IT IS NOT every day you take a bite from a police dog. But this is exactly what I am doing thanks to the persuasive skills of the Countess Bathurst, the chatelaine of Cirencester Park, Gloucestershire. She's described by the Duchess of Rutland in her popular podcast Duchess as "a tornado of a woman". I am learning why.
Incongruously we are in the middle of one of the Park's prestigious polo pitches, famous for hosting sporting royals from the Duke of Windsor to HM The King. But it also doubles up as a police-dog training ground and "has done for generations".
We meet at the Countess' home on the edge of the Park to talk about her new project, the National Federation for Retired Service Animals (NFRSA), as well as her love of fieldsports, namely shooting. However, I've been bundled into the Countess' Porsche and whizzed across the Park, past a marquee set up for the VWH hunt ball, to participate in a police-dog training exercise. "Oh well done," I hear. "Not many people would be brave enough to take that on," says the Countess - or Lady B as she is affectionately known after a snarling German Shepherd hurtles towards me and grabs the bite shield on my arm.
The NFRSA, which was officially inaugurated in April at Christie's, was her lockdown project in 2020. While many of us were in a pyjamafied state of somnambulance, she decided to "put all her soldiers [or police officers] in a row" and create a charity inspired by her stint as High Sheriff of Gloucestershire in 2016.
This story is from the July 2023 edition of The Field.
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This story is from the July 2023 edition of The Field.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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Rory Stewart - The former Cabinet minister and hit podcast host talks to Alec Marsh about the parlous state of British politics, land management and his deep love of the countryside
The gently spoken 51-year-old former Conservative Cabinet minister is a countryman at heart. That's clear: he even changes into a tweed waistcoat for the interview, which takes place at his London home and begins with a question about his precise career status. Having resigned from the Commons and the Conservative Party in 2019, the former diplomat and soldier has reinvented himself, first with an unconventional but promising run as an independent for the London mayoralty (abandoned because of COVID19 in 2020) and then as a media figure, co-hosting one of the country's most popular podcasts, The Rest Is Politics, alongside Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor.
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