Welcome to Live Free Ride Free, where we talk to people who have lived self-actualized lives on their own terms, and find out how they got there, what they do, how we can get there, what we can learn from them. How to live our best lives, find our own definition of success, and most importantly, find joy. I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson. New York Times bestselling author of the Horse Boy. Founder of New Trails Learning Systems and long ride home.com.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on Rupert isaacson.com. Welcome back to Live Free, ride Free, where we talk to people who. Are living and have lived, and continue to live self-actualized lives. what can we learn from them? How do they do it? how can they mentor us? how can we do it? It's always worth, giving it up to the mentors. , we have one today. someone Rather Extraordinary. We've got Sammy Leslie.
You probably dunno who Sammy Leslie is because Sammy Leslie is one of those people who likes to do it from behind the scenes, and I had to kind of put a lasu around her and pull her a little bit forward. She's now sitting in her garden to talk to us. We're very lucky to have her. , Sammy runs, castle Leslie Castle. Leslie is on the face of it, a luxury, super luxury resort, hotel experience thing.
Legendary thing really in Ireland, which the great and the good and the celebs of this world go to, and also equestrians and also, ordinary people like you and I. and it seems to run flawlessly. It seems that you arrive at this place and you suddenly get to kind of live the baronial life, at least for an hour or two or a day or two or a month or a week or two. it's Sammy who makes this experience possible. Sammy, Leslie. It's not easy.
Sammy has had all kinds of challenges in her life and yet manages to present a dream of how life should be to, anyone who walks or drives through the gates of Castle Les. And it doesn't matter whether they're coming in with a lot of money, it doesn't matter if they're just coming in for a drink at the bar. Everyone is treated the same. Everyone is treated like a Lord or a lady. It's a, an extraordinary experience. it takes an enormous amount of skill to put this together.
and it's something that sort of sets people free. I think anyone I've spoken to has come away from an experience that Castle has said this was a seminal experience in inspiration and how the relationship between human and landscape and history and mythology and all of these things have been sort of rolled into one experience seemingly seamlessly. And it's really all down to one person. Sammy Leslie. So I want to know how she does it.
, and I want to know how we can learn to do similar things in our lives. So, buckle up because this is a treat. Sammy, welcome to Live
Free Ride Free. Thank you. Lovely to hear you.
Can you tell us who you are and. Why you are in this position doing this
stuff? That's always the most terrible question. I have no idea who, who I am or what I do. I just grew up at with a, you know, very simple ethos is of all you can do in life is the best of what you have and by those around you. and it doesn't matter if all you got is in life is, you know, one bucket of water that which could save somebody's life or grow some very valuable food or, or you've got a lot. It's, it's just about understanding what you have and how you do the best.
You know, we're, we live in a very interconnected world, or we should live in a very interconnected world. And over the last couple of decades it's just become so siloed. You know, nature's over there and you know, people are over there and buildings are over here and history's over there and smart's over there. And, and. You know, climate change is something we don't even talk about.
And I mean, here we really talk about two things are fascinated by two things, biodiversity, which is the wonderful, complex, interwoven, relationships of nature and neurodiversity in the fact that we all have brains and we all process information differently. And, you know, same thing, a whole series of wonderful, interwoven complex relationships. I, I don't think you can silo, you know, people and place and nature and planet without detrimental effect.
So yeah, I suppose my part of my family are American. and through the Jeromes and the eyes, they're supposed to be Sue and IO descent. And when we were children, we grew up very much on side of First Nation or native or indigenous American people. And we just wanted to kick the shit outta the Cowboys. sorry, I'm not allowed to say that probably.
So we were always told to think a bit deeper and look a bit further and gently question everything because life is not the series of black and white binary boxes. We're trying to put it into. And it's not working as we can tell. So you, you are coming
out of a background, with some roots in Native America, yet there you are sitting in County Monaghan in Ireland. Mm-hmm. on the border with between North and Southern Ireland, running this fast state, and shouldering all the responsibilities that come with it, because it's, it's a working estate and, it's a hotel and it's a farm, and it's all of these things. As far as I know, you weren't supposed to be in this position. No. I'm, tell us the story. How, where were you born?
How were you born? How'd you end up
doing this? I am the, the mistress is a legitimate child. If you want to put labels on people, I'm very proud of it. You know, my mom and dad, absolutely fell in love. My dad had an amazing first, wife, Agnes Burnell Hungarian, German j who with her mom fled Berlin. just about one of the last sort of trains to get out before things got really closed down and an awful lot of their family, it didn't get down, it didn't get out.
So, always grew up with that sort of understanding of the desperate cruelty that humans can reflect or can inflict on fellow human beings. And my mom and dad were not supposed to be, and I wasn't supposed to be either. And, , dad went to see a psychic, with mum and the psychic turned around and went, ah, Mr. Leslie. Yeah, little, another child on the way. Little brown. I had brown girl.
And, mum was blonde and blue eyed and dad was like, oh, please, is it my wife or my mistress that are pregnant? What's happening here? and I came along. so certainly a child that wasn't supposed to, wasn't supposed to be, but I can totally understand if my, if my mother had made other choices, I've always been too terrified to have children thought absolutely terrifies me. so yes, I was not the expected one, to do this, and I just fell in love with place.
Here it is one of the most magical places on, you know, on the planet. There's this amazing little corner of Ireland that was carved out by the glaciers with glittering lakes and wonderful woodlands. And as children, we were feral children. I mean, as we left in the morning and we, we probably grabbed a head collar or a bridle, and grabbed a pony, which was normally a scruffy rescue from somewhere. and we probably had a bit of a packed lunch somewhere, and we literally just disappeared.
And as long as we were home before dark and there was not too many, too much blood and preferably no broken bones. nobody really noticed or, or probably cared. it was, it was an absolute idyllic childhood being allowed to be that free range in nature. And I think that's one of, now that,
that, that wasn't normal for the, children of the Land Gentry. what, what one knows of that background is that one was required usually to have a, a loyalty first to cast, to clan and then after that to family and then after, you know, personal relationships. No, not so much. You seem to have come outta something very, very different
there. well, my. My dad is probably, he is the third, but he's actually the fourth child. The third child was still born and is buried under a tree in Tolbert Great Park in London. because he was un, he was un baptized, so therefore there was nowhere to bury him. so he again, grew up quite free range as such.
I think his father had sort of given up, and he was handed over to a series of nannies, and his hair was dyed blonde until he was about five, and nobody noticed, because if you were a nanny in Hyde Park, you were much, it was much higher status. Well, first to have the eldest boy, preferably blonde as well. and if you couldn't have that, you, you had a blonde child and literally dad's hair was, died blonde for the first five years of his life. Nobody noticed.
So, and that was in London and yeah, he, he grew up, he was born in 1921, so it was just after the first World war. and I think he had a little bit of free range childhood in, in many ways as well, because, you know, the grownups were tired and busy at that point. Remember, our, our, in our world, you know, of, of big old houses, having a relationship with your child before there's seven can hold a conversation, mix a, a folded lettuce, leave with one, try this again.
Having a relationship with a child before the age of seven when they're supposed to be able to, you know, read the newspaper folded lettuce, leave with a fork and mix a good dry martini. It wasn't something that one did really. No. You know, they were kinda brought up with nannies until that point, and, and they could be amazing, kind, wonderful people who desperately cruel.
And one of dad's was quite cruel for her potty training was tying if he, if he we himself, she would tie the white nappy to his face and make him stand in the corner. but that was sort as improving and Charact a good thing. Yeah. That was his mother. That was your grandmother? No, that was his nanny. Oh, that was his
nanny. Gosh. Ouch.
Yeah, his mother was, and you know, it's the type of thing somebody be in jail for now. Indeed. No, absolutely indeed. But then character building as you quite rightly say. , so go ahead. Expect. So how, how did that, how did, how did he
then translate from this neglected, rather abusive, upbringing in London, to this extraordinary wild and magical estate in
Ireland? Well, this was where they came in the summer. It was too cold really, in the winter. and they came here for summer and holidays and he absolutely loved it. And, and again, kind of just went fairwell and disappeared off into the woods and out in the lake fishing and out swimming and up trees and, you know, on ponies and down to the farm. And, you know, Very much outside and, and, and a nature lover and really connected with the nature.
And I think that's when he really fell in love with spiritualism and that sort of, um, you know, through the American side of the family that sort of, you know, first nation spiritualism and connecting connection to land. So your father,
well, at what point did he then decide to just live at Castle Leslie and immerse himself in that landscape? And then how did you come along?
Well, if you go back to 1914 when the eldest boy was shot, the second boy didn't want it. He wanted to become a priest. the third boy, had had polio. So then it was sort of put into a, an estate company to try and protect it. And then the next generation, my aunt was born 1912, but she was a girl and I was in my forties before I realized she was the eldest child because the next one, uncle Jack was a boy.
So I assumed he was the eldest, but he'd been a prisoner of war for five years and really couldn't cope with the sort of stresses of running the place. and it was just known as the hot potato cuz nobody really wanted it. So then it went to, my dad picked up the pieces and said, I'll take it on.
and then I'm the fifth of six kids and while everybody loves and adores it, you know, the reality of four letter words, like work and bill and, you know, roof, and, you know, things that need to be scare me now with these
words.
So, I love four letter words. there's lots of good ones. and, but see, at the end of the day, people should follow their passion in life and their career and what they want to do and, and not do what the world tells 'em they should do because they're just gonna be miserable for life. So did your,
did your dad, it sounds like he managed to break free from that kind of, tying diapers to your face type, stringent upbringing, and he didn't inflict that on you or his other children, it seems. Can you describe, what the culture at Castle Leslie was when you were a girl growing up? How, how was it, what was going
on there? Well, dad had, I suppose he found his, his wings literally when he went into the RF at 19 and got away, you know, went through the war and got away from the constraints of, of family as such. And then he went off and became a filmmaker and music maker in London. And then he came home and took over and he started nightclub here in the sixties and then a hippie colony. So some of my nannies growing up Baner and, you know, would've been part of the hippie colony.
