand for local food, real ale and artisan cider.”

Alongside his NFU career, Anthony Gibson has been covering cricket for the BBC for over 50 years, as scorer, reporter and most recently as their senior Somerset commentator.

Westcountryman – a Life in Farming, Countryside, Cricket and Cider – Charlcombe Books, £20. For a WMN discount, please log on to www.anthonygibsonbooks.co.uk/ westcountryman