PHOTOGRAPHS JOAN RANSLEY
the producers.
CHALLENGING LIFE Come rain or shine, James is on call to look after his 700-strong flock of Herdwick sheep
Winter is a trying season in the Lake District fells. Wind lashes, rain drives, snow occasionally drifts. Shafts of reluctant sunshine illuminate a grey-green landscape crisscrossed by dry-stone walls, etched against a backdrop of snow-flecked mountains. The day I spent at James Rebanks’ Racy Ghyll Farm in the village of Matterdale was typically windswept – and James himself is something of a whirlwind.
As well as looking after some 700 Herdwick sheep, James has written an autobiography called The Shepherd’s Life: A Tale of the Lake District (Allen Lane), which was a Sunday Times No 1 bestseller five weeks in a row, featured as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in April 2015 and has been translated into numerous languages. James famously failed his GCSEs yet went on to gain a double first in history at Magdalen College, Oxford. He’s been interviewed for just about every national paper and countless magazines and has more than 88,000 followers on Twitter.