So it was quite sort of free thinking in a very, you know, the, the, the Catholic church in Ireland was not a kind church. and as we know, so many horror stories are unfolding all the time. and he stayed a million miles away from organized religion and, just was quite a free spirit. And most importantly, he absolutely loved his horses. Okay. Tell us
about the relationship with Castle Leslie and
horses. Oh, they've always, you know, since we, rescued Mark Queen of Scott's in the 10 hundreds on the back of a horse, which is how we ended up from Hungary into Scotland, and eventually here. Whoa,
say that again. Slowly.
Both me, Leslie came over as a mercenary to bring a young girl over to Mary King Malcolm of Scotland. her name was Margaret, and at some point he had to rescue her from a castle that was being besieged. And he made a belt with three buckles, and he threw her on the back of the horse. And he shied a grip past the buckle and buggered off cross countryside.
And when she became queen, she gave us a crest with three buckles, and then granted him all the land for a mile around where his horse needed to stop to, to rest. And he rode West. I think he exhausted five horses. And she became,
she became Queen of Scotland. Yeah. But, and then allotted him land in Northern Ireland?
No, in Scotland. In Scotland.
Okay. How did, okay. Okay. Keep going.
Well, in those days, and then in the 16 hundreds, one of them was a bishop and he was a bit feisty, and they kept moving him, ran the place he lived to the grand old age of, it was in his hundredth year when he died. And, he got moved over here and he fought Cromwell and then rode to the restoration of the king. And when, he was offered the Archbishop of Canterbury as, as, as a reward, he went, no, no, no. There's an old church and a lake in my, the edge of my diocese.
I just want to settle there. So he fell in love in the 1660s with, with here and that incredible light over that beautiful lake. And, bought the estate of Ridgeways for 2000 pounds. That's a lot of money.
Yes. In those days. an unthinkable amount of money. okay. So you grew up, as a, the child of a hippie commune, run by, an aristo who had a mistress who didn't quite mean to get pregnant, but did, and then you came along and managed to grow up Ferrell in this amazing place with all this history. did you ever imagine you'd end up having to run the show? I I, that you must have seen as you grew up, despite it being feral, despite being able to take ponies and sprinters?
You must have seen it was a lot of work to run
a place like that. Yeah, absolutely. So there was this sort of wonderful freedom of being feral around the estate. There was the incredible and probably the most amazing privilege of the kitchen table. And, you know, we were encouraged to sit and talk and ask questions to anybody that was there. And the kitchen table was always this amazing mix of people from all walks of life. and what was the question? The
question was, did you ever, as you were a kid, imagine that you would end up running the place and did you have a sense of, as a kid, just the sheer amount of effort it
takes to run a place like that? Well, so, so you know, there was the, the feral childhood, the incredible. Privilege, the kitchen table and anybody and everybody that you met. And, you were allowed to ask questions and, you know, to ask people about different religions and view viewpoints. And on the outside, you know, while inside the house was very open-minded, outside the troubles were picking up speed. Okay. And that other sort of 30 something years.
So no, I just always loved the place and wanted to do it, but, and nobody else really seemed that interested. I mean, there's interest, but there's rolling up your sleeves and doing the four letter word. But now tell us, tell us about the
troubles. So not everyone who's listening to this, knows what the troubles were. We, we did interview over on our, equine assisted world, podcast, , Terry Brosnan, who also grew up in the Troubles. Yes. tell us about the troubles. What were the troubles and how did they affect your
place? It started out as, as civil rights and because it was a very, a very unfair society. You know, Catholics were second right citizens, and it was very unbalanced. and then it grew legs and violence became the normal way of dealing with things. And, you know, and tit fort and became very divisive and, and divided people in communities and, you know, rage for about 30 something years with the loss of about three. You know, probably 10, 20 times of that pupil.
Seriously, androgen, traumatized.
Right. So you, you were, you were living growing up in this beautiful place, but right on the border of Northern and Southern Ireland there. How did the troubles, the Protestant Catholic troubles seep into that magical
world? Your, it was very funny cause I, you know, I'm from a family of eight faith and probably as many nationalities, there's still a few question marks. so we grew up in a world that was very open and eclectic and, and you know, multi-faced, multiracial.
And then you walked out the door and you went, are they gonna like me cuz they think I'm Catholic and hate me cuz they think I'm English Protestant or are they're gonna love me because of the Churchill Wellington connection and they think I'm English Protestant and hate me cuz they think I'm Catholic. in fact, I'm neither of the above.
so you're always doing this dance trying to figure out you to be incredibly careful about what you said to who and cuz somebody would pigeonhole you in one side or the other. so it was a, it was a, it was an interesting time. Yeah. Bias. Did, did, did violence creep onto the estate itself? not really. We were very lucky. I mean, there were definitely neighbors where, you know, there were horrendous murders and houses burned and bombs and, yeah. Very unpleasant things. But
what do you think, what do you think made. Castle, Leslie Haven. Why didn't the trouble spill
onto the estate? I think cuz over the generations, they've just, they've always matter. A, a really interesting, women over the years, you know, not the dominion of long eggs, but long legs, fresh eggs, need ply, you know, breeding machines. so Christina Leslie was a widow in 1940 and with children from her husband's first marriage and their marriage. So I think she had seven or nine children under the age of 16. And, she ran the estate and she did an awful lot of good work.
And she did the best she could in really desperate circumstances, you know, and there were desperate landowners and people who just never even came to wineland. They had no understanding of, the land. They had no understanding of the poverty and the hunger. and about a third of the states went bankrupt. About a third of the states didn't care. And then there was a cohort of them that really wanted to try and do the right thing. And she was certainly up there with them.
And we've done a lot of research into, you know, her life and her work. And she was an incredible person. I mean, this is back to the terrible dangers of monocultures. You know, potato was the monoculture. It was an incredible food, and potatoes and buttermilk are a perfect protein. You know, it was the highest food value per acre of anything grown. It made a lot of sense in so many ways, but monoculture leaves you very vulnerable. So you are saying if
I, if I'm getting my history right, that there was a history in the estate of when troubled times happened, like the Irish potato famine, the, people of Car Castle Leslie in particular, the women of Castle Leslie were seen to have stepped up to help the community did that. But that was, you know, a good a hundred years or 120 years before the troubles, you know, of, of the 1970s to eighties and so on.
why would the good works of, of a previous generation, several generations back, matter to the generation fighting and the troubles? What,
because it was recent history in so many ways. It, you know, it so changed the country in so many ways. Not desperate, loss of life, desperate immigration, awful things happened in so many different ways. so no, it's, it was very recent history in so many ways.
Okay, so, so, so p people were, were still feeling mm-hmm. The potato famine 120 years later and saying, well, because the Leslie family did the right thing and fed people, we're not gonna go there and burn that house down, basically. Is, is that more or less what it was, or
first? Well, the first time houses were burned was the 1920s after Ireland got independence. so they had a whole space of burning. They burned about 400 houses. Yeah. And. Stopped. People came to burn it and people were stopped burning it. so yeah, it would, it would've been part of it. Also, my grandfather had become a Catholic. He'd stood for the national seat and dairy and spoke Gail Gory, spoke fluent Irish party, Irish Language Commission. so, but his first cousin was Winston Churchill.
So you had this real sort of dichotomy of lots of people on different sides. so I would hope to think, cause obviously I wasn't around at the time that, you know, it's cuz they were reasonable people and tried to do the right thing in the 1890s, or sorry, 1790s with a thing called the Act of Union, which was trying to get rid of the Irish Parliament because it was becoming too powerful. So we did two things. We tried to put a bill to parliament that absentee landlords pay higher taxes.
If they weren't gonna live in Ireland and work their land and be part of it, they should make, pay a much higher tax. That stayed in Ireland that went down a fart space suit. And then in the active union, they were offered, 10,000 pounds in an earldom to vote to get rid of the Irish Parliament. And they went no stuff it. so I think in their own way they've tried to, you know, do the right thing by those around them. and, and by here it would've been very easy to take.
And there's, you know, there's a whole. Series of a lot of research on what they call the castle ray bribes and who took the bribes and, you know, politics at the time was, was, you know, who could, who could pay the, who could bribe who, yeah.
Mm. Yeah. That, that was Georgian politics. I, I, I don't think much has changed, but, so basically it seems that the Leslie family then seems to have had an unusually good relationship through massive political upheavals and violence with Yeah, I think
the local community, yeah. I think if you look at the original states that are still here, and there's probably only 12 or 15 sort of on this sort of scale, they probably were all here because they wanted to do the right thing through, through the generations. yeah, I mean, it would, you know, even, you know, the last round, it would be easier to sort of sell and bugger off, but that would be, that just wouldn't be the right thing to do.
So how aware of all that, were you growing up as a, as a child in the, did you must have learned, did you learn all this later or was all this history imparted to you as part of your feral childhood? You sort of, yeah,
it was a real dichotomy and yes. You learned, we used to do tourists at the house. You got money off tourists if you did it. and, but you learned all the history and you learned all the paintings. You learned who everybody was and yeah. That you we're all just fellow human beings on this planet. Yeah. Yeah. All trying to, yeah, no, it, it,
it, it's an extraordinary, it's an extraordinary corner of the world in so many ways because it's, it's so magical, it's so beautiful, it's so wild. And at the same time, it's so steeped in the, messiness of the realities of what humans get into with each other. And yet there, the estate has stood and there it still is. something I know about estates is that they generally don't make money and often end up getting sold. You, your dad was a hippie.
He had the hippie commune, as you said, the four letter worked work bills, that sort of thing, not perhaps the most popular.
Oh, he, he worked, he paid bills and he tried to keep the roof on. but you know, he had, was quite visionary in what he wanted to do was an amazing, very beautifully designed sort of hotel that looked like the hanging gardens of Babylon and amazing golf course and all of the rest. And he had all sorts of bikes and plans down and was sort of heading off down that road when, when the travels hit, they were, bulldozing the land for the foundations for different buildings.
