ELEANOR MEEK is a down-to-earth farmer's wife from the Eden Valley who isn't afraid to tell it like it is. Married to David, she has two grown-up sons, Charlie and Max, a horse called Minty and loves walking her lovable black labradors Poppet and Rogue.
LIKE MANY people I was shocked by the sordid allegations against my friend Gregg Wallace.
I say friend – he and his latest wife rented one of our yurts last summer, and while they kept themselves to themselves Gregg would always bid me a cheery “Mornin’ sugartits!” if he passed me on his way to the shower block.
Put it this way: if he had a sock over his penis, then I certainly never saw it.
Gregg is not everybody’s cup of tea. When he got together with Cumbrian teacher Heidi Brown a few years ago there was a great deal of mean-spirited gossip about the age difference and how a marriage based on Twitter messages would never last.
It didn’t, of course – but being a TV celebrity is a high-pressure job, and who’s to say their 15 months together weren’t blissful? (Admittedly, Gregg did say later that it was a “huge mistake”, but he quickly countered that by saying that Heidi was “good with the kids”, which he didn’t have to.)
Heidi once taught our eldest son Charlie biology at Ullswater College, so if I do have a teeny bone to pick it was not getting an invite to their wedding. But I wished them well at the time and was sorry when it ended, and Gregg moved on to wife number four.
***
I CAN’T HELP thinking that Gregg is a victim of “tall poppy syndrome” (or “short” in his case!). We English simply can’t resist building someone up, only to cut them down again.
Let us not forget this is a man who started as a humble greengrocer and became a major star. (At least he has a trade to fall back on if his career does not recover – a lesson to all young people who yearn for the limelight).
My friend Maggie says she was a huge fan until he posted pictures of himself showing off his rippling six-pack, at which point she says she felt physically sick and vowed never to watch Celebrity Masterchef again.
This is the same Maggie who has been absolutely glued to Rivals on telly, mind you! No shortage of male nudity there, and at least Gregg had the decency to wear a sock!
***
THIS SAME OBSESSION with raising icons only to pull them down again was true of our own erstwhile MP, Dr Neil Hudson.
I for one was a huge admirer of Neil – he was certainly a vast improvement on the frankly creepy Rory Stewart -- but in the Eden Valley there was always a bitter cabal who regarded him as a “johnny-come-lately” who would hang his hat in any convenient constituency if he thought it would lead to political advancement.
I imagine there were peals of joy in the Penrith Conservative Association when they managed to get this intelligent, thoughtful vet replaced by that dreadful boorish man from Workington.
Well, you should be careful what you wish for. While I could never bring myself to vote Labour, I confess I allowed myself a tight little smile when I saw the Red Flag flying over the market square on July 5.
And I openly rejoiced when, after subsequently failing to be selected for the safe Tory seats of West Suffolk and Huntingdon, Neil finally succeeded in Epping Forest, just a short hop from his birthplace in Islington.
A place in the shadow cabinet surely beckons – and maybe even more, if and when they decide to get rid of that awful Badenoch woman.
***
I LOVE THIS TIME OF YEAR. The farm never looks so beautiful as when it glitters beneath a thick rime of early morning frost, and the first dusting of snow shimmers on distant Blencathra.
David complains that I have the heating on all day, and that it’s costing a fortune in oil. But he said the same about filling the Range Rover, until he found that man who sells him red diesel.
Where there’s a will there’s a way, I say – and I for one am not going to freeze this winter.
Comments