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BIOG

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 Over a career lasting nearly 40 years, I have appeared on all Britain's major radio and television networks. If you're wondering where you saw me last, most probably on ITV's Countrywise.

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In the early 2000s I spent seven years on BBC1's top-rated consumer affairs show, Watchdog, which continued a career in consumer journalism which began with That's Life in 1978, and continued later with Radio 4's You and Yours.

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I have almost a score of books to my credit, both fiction and non-fiction. My book of science questions and answers for young people, Can Cows Walk Downstairs? has been a best-seller in fifteen languages. I have also written on both rural, maritime and farming matters. 

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In 2005, I fulfilled a longstanding ambition to sail the Atlantic singlehanded in the wake of the solo sailing pioneers, which led to my book The Last Man Across the Atlantic.

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My current book, One Wild Song, tells of my epic voyage to Cape Horn - 18,000 miles and 11,000 of them sailed alone - in order to reflect on the loss of my son. 

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I also found time in my working life to be a pioneer organic farmer when, in 1990, I decided to master the skills of traditional farming using carthorses- Suffolk Punches- instead of tractors, and farmed 40 acres of Suffolk countryside. This experience inspired not only a hugely successful column, Farmer's Diary, which appeared weekly in The Times for seven years, but also a number of books.

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My TV programmes for ITV Anglia proved enormously popular with audiences, including  re-creations of the Victorian and Wartime farming year, and my journeys along the Secret Rivers of East Anglia by canoe.

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There is more on wikipaedia, although somewhat out of date, but largely accurate.

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