Okay. So your dad actually had the idea? Yes. So you'd get into tourism and then the troubles hit and put the kibosh
on that. Yeah. Two things. tourism and, nature reserves as they were called in those days. Okay. Which of course, why do you wanna protect nature? There's so much, but there's, it's doesn't really make a difference. so yeah. So, you know, he had an awful lot of vision. I mean, he didn't have the sort of business skills, but, necessary that, you know, that we would now. But where did you learn them? You remember? They had no education.
He had a, a year in university and then after the r a f and got music. It was, you know, the world. We, the amount of courses and support we have to nurture young businesses and entrepreneurs now is fabulous. In his day, there was absolutely nothing and everybody was out to try and Felicia.
Yeah, no, absolutely. So, so, so he comes up with this vision, he's about to get going on it. Mm-hmm. He finds backers, then the troubles hit, and now nobody wants to go to this part of Ireland. Why doesn't the estate go down? what keeps it above water?
Two things. selling land, furniture, paintings. And also he started a business round, equestrian riding holidays because, you know, some of the bravest people are people that ride and especially, you know, from Northern Ireland because they're so used to, Being ballsy.
and we had a lot of Swiss riders as well through a Swiss agent, that all, so I grew up with the equestrian center and lots of people coming here, to ride horses and because of the beautiful land here, and there's this sort of amazing amount of timber and huge amounts of cross country. and the days before insurance got silly. Lots of people used to come here for, you know, riding and hacking and, and cross country. You know,
it's, I I grew up, , in the UK riding and so yeah, I remember seeing the adverts for Castle Leslie in the, equestrian magazines as a boy and, and, and thinking, oh God, that looks amazing. I'd love to go there. These sweeping, you know, views and people jumping cross country jumps and it just all looking so amazing and so perfect and thinking, oh, I'd really like to go there one day. And I sort of, it, it had always been kind of in the back of my mind. Yeah. Castle Leslie.
And then, so it is amazing to me to end up there, with you last year, , ago actually. There's that little boy in me, you know, that was looking at that ad, you know, back in the 1980s going, yes, I made it there, as you say. , that was before the days of, insurance and liability and people suing each other and that sort of thing. Taking people for cross country riding holidays isn't exactly the safest business bet. In the world, cause people are gonna fall off and they are gonna get hurt.
It's just, there's gravity. It's just the nature of the beast. your dad started this equestrian center specializing in this, what happened to it because it seemed on the outside, very successful to me as a boy, seeing the ads, you know, and, and wanting to go.
Absolutely. by, , where are we? 84. , I was in England training. I got my AI and then got my eye eye in talent and I phoned home to say I got my eye at 18, which, was quite young. And he said, oh, but I'm really sorry I've had to sell the equestrian center. So I thought, well, I will buy that back. And it took me 20 years to, to buy it back. and they were really gracious about it. And then we built the new hotel wrapped rider and the new yard that, that you've seen.
We got some support from our tourist board for the indoor arena and the, and the yard, which meant we could build a sort of a four, five star facility that normally in those days, only people, you know, in top competition yards managed to get into. We just wanted to make a really good yard accessible for everybody. Now whether it's
you, you, you threw out some acronyms there, which not everyone listening will will know. So I just want to just for the, the listeners who dunno quite what that language meant. Okay. So, The equestrian professional world in the uk, most people get what's called a bhs, British Horse Society AI assistant instructor as a sort of basic, and then there's an ii, intermediate instructor and then there's an I instructor and there aren't many BHS eyes out there. To be a BHS eyes is like a big deal.
and you got yours at what?
No. Well, I got my AI at 17 and my eye eye at 18 and I wanted my eye by 21 and I wanted to be a fellow before I was 30. but I had, I came, plans changed. I came instead of going to Germany to train at 18, I came home and started a yard. Cuz I just knew that if I didn't come home and state my claim, probably more would've got sold. And I didn't want to be in a situation where, I find out about it through a phone call after it had happened.
So. All right. So you get your ii which is a, a major deal at 18. Yes. I I, I remember there was maybe a few I eyes in the part of England that I grew up in, and they were all fearsome, ironclad, English horsey women, bellowing to each other as Macedon Bellows. Toon, exactly. Across the Primeval Swamp and Yeah. , and they were all, you know, it had taken them into their, into their thirties or forties to get there. It's obviously it was a major achievement.
Get that. Go ahead. Tale is an incredible school. I mean, Talend, the Equestrian Center Tale is, is phenomenal. So, Talend Talend, so Pam Ands and Molly Siv Wright's Equestrian Center. So I was there for four months and you know, it's an amazing bootcamp. and they produced incredible riders, one after the other. I'm not one of them, so, but, you know, horses were never going be able to take, make the sort of money that I needed to put the place back together.
So it was always horses, hospitality, and heritage. What
made you feel, I mean, the hospitality industry is notoriously, demanding. it grinds people down. I've had lots of friends who were chefs, hotelier, that sort of thing, and it took a toll. and, the, the world of horses, the equestrian world, similarly, you get bashed up. You it, it looks glamorous from the outside, but we know that it's, it's a lot of shit shoveling and falling off and getting trodden on and so forth, and there's massive financial overheads.
So to come in at 1819 and say, okay, I'm gonna get this equestrian center that's just been sold, I. How did you, how did you let alone going into hotel man, you know, making a hotel?
How did you begin? Oh, the wonderful thing about Young is being f was young and Fool Hardy. , so at 18 there was another stable yard in the back of the estate, which has been the sort of working horse yard. , the one where the equestrian center was, was the agent's yard for his horses. Then there was a second yard for the carriage horses. , and then the third yard was the hunters and the working horses. So I took the old third yard on the back of the estate and, and, and started there.
, and I got a grant, , from the County Enterprise Board. I didn't actually, I got a, , an ANCO grant for about 1200 quid, , and started the yard and worked up from there. So how did
you find your clientele? How did you find your, your stuff? How did you, how did you run a team as just a
kid like that? When I, I've been outta school five years, four years at that stage. So in my head I wasn't a, I wasn't a kid school at 15. , So, , teaching, so teaching was something I'd always loved and, and did quite well. And also, flat work and, and schooling and, and breaking horses that everybody had marked up. , and ended up having some nice horses through. And then I sold a horse out to Canada. , and at 21 I just knew I needed to get away and travel. I always wanted to come home.
so I went out to Canada after pk, the little bay mayor that went out and worked in Canada for a while, and then Virginia and then San Francisco and out to Australia and traveled and worked and traveled work for about three years. Why wasn't
the, lump the, the financially troubled estate sold out from under you while you, while you were doing that, how did you, or did you take a risk that it might, it might just not have been there to come back to? No.
I knew that I needed to get away and travel. I mean, he must have sold something quite well to be able to survive for a couple more years. and then, , he actually did sold something that sold. Okay. And then I got to go to hotel school in Switzerland. My sister got to film school and my other sister got to university. and then, , back into financial trouble. And he got a big offer from a Japanese corporation, , to become, I think their cultural liaison center for Europe.
And I, I shortened my course in Switzerland. so I doubled my hours. I was doing 60 hours a week study. And then, I remember I was down in the FR fridges downstairs and, I can't remember what I was getting. And the phone call came in and he said, are you coming home? And I said, just give me six months. This was November, December, or maybe January. I said, just gimme six months to December and I'll be home. And I came home when I was 24. Ok. Ancient. I work.
And you got Yeah. Really? In, in, in the old days in Ireland, you'd been an old mate. what, so did you get, did you get to work alongside your dad? no. He had pulling it up again and putting, getting
it back on it feet. Not really. I mean, dad was 48 when I was born. So what age was he at that point? I was 24. So he was sort of early seventies. And am I right? Late sixties?
you were talking to the wrong person
for maths. Yeah. 48 60. Yeah. He was early, early seventies. And it was, cause I remember doing his 70th birthday. and he also, when he'd smoked, which, if you've got, you know, weaker lungs is, is not the cleverest. He nearly died when we were children from double pneumonia. And they, you know, doctor said you'd continue to smoke and you've got six months. He'd also, you know, always had asthma. and then he got em emphysema and he lost about a third of his lung capacity.
So big damp, cold house. I mean, the problem with damper is there's less oxygen in it and it's much harder to breathe. And he really couldn't cope with winters here. So he was around my first winter and in his ski suit, he literally got into a Red Sea scoot and lived into, lived in it for the winter. your body self cleans after a while. And then, he'd come home for a bit in the summers. So he died in 2 0 1, so I was 34. He'd just been home 10 years at that stage. so yeah. So you, you found
yourself at 24? Mm-hmm. Saying, okay, I'm going to take this huge lumbering place, which is very beautiful, and I'm gonna make a worldclass hotel and question center out it.
How'd you even begin? I was a lovely old saying that the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time. so you just do little bits. So I started with horses the first winter, and then I did, t runs. I got a grant for 5,000 for the town enterprise board. And then I sold my dad's card for the other five grand. And then bit by bit, he left a five of us. So I got an agreement with the rest of the family, and then I started six bedrooms, and then I bought out all the freehold from everybody.
And then just bit by bit, you just keep picking away. That's all you can. How did you, how did
you find the guests? How did you, how'd you find the staff? How did you find the team? How did you run that? You make it sound so
easy. It couldn't have been. It's always listen, having children, I wasn't brave enough to do that. in all wonderful forms that they, that they come in, and they, there's wonderful proof of local, people who came to work from, I mean, some of our team were 14 when they started, still in contact with them. and they're mothers now, which is wonderful to see. and yeah, we remember we were in an area where there weren't an awful lot of jobs at that time. And just built it up.
but, you know, I, I don't make it all look wonderful. Now I have incredible CEO who's, who's been here 15 years at this point. It's his birthday tomorrow, and there's a team of probably 200 on the estates. So they're the ones that really make it look fabulous and seamless and, and wonderful, not me. How, how, how
many people were working on the estate when you began to put
it all together? Bridget Earl Housekeeper still lived here, who's been retired twice, but kept coming back cause the house was very much her life and I very much understand that. who else was here? Jack Heini, one of the old foresters was a wonderful character. Eugene Dinkin, the old head gardener's son was rounding about Mrs. Dinkin. His mom was on the back, in the back gate Lodge. Harry was retired from, manager.
