Thirteen-and-a-half years after I arrived four hours early for my first Countryfile shoot, which culminated in me commuting up Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon) to deliver Matt Baker a sandwich of freshly harvested mushrooms, it has come time for me to bid you farewell.
It has been a decision I’ve drawn out, such is the bond with the programme, and boy will I miss the geography field trips. But like all endings, I’ll take all the lessons from these days forward with me on my journey.
- Who is Ellie Harrison? Everything you need to know about the Countryfile presenter
- Ellie Harrison: How has the countryside changed
- Ellie Harrison: My reluctant admiration for dogs
- Ellie Harrison: How nature can help us cope with challenging times
Some of them are purely practical. I’ve learned that unless you move and generate internal body heat, as when filming in a single spot for hours, there is no coat that will keep you warm. That if it’s a rare day of wall-to-wall rain, you will definitely get wet, at least at the neck, wrist and ankles, no matter the clothing. That hair and make-up will be blown to wishful vapours by the end of the first piece to camera: in the great outdoors, you don’t get to look winsome, but you do get to look real.
It’s been interesting to learn that there is no price on local knowledge, as even the same species will behave differently in different places. Muntjac deer bellows sound different in every new place I’ve heard them. It’s always worth an ask – people enjoy sharing knowledge about their patch.
Over the time I’ve been on the programme, contributors have become way more familiar with filming. It used to be that our requirements to repeat a conversation several times, pretending it was the first time, then repeat it again for gestures but not words on the wide shot, was understandably a little confusing. Nowadays, everybody has a platform and a broadcast quality camera in their pocket and is arguably better than the professionals. It was while watching a younger, nimbler film crew – whose kit could fit into a briefcase – that I realised the dinosaur I was, especially having chosen not to TikTok (is this even a verb?).
There are some thornier lessons that come with me: a belief that tradition doesn’t get a free pass and needs to prove its place in the countryside; a question about land ownership and payments (it’s right that we challenge outcomes that see millionaires being paid to burn biofuels with the windows open); the difficulty of showing the full and graphic process of meat production; and the ever-downward trend in wildlife numbers.
But there are the joyful reminders, too, that our countryside is a gift, brought to you via the arteries of our ancestors’ footwork across the land, as well as the realisation over the years that even the most opposing views in the countryside share nearly everything in common. Imagine the combined force of so much knowledge if it were taken to the changemakers.
- Ellie Harrison: The importance of accents
- Ellie Harrison: Small acts can save Britain's birds
- Ellie Harrison: A whale's death brings more life to the ocean
Along with the lessons, there are many things I’ll miss. Permission to sit in the outdoors all day, for the woods will always be my cathedrals and the trees my counsel. I’ll miss the steady beat of working one logical step at a time, as well as moments of total stillness while we record audio ‘wild track’.
It was an honour to be in a position of trust with the people we met, to hear fascinating stories, often spilling off-topic and off-camera, and I thank them all for their confidence in me. And I’ll miss laughing about daft things with the crew between takes, remembering to turn off our radio mics and knowing we bolstered each other as a group as we headed off into new situations.
I’ve come to realise that I don’t need to navigate to a whole new ocean or even a new sea, but to chart a new course somewhere in these waters, raising my three wonderful children, growing our family business and following my own creative calling to produce art of my own making. The winds of change are blowing, my hands turn the tiller and I close my eyes to take comfort from Invictus: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” I’ll see you again someday.