He was in one of the gate lodges, the wonderful Gourney clan where Jackie started in the yard. She's been here since I was 12, very much part parcel. and she's in the stewards in the dairy house, and that's theirs. so yeah, there were people scattered around the gate lodges and, me. Okay. And you built it
up to 200. Incredible. I know that you, I know that you battled some,
oh, it's not me. Say that again. It's a huge team effort. It's not just me. Yeah. But
on I know, I know what you're saying. And you're very modest at the same time. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's been grown and coaxed and nurtured. . So, you, , you pulled this estate, this sort of all basically bankrupt estate up by its bootstraps. You managed to, at beginning age 24, begin with a hotel and equestrian center, which is not an easy thing. You mentioned that you left school at 15. I know that you, you've, you've talked to me about your struggles with dyslexia.
Mm. Can talk to us about that and, and how did that inform your self perception and your, feeling of yourself as an entrepreneur? And
you know, what's really funny is really interesting is, you know, I love the now the fact we can talk about neurodiversity and that we, the human mind process this information in so many different ways. And, and we're starting to, starting to understand some of them, the m part of an entrepreneur, cohort. And, they were looking at, there's a lot of research being done into sort of the percentile, with the people that think differently in whatever the norm is supposed to be in the first place.
But the entrepreneur brain and that sort of, Thinking differently is, is is huge correlation. You know, I don't, you know, people talk about thinking outside the box. I've never found the box. I don't know what the box looks like. It's just, so when you go through school and you come from a house like this, it's not easy because they go here. The fact you think you are, you, you know, you're from the big house. Do you think you're special?
You know, Dean Swift, the great writer in the 17 hundreds, complained that our house has loads and loads of shelves upon which it many were books written by the Leslie's all about themselves. you know, and they went on to write notes, 200 books after that. So, to come from a very literary family, and not be able to read and write the same way everybody else does, wasn't easy. And there was, you know, you tried to say your dyslexic and then people just said, oh, you thought you were special.
And so, no, it wasn't, it certainly wasn't the easiest time. But then you went home into this wonderful freethinking world where anything was possible, and then you just got the ponies. And the great thing about horses is they don't read and write and they don't speak English. And, you know, they see pictor really, and they see shapes and textures and ratios and, you know, they think in a, you know, they don't need to do the academic bollocks.
I mean, look at, just watch any, you know, horse going, you know, cross country at a high level or dressage at a high level, or show jumping or you know, at at barrel racing, any of the, the sports. And you go, God, you know, their brain function is incredible. Their, because their brain controls their body. I mean, they're amazing. they process so much information at such high speed and they don't read and write and they don't speak English and
Right. But they're also not expected to run businesses though, are they? I mean, so, so
no, they do. They probably, but no, so I think it was that perception, that ridiculous perception of what we understand, intelligence to be, you know, there's this, so this whole thing about intelligence and you have to be intelligent and intelligence was linked to academia. there we're now understanding there is so many different forms of intelligence. and I think the absolute hard reached ness of intelligence equaled academia in school was very damaging for a lot of kids. I could see how,
coming back from a school where you've basically been told you're stupid, you know, and I remember when I was a boy at school, mm. Dyslexia was considered to be, by a lot of teachers stupidity. And now we know it's actually sort of part of genius syndrome. but. Of course it, it wasn't looked at that way. And I could see how coming back to this, you know, fairy world, with the, with ponies and hippies and amazing, could give you a safe haven.
But then of course you had to go out and, you know, cope with, even with the horse world, sitting exams, doing that sort of thing. And then of course you go off to, to Switzerland and you go to, catering school. how did you, how did you function
there? Well, I think with the equestrian in my day, it was all oral or practical, which was great. Or teaching. And so you didn't have to do the written. it was brilliant. So even in high level was, I don't think in my day there was any written papers. and in hotel management, a lot of, at the beginning was practical, but I learned all the work rounds and I learned how to, they didn't mark you on your reading and write, you know, your writing skills.
but I learned how to, to learn as such in the way that was needed. And I got a 5.8 average outta six, by year three, which was not bad. The language has tripped me up. my language has brought my scores down cause I just, what people forget is just, I, this is my theory and I'm sticking to it. His dyslexics brains are very logical and that they're always looking, taking vast amounts of data.
Most other people don't even see, when they look at something, you know, whether it shape, color, texture, size, and they're always trying to process it into a form of logic. And we, there's so many different logics that you can take outta a series of data. as we know from data mining now, is that, that's my theory, that that's what we're always trying to do.
And then that makes the place a sort of a safe and a calm place because you can put things in an order that they're supposed to be and you know, that the world says they should be. And language is no, language is no logic to it. It's other than German. Right,
exactly. Which is what I'm struggling with right now. but e exactly. So you, you go off to Switzerland, , dyslexic and then you're expected to do stuff in other languages and you're juxtaposing letters and so on. Cause you're taking in all this information and yet you achieved this high grade point average. how,
I just studied, I mean we had 48 hours of lectures and practical a week and then I doubled my course and did 60 and then, in a start, eight in the morning and then two hour lunch break. But I did library for lunch and you know, took a sandwich in and studied. You just work. And then I'd work till sort of six o'clock in a Saturday night or eight o'clock in a Saturday night, go out for dinner, go clubbing, sleep or ski the next day and start again.
So, you know, you were doing 80, a hundred hours a week, between classes and study, but that's, but that's what it took. I mean, that's what, what you'd do in horses and that's what you do in hospitality in the early days.
Sure. at what point did you find though, that the dyslexia was no longer tripping you up in any way? was not impeding you? Was there a, a point where you were like, actually it's just not even an issue. I've been told this is, or or was it a slow thing was more
No, no. Oh, definitely. It's always there. You learn work rounds. I mean, I've got my own email language and my own written language. Everybody on my team knows that. because I read by shape, recognition and placement of word. And if you don't give me the context at the beginning of a document Yeah. Can get me. So once there's context, then say it says cat at the top of a document, you know, all those shapes are going to be related to cat.
So then your brain recognizes all, all of the words and that relate to cat or what a cat might get up to, and therefore it figures out the shapes of the words. And then it puts them in so they, you know, there you can see words that are similar shapes, there could be lots of things, but I know they're related to cats. So it could be only one of 20 words. And I know the context, so I'll work out what's actually on the paper. So, no, we, we don't read by letters on a page.
I mean, how ridiculous would that be? Seriously?
unimaginative. Indeed. what about numbers? did your dyslexia, go to numbers as well? And, and
No. Cause I learned, I learned early on that numbers are ratios. There's 10, you know, one to 10, one to 12. After that everything is a ratio within that. Mm. So, you learn all the ways of quick multiplication and division and all the rest, which of course you lose once you start using calculators. but numbers are highly logical. Okay. Two plus two will always be four. Depends on your accountant, but yeah, depends on your accountant. I have. And two.
And two and two could be 22, but two letters beside each other could be a whole load of things. Right.
Do you find, or did you find then the same difficulty in reading and understanding nuance, emotion, sarcasm, that sort of thing with you? Or is that never a
problem? Oh, absolutely. It depends on the writer. I've just finished reading Ben Goldsmith. God is an Octopus and it is one of the most magical supplying books I think I've ever read. Because of his ability to portray incredibly complex situations like the death of his very fabulous and. Wonderful daughter at 15 in a farm accident to his, going through the desperate grief and really falling in love with an understanding nature and, and rewilding.
And he ended up, you know, in Deborah, the department of, food and Agriculture in, in the UK for five years. But because his English is so low, I don't know, it's just so easy to read. So you really get the highs and the lows. there are other writers that try and write simple stories, but use complicated English, and you're sitting there going, why is that word there? What does that mean? You know? And, and the words just, I I I don't understand their flow of English.
So, God give me, I would, I think I just pull my tail toenails out if you ask me to read Shakespeare or old English. yeah, I love his works and it play because you can figure out what they're trying to say because of the body language and the setting and the costume and, there's lots of other ways to read the emotion within a play that you just can't read in a, in a book. And that's
interesting because I know, I know you to be a reader. and yet there you are with dyslexia. was there a point where reading kicked in as a pleasure?
studying veterinary notes for, it was veterinary notes for horse owners, write, reading all the, the manuals for anatomy and veterinary and stuff for teaching. They're all very logical. I think, you know, somebody like for me, Patricia Cromwell, the, the crime writer again, writes in a, a language that makes sense to me.
So, but there are other writers, I just cannot get beyond sort of page three because I can't make sense of the, the, the order of the, that they use words a big words ade marmalade.
Yeah. That's a, that's a, it's a big word. It's a word that makes me, it's, it's a, it's word for a cat, isn't it? I think that's, yeah. Mm-hmm.
yeah. Marad Duke and Marmalade, they're both types of cats. Did you,
is Marad Duke a a dog? Yeah. Marad. Duke's a a Great Dane, I think, isn't it? but maybe a great Dane that eats cats and therefore they taste like marmalade. yes, exactly. When you were a kid growing up, feral, , in the woods there, were you reading then, or did it, did it kick in
later? No, no. Later. Oh. I think it was always, oh God. I was always reading books on horse training for the first number of years of my life. And then, when I was traveling, you probably started to read more for pleasure. Okay. especially a long train journey or somewhere, or sitting in a train station or backpack. You know, backpacking can be a very slow moving. So definitely started to read more there and wanting to read books about the country and the culture that I was going to see.
Right. I made the reading shogun before I backpacked around Asia. Okay.
so it kicked in for you sort of more in your twenties. That's the dyslexia side. Now, I know that you also battled cancer, and that's a difficult thing in any context. but when you've got the weight of a large business on you and, the livelihoods of lots of people, and the well and, and, and the land because it's, it's not just a business as in people and money. You're, you are looking after landscape, you're looking after woodland, you're looking after livestock.
You're, talk us through that.
Well, I, I've been in and outta hospital since my 20, late twenties with, some form of extreme exhaustion. And then in my, early forties I did an amazing thing called the Hoffman process, which is probably, but for me, definitely it's a sort of week long course and you just literally get stuck into understanding how your behavior works and the things that you've learned and what serves you and what trips you up and, and you know, sort of how your brain makes sense of things that are confusing.
and I think that helped me let go of a lot of the sort of confusion of, you know, the, when I was younger. so funny enough, when I got a diagnosis with cancer, breast cancer, I think it was also a bit like, cuz I've done so much veterinary, it's just like, well, this is just something we need to deal with. and it hadn't started to spread, although I found the lump in June, went to the doctor 10 days to get an appointment.
I had a, I had problem with the gro now that was really annoying and very painful and something else. And I actually forgot to say about the lump. And then in November I was, seeing somebody in New York at the time and he said, look, we can't, I just, he did, couldn't do the long distance bit and other bits. And he said, oh, I meant to say, by the way, as he was walking out the door, there was a bit of a lump. I think maybe you should get it checked. And I went, Oh, fuck, that's lump.
I should have got, I meant to get checked in June and it was quite a bit bigger. So, I went home and, I just didn't tell anybody until one person, because I can't do all the faffing about it. And I went through surgery and came out and 24th of December and ran a Christmas drinks party here for a hundred something people, which started the annual Christmas drinks PE party for everybody locally. And, then a few days later a friend hugged me and burst my stitches at a party.
That was, was, I'm still not trying to tell anybody, but, I ended up back in hospital. No, it was fine. I mean, the, the, the, it's a very guided process, you know, surgery, chemo, and radio and, and the different drugs and you come out the other end. And I hate to say I loved Wringle. I mean, I, I struggle with long hair and I've always got my hair tied up and had always very hairy legs and stuff, so somebody said Me too.
Yeah. Yeah. But yours are supposed to be, somebody said if you wax your legs the couple of days before each chemo session, you'll end up with no leg hair because they're, they're too weak to grow back. So that, that was an upside. but then, a year later I was diagnosed with ms. multiple sclerosis and that was a bit more annoying because that's a bit more shadow box and you never quite know what tricks it's going to. To pull on you. so, and, and it's for life.
I mean, there's no, as yet, there's not no sort of, you know, I'm 12 years after breast cancer now, so I don't even think of it. MS is a little bit more annoying.
Yeah. So Ms. it's in my family. and I know the, exhaustion factor as well as the other things. And I also know the exhaustion factor of, of, of being an entrepreneur and working in hospitality, let alone at the scale that you're doing it there. how do you possibly cope? I was three.
I slept for three and a half months last year. That worked really well. And then I moved my office home to my garden shed. Do you like my sky? I
do like your sky. Yes. I wish, I wish the, I wish the, listeners could see it. There's a sky painted, she's Sammy's sitting in her garden shed, which is her office, and she has the sky painted on the ceiling and the painted on the wall. It's
wonderful. Well, it's wall the wall's wallpaper and then the sky. Yeah. For blue sky thinking. so you do, yeah, I moved home, my office home, which is great. and my kitchen or a garden table became the boardroom during our outside boardroom, during covid. But I do have to be a little bit careful cause I could go kitchen, office garden, kitchen bed, kitchen office for a week and then realize I actually haven't left the premises for a week. so yeah, but it, it's, it's, it's
a flippant thing to say though, to say, well, I slept for three and a half months. You, you, you and I, Beth know you can't do that because of the demands and pressures of, of the job and running everything that has to be run.
How do you No, I didn't, Amanda. I did. And there was no,
how how did you manage to achieve that though? given, and there must be listeners who are battling with this right now.
No, I, I've got, I've, I have an amazing team and they've really got my back and I have an amazing person who helps me, in my house. And, and you know, they must have
needed decisions from you. They must have needed. Really?
No, it could run at that point. Very rarely. It wasn't three and a half months in a row. It was, you know, a day here, a week there. Right. you know, it was, it was in and out. and they kind of also tend to know when I'm getting a bit wobbly. So, you know, the, those sort of front load stuff. So yeah. Even yesterday I was on the computer and my eyesight shattered. So it's like a clear kaleidoscope and everything moves around the place. Mm mm Right. I can't.
I can't. And I was, I was, I was proofreading a, a, a spreadsheet of figures. I was like, this just isn't working, cuz they're all moving all over the place, so just go to bed and I got it done today. So, yeah. What would you say, I
mean there, there, there will be listeners, who are facing cancer, MS and other, fairly serious challenges who are trying to keep businesses, jobs, families, and so on together. as someone who's made go of that, what's, what are your
tips? I think there's all, you know, if, if you've been a half decent person in life, I think there's always a lot more people around you that want to help than you think. And sometimes you need to ask and sometimes you need to let people help. sometimes you need to show your vulnerability and just go, you know, my team know that if they hear me, my voice goes to certain. Level. Level. And I'm slow and I'm starting to not be able to complete a sentence and I'm trying to fight through it.
because I, you know, you just, you, you do fight through. I've got work to do. I need to keep going. Somebody will quietly say, maybe would, you know, we'd like a cap. You need to take a break or fuck off. Useless. isn't now at some point, you know, and I now start, I just know you, you, you can't fight extreme exhaustion. You just end up being a cranky cow. And I apologize for everybody out there.
I've ever been ultra cranky too when I'm too tired because I'm a thundering bitch when I'm exhausted. But it's normally because, you know, to actually be able to, you know, last year I had a, a week where it took me five, four days to get from my kitchen as far my bedroom to the kitchen for a cup of tea. you know, I found a couple of coffee sweets in the bathroom on day three, and that was kind of the first thing I'd eaten in three days.
so that's just, when it hits like that, there's just, there's no point in fighting it. And you just have to roll up and go to bed. I mean, that, that's
an interesting thing that you say, ask for help and allow your vulnerability to show. Because, you know, you, we, we, all of us who grew up in, in our generation, were brought up with a stoic, Value system and
stiff lip
in, in it. Rich, it's very much stiff upper lip. pull your socks up. and you know, it, it doesn't come easy to do that. and definitely also when we were younger, we would've actually been penalized for that. at what, and so I think there's a lot of people who'd be listening who like us would struggle with asking for help. At what point did you manage to sort of give up that rugged individualist thing and say, okay, I'm just gonna fuck it. I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna
ask. I think, well, with breast cancer I certainly had to back off and, and, you know, let my team do more. And you know what, they're all way more talented than me and much better at the job than I was. And you know, they've always shown and grown and it's wonderful. it's wonderful to see. MS has been a bit more of a struggle, I think, cuz the extreme exhaustion is quite insidious. And there are times you push through it and you get, and, and it lifts and you're like, oh, I can keep going.
I can get to that meeting, I can get to that party, I can get to the shops, I can. And then there's other times there's just absolutely no point whatsoever. Just, and then I got a thing called Noro ring that tracks my, sleep and activity and heart rate and all of the rest. So I can, it starts to tell me when I'm starting to dip, and that's when I go, okay, I'm not recovering as I should. I, I'm, I've just slept 14 hours and I'm still exhausted, so I need to be a bit more careful.
So certainly being able to, and then you can flick back through, you know, the last two or three weeks or last month, or eight weeks and you kind of go, yeah, okay, I need to be a bit more sensible here. So, wearable technology, the, the, the, the joys of bio. What's the, , is it bio electronics? Yeah, bio feedback. Is it, is it biofeedback where they use electrical pulses to measure the chemical reactions that are happening with your Right. I remember big words like marmalade.
That, that, that's it. And you know, it's, it's, it's been great in, you know, monitoring and times you think, I've got a really good night's sleep and you're looking and it goes, no, you didn't. And then by lunchtime you're going, no, I didn't. Yeah, you're right.
Interesting. Do, do, I mean, I, I think that's, there's probably a lot of people listening now go, actually, that. That's me. I often wake up exhausted. Why do I wake up exhausted? what is going
when? There are great things, there are great things that very unobtrusively measure what's happening when you're asleep because we go through this whole cycle of different sleep types and, you know, you can get a great night's sleep, but your alarm wakes you up in the middle of deep sleep and you feel like, you know, being hit in the head by a mallet is just, you've woken up the wrong point in your sleep cycle and you know, it tells you when your midpoint is and your
heart rate and your body rate and your body temperature and oxygen saturations and, in a very, very simple way. And then you can start to see the sort of patterns and I inject with interferon every two weeks. And it is interesting to, to watch what it says. and you're going, yeah, I feel like I'm been hit by a bus and just cause I have been hit by a bus, it's okay to just go, yeah, my body's struggling for the next two days. Would, would
your, would you say that your main, strategy for keeping up with work while having MS is, managing sleep, managing exhaustion, managing tiredness,
managing sleep? I do a lot of juicing. So, I hate cleaning my juicer. So do it probably every two weeks, and then freeze it, which is fantastic, and then have to remember to take it outta freezer, but I do most days. so just trying to always make sure I, I get, you know, lots of good micronutrients and looking after gut health. You know, it's a little bit like soil health.
We're starting to realize how complex it is and, and how important it is for, you know, for our body health and our brain health. Beyond
taking probiotics then, what, what do you do for your gut health? What tips have you got
for the rest of oh, well I've on a new one now that's around repairing gut, cuz I've definitely got leaky gut then, you know, it depends. It's really good liquid pro, probiotics that are survive getting into your gut, lots of fiber because your gut needs it and listening to your body and just seeing what foods work and don't work.
So what, what foods do you find don't work for you? What would, would you say that there's foods that
I don't. Yeah, modern gluten. we forget that wheat has been systematically bred for a long time to have a higher and higher gluten level. The breads, when we baked it in the old days, had a, you know, eight to 12 hour proof. So, you know, the yeast reacted with the gluten differently and you know, actually and stretched it. so modern bread, commercial bread's a one hour proof. There's an awful lot of chemicals in it. The gluten is very high.
You can often get a gano phosphate sprayed on the, the bread before they, because if you do in the small levels, the wheat thinks it's dying. So it shoves all of the nutrients up into the grain head. So you get a bigger grain head and a, a bigger yield. and that's legal in some countries. And you don't know where your bread, your breads actually come from.
So, you know, what was one of the most magical, purest things and the most delicious things that man developed over the years, which was breads, which was water and yeast and bread and flour and tiny bit of salt. Or it mightn't even have yeast. I mean, look at all the magical birds around the world and, you know, we've turned it into this monster substance that so many additives and things in it.
And I think for a lot of people, if you've got delicate gut health, whether, you know, we just don't digest it. I certainly don't digest it. It
seems to be a growing thing. I mean, I live here in Germany and obviously bread is a massive, massive part of the culture. Breads, cakes, you know, baked goods and brutal people. Proud. You know, it, it's, part of the national pride and more and more people are showing up gluten intolerant. And it happened to my wife, and I remember for a while we like, can't be, can't be. And it's like, oh no, it really looks like it is.
And then all of the pushback is very interesting from the older generation saying, oh, that's just all, you know, hip, hip, hippie, bullshit, blah, blah, blah. But you see so many people now, who were not, intolerant 10 years ago, 20 years ago. And as you say, it really does seem as though the process of bread making has become as effectively turned it into a toxic substance unless you're getting, you know, very artisanal,
you know? Yeah. So it's, I think it's a balance between gut health and unhealthy bread as such. Now I do some work in southern Italy, and, you know, it's locally grown. We, it goes down to the mill. It's mill that day. It's a 12 hour proof. It's slow coaching, big old ovens.
It comes up out, you know, loaf the size of a car wheel, you know, in the supermarket you get, you know, you buy a quarter of a loaf or half a loaf and it doesn't go off for days, and then you just toast it and it's magical and, you know, the bread kind of lasts a week and I don't have, you know, I can eat quite a lot of that without getting into trouble. Gimme a slice of, you know, white pan toast here and you know, I'll be on the floor.
but this is, it's just getting so hard because, you know, I, I work with food and I also work in a, a county that produces a huge amount of food, and I'm fascinated by ingredients.
But even the most simple thing that we made, so in southern Italy, you know, you buy the local wine for when you're 52 years in the supermarket, and that's the best wine because when they're making it at that price, one, it's local, and two, they haven't put any additives in it because they, you know, they can't afford to and sell price. So for export, right, right. Yeah. It's not traveling. So you can put 16 different substances in wine, in small amounts and not put it on the label.
Ok. Wine should be grape juice and yeast. Yes. Where, and the sulfur is normally burnt off on the top of a big fat to take the air out to stop the fermentation process. And I, it's so hard. I mean, I, yeah, listen, you've got me, you've got me, you've got me on a, on a rant, but I just wonder how many people are, are going through all sorts of things that they just don't realize that, you know, that's coming from our food.
And also quite often because our soil is so depleted, a lot of our food doesn't really have very much nutrient in it. Well, you
are in the hospitality business and I've eaten a castle, castle, Leslie, and the food's amazing. you, you need to, look after your own health for this. I know that you take a lot of care, with the food that you serve there, and you're, and you're serving, you're serving it in industrial sized quantities. I mean, you, you've got a lot of guests. You can have hundreds of guests that mm-hmm. how do you manage to dance that dance of making sure that all those people don't end up eating the
poisons too? We do. We do the best we can. I mean, there's a lot more we'd like to do, and, you know, there's certain things, you know, I would love to find a really good, you know, free range producer of pork at scale, but we, you know, we can't find one. but it is changing. And more and more we do. I mean, things like the venison oil just comes off the estate. I mean, that's as wild and as healthy as you can get.
And it's us mimicing nature and doing what nature would've done in taking out, you know, the, the old and the weak, that, that nature would've taken out. so, you know, that's, that's really healthy meat. I mean, if I had a magic wand, but then, you know, I'm an oddity in terms of food. Most people eat what they, what tastes fabulous. And, you know, our taste buds are designed. For, salt because we need it. We can only taste five things. Mm-hmm.
Sour and that our taste buds going, oh, don't eat it yet. Plant's been very clever and gone. No, don't eat us yet because our seeds aren't ready. You know, there's a brilliant vocal called botany of desire that that, really explains how Mother nature's tricked us into doing what she needed us to do, to continue to move seeds around the place when they were ready and drop them in other places to continue the species, you know, the, the, the advancement of the, of the plant species.
You know, we think we're in control. We're really not. So nature has sour to go, don't eat us yet. Cause the seeds aren't ready. and it's got sweet to go, oh, do eat us now because we are ready. So we eat it, we eat the seed, it passes through our gut, we drop it somewhere else, you know, nicely wrapped in a little bit of poo as a natural fertilizer. And, and all animals do this. And that gets, you know, nature gets us to spread the seeds around us. And bitter is, please don't eat me.
I'm poisonous. I really don't want you to eat this seed. And that bitter poison, our brain's gone. No, no, I'm not going to to do that. And that's the four things. Our brain tongues, taste and umami, which is that, mushroom meat one. but apart from that, everything else is smell. All our other flavors are smell. And our brains, our, we, our brains confuse the two. We're so convinced that so much what we taste is what we taste. It's not, it's what we smell.
That's why when you have a cold, you lose your appetite cuz nothing tastes food still tastes when you have chemo. The two things, you don't lose our lemon for some reason. And ginger, they're the two flavors that you can still, they're the last flavors to go. Interesting.
Wonder why that might be interesting that that's, it's because they're basically medicinal. Do you think? Or that's your word?
I I maybe came as such an unusual, you know, it's such an unnatural thing that they're just by chance the last things that, the last things that go. but it is, yes. One of the chemo tricks definitely with breast cancer, remember all chemo drugs are different, but, they're the two, the two flavors that you can, the, you can get. But the food industry has figured out what's known as the unholy trinity was the salt, fat sugar ratio. Cuz you would never get salt and fat and sweet, sorry.
salt sugar and sweet salt, sugar fat together in nature. You wouldn't get salt sweet together, salt offy caramel. Mm-hmm. And you get that. And, and there are foods that will hit the bliss point to tomato catchup. You put eat te tomato catchup and do a brain scan. It hit the, hits the bliss point. And so much of our food is designed to hit the bliss point. And, and you just want more of it.
but it's not designed for nutrition and it's not designed for fo soil health, and it's not designed for gut, gut health. And then we wonder where we've gone wrong.
So talk to me about food production and soil health. You are, you are actually involved in the production of food there, on the estate. what do you guys do on there for
that? Well, of course that keeps soils healthy. Oh, well, we're by, we've a whole strategy done to start doing some major rewilding regenerative farming and biodiversity friendly gardens. So in September, October this year, we have to be able to really step it up, but do it in a way that it's monitored so that we can show what's actually happening. because, you know, the whole rewilding or, you know, nature regenerative, sorry, there's something banging on my roof.
that, that whole nature led regeneration, is not always that well ma measured and monitored to be able to show the, the real impacts of it. So yeah, that's what we'd love.
What, what are you do, what are you doing to, to, to measure what, what, what, okay. What, what are you doing to measure and mon monitor it and what sort of scale are you doing it on?
Uh, we hope to do a good few hundred acres. There's new technology out, uh, where you can constantly monitor the carbon in the soil, both the available carbon and the inherent carbon. It's looking at air quality and water quality. Um, it's looking at, at, um, the, we've done all our baselines on all our different species. So to have a look at as its changes what species come back. Because about 30% of climate change, they reckon is linked to loss of biodiversity.
Well, kinda the worst countries in Northern Europe or Ireland and the uk in terms of biodiversity loss. We've just, that Ireland. Why is that? Why is that, do you think? We didn't notice. I mean, I went to Scotland last year to look at a Rewilding project, and I find the Highlands so beautiful. And I'd known about the clearances, the human clearances, which were unbelievably horrendous. I didn't realize that they just cut all the trees down and put sheep in.
So all those wonderful wild Heather Moores, which were wonderful for deer stalking for, you know, a handful of the, the, you know, the wealthy elite actually just denuded late nature. I mean, the salmon population is about to collapse. And Scotland, you know, and that's their native. Ish. You know, it's just getting, we are, we've, as somebody wants. Well, two things.
, somebody said it's a bit like flying a plane and throwing bits out the window that you've no idea what they were wondering why suddenly, you know, at some point the blank brushes, , and the other one, somebody said the other day, you know, even if parasite is clever enough to know not to, to bleed its host dry. And in Ireland we wiped out our entire genetic stock of pigs. Every small holding in how Ireland had a pig. They were just part and parcel pigs are nature's plows.
They root all the time. They're always turning soil over, which allows seed to get in and all that natural regeneration. And somewhere in the seventies and eighties, because we didn't think there were of any value, and we wanted to breed the Dutch, you know, the big fat white dutch pigs that are, are produced meat at high speed. We wiped that entire species and nobody noticed. You know,
I mean, cause when you go to Ireland, you look around and go, wow, it's beautiful, it's countryside, it's green, it's, it's it's nature. There's hedges and woods and birds. And you, you don't, you don't go to Ireland and think biodiversity loss when you look
around. Huge, horrendous. So in our county alone, we, the last 10 years, we've lost 1% of our heteros beer. That's 10% of our heteros gone in one decade. You know, our air quality is not great with our intensive, , with our intense farming. We have monoculture grass cuz we've got one species of grass. So, you know, you, you our, you know, our b population is, you know, on getting critical. I mean, it's just thing after thing. But cause we look so green and virden, we think we're okay.
We're not, you know, we're, we're went down to less than 1% native woodland in this country, , in the fifties in this, because we just cut down all of our native woodland. Anything that we had just got chopped up and burnt. We put a, we wanted to put a tax on standing timber, native standing timber. My dad was part of the campaign to go, this is ridiculous. You know, we need our trees. And then we plant 7% of our island with Norway and Sitka, which is a, not an a non-native commercial forestry.
And just because it looks beautiful, it doesn't mean it's, it's biodiverse rich. Yeah. And we reckon, I mean, the world, oh, there's so many statistic globally that we probably only have between 50 and 60 years of crops left because we've. When we started to manage to, , harvest nitrogen into a stable form to be able to sell us nit nitrogen based fertilizer, it's too toxic for our soil and it's killing all the mycelium, and it's killing all the living, , microbiology in the soil.
So slowly all our soil is dying. And that's
an interesting connection, which I, I haven't heard put so directly before. It's, I just wanna back up there for some of the listeners. So what we hear a lot about depleted soil health, and we hear a lot about, , loss of fertility, but it tends to get said rather than explained. That's very interesting. I hadn't heard anyone before now
just used, there's an amazing iron company called Super Soil, and they've got a great video that that sort of sh that explains it. So I've cogged it, I, I've cogged some of it from, from their video. But basically over every acre of land, there's about 30 tons of nitrogen in the air. And all the microflora and microbiology, sorry, in the soil would draw that down and feed it to the plant roots, and that kills the mycelium.
And then you've got the no, well, then you have this, no, in nature, that's what it would do. And this, you have this amazing web underneath of mycelium, which kind of, they call it the wood wide wire, but you know, it was sort of nature's highly intelligent system that it knew where to move water and where to move nutrients around the soil. Um, but the, the, the microflora would pull the ox, the nitrogen, basically outta the air.
So a scientist, I think Uber realized how this worked and they went, oh my God, if we can capture nitrogen and put it in a stable form and put it into bags that we can sell to farmers, they can up the nitrogen value in their soil, which you do, but it's quite harsh. So it slowly kills the natural process within the soil, and you become reliant on constantly putting in nitrogen that then starts to deplete the soil further.
, so an Irish companies come up with an amazing product called Super Soil, which feeds a micro, a micro flora. I've got microorganisms to then start to naturally draw down the nitrogen out of the soil, almost
treat treating the soil like the gut, like almost like, probiotics in the gut. Yeah, microorganisms
for the soil. Yeah. I mean, you look at the number of microorganisms that we have in on our body and in our gut, and it's, you know, it's in the thousands, half of which we have no idea of what they're and what they actually do. And it's the same with our soil. So these, a lot of money outta selling nitrogen, right? The
now these, these regenerative, farming, practices that you're starting to do on the estate and for food production and so on. And, taking that into the commercial side cuz you're obviously feeding it to people in the restaurants, as many restaurants on, on the estate and so on. Mm. how much education are you giving the guests and the punters who show up on to the estate? How, how much are they
aware of this? Not much. In two or three years time, we hope to have an amazing exhibition space. and there will always be a need for intensive farming as such, but whether it is lab grown meats, whether it is black, so fly larva as a, as a protein source, whether it's vertical farming, but one where we manage to get all the micronutrients into, into the plants, you know, food is going to change. Absolutely. Massively. Tell us about
this, this exhibition space that you are, you are putting into the, to the estate. What's going on with that? What, what is that?
we. Want to do a really interesting space to tell our story of our relationship with people and planet. and also the understanding the human body in a really fun way that, you know, can work for school kids and it can work for neuroscientists. and that's all I can tell you at this point. Otherwise, I would have to kill you and Eliana would not be happy. Give us, give us
a little bit, a tiny t a tiny tidbit more what, what, what is it, what, what is the mission of the estate with this, in the ne in the coming years? What, what is it you want
to achieve? I think the irony is that this estate was always very innovative. And, you know, you had amazing women and you had a whole series of very innovative men. And then of course you got the odd generation that, would just enjoyed life. but in general, you know, they were innovative and, and funk differently. and I don't know, what about you with the dyslexic brain? It doesn't really stop.
You're always going, what if, and if I did this and if I did that and turn that upside down and we put that over there and, you know, it's, it's, it's just so back to how can you do the best with what you have and by those around you, right?
But what, what is it that you, you want to, is, is would this be an a sort of ecological, educational. Yeah. We space. Similar to say Eden in the UK or something like
that, or, yeah. Well we, we've been, and I think Tim Schmidt's amazing and, and we've been talking, it's how do you tell the story in a fun way for people that just kind of want to float along the top? And how can you tell it in an educational way from children through to academics? How can you share research?
How can you do food schools and, and the learning right the way through, you know, the different, the different levels again, you know, from I said fun and easy to, you know, to to, to serious food and, and, and, in gut health and how can you do that in, in, in a, in a series of spaces. And technology allows us to do that now quite easily. So
in the next, in the next few years, we can come to Castle Leslie, not just to experience beautiful nature, ride horses, eat amazing food, and look at incredible art and history on the walls of the stately home, but also to learn about, soil health, ecology and
the land. Absolutely. And our relationship, cuz I don't know about you, but, last year with the hot summers, you know, really started to get scary. We're really starting. To see it. And you know, one of the stats is that by 20, if things continue as they are, by 2050, 80 million people will be on the move every year through climate change.
Yeah. And when you start to get into the conversation around climate justice and, you know, we're on 12 tons of carbon roughly per head in Ireland, and my unofficial goddaughter Somali, her mother's an for African Met, is an amazing human rights campaign around fgm. And you know, Somalia is going into its sixth year of, of desperate trash. You know, there's parts of that country that you just wonder, will they ever be livable again?
You know, it's, it's, you know, it's parts of the world that are flooding. More and more of the world is becoming inhospitable and people have to move. What's fgm?
You said? Fgm.
Oh, you're a boy. female genital mu mutilation. Okay. , yeah, Google it, it it is. I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Probably the biggest killer of children at worldwide that is totally preventable. You know, disease and war famine are horrendous. The human imagination
of all the things that one could come up with to pointlessly do that is one of the ones that. But mystifies me that, that someone, you have someone sitting around going, you know, what should we do this year? Oh yeah. Well, maybe we should invent
this thing called female genital mutilation. Is that, how does one even come up with that subjugation of women? But that's a whole other indeed subject. And, you know, it's, it's part, you can say it's part of a culture, and of course it is, but it's also how did it become part of that culture, you know? And it, it was something that was sort of started by the Egyptians and spread into surrounding countries.
Yeah. But yeah, what, I mean, we all grew up with, you know, institutionalized suffering that was sold to us at Exactly. We found, we went to, as we were beaten and that sort of thing, saying, well, this is the culture. And I think we all said, well, actually that's not a culture I particularly want to, to participate in. You're just making me participate
in it. And, you know, and, and you know, and as people in the western world, we can't sit there and wag the finger and go, you know, that's wrong. all we do in the, in the first foundation is help people on the ground who want to make a difference and support them and what they, and, you know, understand the ways they want to change their own culture. You know, this western thing of going in and going, you know, we're white, we know better than anybody else is, is a load of. Well, sure.
It doesn't
work. It just doesn. It just doesn't work. I mean, yes. I, I, I, from my years in human rights, it's, it, it, for sure. And, and at the same time, I, I feel, and I think everyone knows that there are things that go beyond culture that are just purely human. but it's very easy to hide behind culture and say, oh, this thing is a, is a valuable cultural practice, even though, you know, it kills people. and you know, therefore, you know, so, and it's, it's a dance one has to do.
It's, it, it, this is something that you are involved in, in, in, in, in the large degree in your life. Is it? I miss human rights
work. Well, I met them an amazing girl trip called if Met when her, the, her the life story of her film, sorry. When the film of her live story was being made, it's an amazing film called A Girl From Mogadishu. Mm-hmm. And I said, how can I help? And I asked about her, did she have a, a charity or a foundation? And she said she did, but it was sort of very much a Facebook page. And she's an incredible campaigner who's done amazing things.
So I just helped set up the sort of formal legal structure behind the foundation. got about eight, 10 years ago so that the structure was there to really allow her to do her work and get the sport behind her that she needed and the fundraising that she needed. and also, you know, the little bit of governance and measurement to be able, you know, to, to, to go to the bigger funders and go, this, this works.
So she came up with this amazing campaign called Dear Daughter, where parents, mothers, fathers, aunts, uncles pledge not to cut their child. And that's been incredibly powerful, giving people, the power to say, as an individual, say, no, I don't want my child cut. I don't want my niece or my nephew cut who you know, I'm looking after, cuz they're, no, their parents aren't here anymore. and it's very ground roots and, you know, it's very much her campaign.
and it's really starting to take traction. What's the name of her organization? IRA Foundation, I F r I f, sorry, I f r A H. And her name is Ra,
r a h, IFA. F r a h. Yeah.
Foundation Ra. And, I Raed. Mm-hmm. And it's called the IFRA Foundation. And, she was trafficked, long story, horrendous story. And she was trafficked into Ireland around probably 15 or 16 years old. And she actually ended up having the legislation. The law changed here and the legislation enacted before she even got her citizenship. She is one of the most phenomenal human beings I've ever met. And when she was on the campaign trail, and back in Ireland, she used to live with me.
And I never, ever heard her once go pour me. The world is a terrible place. She's just like, be a voice, not a victim. it needs changing, so how do we change it? And lots of amazing people got on board and in behind the foundation room, a fabulous ceo, an incredible chair, somebody who's very senior in obstetrician who's just retired and from work and come on board. And just slowly bit by bit giving people the, the voice to say, no, this is the change that we want. Do you, do you, do
you harness the, clientele of Castle Leslie in the educational and funding
process? No, because people come here on respite and there's that balance between using the platform you have and, and you know, and, and take, you know, and I'll be using it for the want of a better word. So, on either World Women's Day or World FGM Day, which is the 6th of February, we will celebrate ifra. but
just writing this down world, FGM day is the sixth of bed.
Yeah. I mean, IFRA got FGM onto the charter for human rights, you know, before she was 30. Good Lord, she, 28 when her biopic was made.
And she is someone who's also found resilience at Castle Leslie, as, as so many have interesting.
no, well, not re not resilience. Respite, so, right. Usually, yeah. She, and the only reason she moved out 10 days before, before she had a baby, which turned out to be about four weeks before Covid lockdown, because she needed her own house and her own space. I have a, a one and a half bedroom house, so, it, it worked out well. And Sarah is amazing. Sarah's her daughter who's. She will be four at this point. And the IFRA Foundation
is operating out of Ireland, is that right? Yes. Okay. Yeah. how interesting. Yeah, it's interesting you say it got one and a half bedroom house. People assume when you drive up to Castle Leslie and you see the castle and you see the lodge and you see all the other buildings in which things happen, you think, well, that must be where Sammy Leslie lives. And then of course, we find out where you actually live, is in Narnia. that's one of the best things I've ever seen.
for those, maybe I sh I, I should probably shouldn't disclose how you get to Nia because that's a bit of a secret within the castle. But suffice to say that you live in a very tiny sliver of the whole thing. the, the rest of it is, is, is, is given over to the enterprise.
yeah. Well, I live in amazing little corner. I mean, it's small, but it's a fact. This little corner of the house. But, you know, my bedroom was an artist's studio, so it's got windows on four sides. and is is quite an amazing space to, to hold up in, hold up in. But no, I've never lived in a normal, anyone in my life. I've either lived in lorries in Australia with the horses or an old cattle shed in, in Dublin, or slept in stables in Sydney at the show. I've never or lived at work.
I've never lived in like a normal house with a front door and a back door and, you know, not attached to anything else or even a row of houses. I've never lived in a normal house. I wouldn't know what to do. well,
yeah. probably go look for, go into the garden and, and move into the shed like you've done. yeah, the, I I know that, you also have an interest in special needs. absolutely. And, I know that you are beginning to think towards this with, with the Castle Leslie Estate as well. Talk us through what, what your ideas are there and, and, and what's happening with that.
Well, while back, , I started here about this, , guy that had come up with this amazing thing called the Horse Boy Method. and it just absolutely fascinated me at the healing power of, of horses. And we've got lots of land and lots of space and lots of horses. And I think when you grow up learning slightly differently, you know, and, and, and you realize that we know so little about how. The brain grows and functions and, and works.
and it was anything that I can, it's back to, you know, all you can do in life is best with what you have and by this around you. If we've got all these incredible things here, and then one day go by chance, I got locked behind a door with you. and, at a, an event for autism that somebody asked me to go to. So that's, I suppose when the conversation really ramped up.
and I started to know more and more people whose children have been diagnosed, going, if I can help in any way, it's the least I can, it's the least I can do. What would you, what, what's, what's
your vision, when it comes to the estate with autism? What, what in your perfect world do you think will Oh,
absolutely. What will happen? Hopefully. we're lucky that they built three stable yards on the estate. So the yard behind the lodge, would stay pretty much as it is. The second yards become self occasional accommodation and the third yard on the back of the estate. I think that's where we were going. We could create magical spaces. You introduced me to the incredible David Doyle went.
We went down to Liz Kennet and looked at all the amazing things that he's achieved, and he's been up to us as well going, okay, we have the space, we have the want, we have the, we hope also the way to start to tell the, the stories about, you know, how we learn and also how EQU based therapies, movement therapies, nature-based therapies can really work. So it's a huge learning care for me.
I know I'm an absolute novice in this field, but I just know that we've got the bits to be able to put together, hopefully to do something magical and, and to, to really help people. It's funny,
you, me, you mentioned David Doyle. I, I, would I say I want to get David Doyle on this podcast? He flatly refuses. He will not, he will not speak. so I need, which
chime down on Friday and why won't he speak? He
is the, the most strangely modest man, as you know. So I want to just let listeners who might not know who David Doyle is, let's just say, tell you who David Doyle is. David Doyle, is the current, incarnation of the Wizard Merlin. I met David Doyle, in 2012. I did a, a demo of Horse Boy Method in Limerick. And I got an email three years later saying, oh, you won't remember me. I was at that thing.
I took your website to the Irish Parliament and got 3 million Euro and we were just building a state-of-the-art horse boy center. Did you wanna come look at it? Like I, I'm sorry, what did you say? And I went there and I looked, I, and I said, David, how did you do this? And as you know, David, he's one of these, he, he, he speaks very softly. He, oh, you know, I just talked to these people. And subsequently he started all these extraordinary autism, centers.
His daughter has very severe autism and also had a very good reaction through horses, as did my son Rowan. And he's created an, an entire paradigm shift in, I would say, in the, mental health culture, in Ireland. It's now creeping into Europe. so the fact that you are working with David Doyle makes me as an autism dad, so incredibly happy. and I wish, ok,
it's up to you. I mean, I wouldn't have, wouldn't have met him if it wasn't for you.
Anyone who's listening, check out David Doyle. St. Joseph's Foundation. it's in Charleville in, county Cork. you ever meet that man? It will be a tree, but yes. You know, th this idea that you, an estate, it's, it's very interesting to me because you, you drive, you know, you drive into Castle Leslie, and you can feel as you drive in a shift in the atmosphere. And it seems to me that there is some sort of healing spirit to the land.
It's, it seems to me, is no, no coincidence that the Leslie family coming out of the explosive reformation, renaissance history of Scotland and England, then one bishop finds himself there by this beautiful lake and in the 17th century, and no matter what craziness goes on in the rest of the country, and in fact right there, you know, the, the, the, the Cromwell and the English coming in and killing everybody, and then all the risings against the English, and then the
tr the first round of troubles, and then the second round of troubles and, and the potato famine and all of these things. So many estates burned, were attacked, were hated, you know, with, with good reason by the lo not Castle, Leslie Castle. Leslie always stood. And as you say, the, the people there always seemed to have been interested, un unusually for their historical time, in doing the right thing. And there you are. you weren't even supposed to inherit this day and then you put
back on, didn't date. Okay. I bought it
even more, you know, that there you were and you had to buy the thing. Mm-hmm. and get it back on its feet. And, and it seems to have always the, the, the, and now you're getting it, you know, from, okay, it's a luxury hotel and yes, there's any question center. It's all fabulous. It's all fantastic. And at the same time, the restoration of soil, sustainable agriculture, rewilding, and now human rights, special needs. You can feel it when you drive in.
What do you think is the sacred nature of that land? I'm very happy to get as woowoo as you want. I'm all about that. I dunno, what is it? What is it? Are there sacred? Are there sacred sites on
there? there's huge Iron Age for behind us. Naven Fork sees the hikings of Sters about 10 miles from us, but I don't know. I, the lake is 70 feet deep, but I don't know. And I, I saw something the other day on Instagram where a guy put a electrode into the soil and on a little meter nothing showed. he put, he held one piece in his hand. He had flip-flops on. Nothing happened. He took his flip-flops off and you could see the electric current shoot up.
I would love to measure the electromagnetics here. I don't know what it is. It is a very special place. Maybe it's the light off the water. It does have a very, it has an energy all of its own. and it is a place all of its own, you know, I, you know, do what I can and, and whole team to. but it is a living, breathing thing. Mm. And you, it, it, it seems to be a place
that has encouraged people, strangely, generation after generation after generation, through a violent history. to, to sort of step up to their higher self. so it's, it's hard not to ask, are there ancient pilgrimage sites? Are there ancient Druidic sites? Is there ancient? Is there, is there, are there old
stories? not, well, there's Crown Oaks on the top lake, but they would've been inhabitation. Not that we, no, I mean, there is one small ancient site on Kilty bags, but a small wrath that got bulldozed out in the late 18 hundreds. I've seen it on an old map. but I haven't found a very sacred site,
no. On stories about saints. No fairy rings, no
occult, , I mean the small stuff. St. Patrick came to this village and so Vikings came here. The Iron Age, settlements were here. The Vikings came here. St. Patrick came here. he built small church here. I, not that I find, but it doesn't mean there isn't, because Christian faith was very good at wiping out earlier things. I don't know. But it is, it certainly is a magical place and it gets most people.
Yeah. Yeah. It's definitely a place where you come to here. I've stayed there with my son and, the adorable run. The adorable run. And, he is hilarious cuz you, you so can he put him up in one of the rooms in the cast? And he, I went to check him. He said, I feel like Henry VII in here. And
he said, I just need to, I just need to, I
just need to lay on this, on this bed with this canopy. Cause it makes me feel royal. but that he came away saying, because, you know, he, he's autistic and he's sort of ultrasensitive and ultra authentic always. He says, he said, dad, there's, there's something healing about that place. I want to go back there. There's something healing. He said, it makes me feel better in my head.
that's, you know, it's wonderful. We can talk about stuff cuz in the old days it would be, oh, you know, it's all woowoo and fluffy and all of the rest. But I think more and more, you know, we're starting to show our, our connection of nature, our loss of connection with nature, is, is hugely de detrimental. you know, that getting into water, it's walking in mud, in the marshes, it's, you know, it's sitting on trees and under trees.
It's just being immersed in nature, which of course is our natural place of being. I mean, it takes this wreck, something like 10,000 years for one genetic change to, to happen. you know, in a, in a species. And we've gone, we've shifted so fast in the last few hundred years to, being totally disconnected from nature. and I'm not sure that's healthy. So the more we can do to help people get reers into nature in, in different ways, yeah, that's what we want to look at.
And it's just how can create a healing place? How can we create respite, you know, how can we create respite for families with children, you know, with autism and other, what's, what word am I allowed to use? You can't say issues. Difficulties. Oh gosh.
Conditions I think is probably the, yes. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yeah, sorry. Well that's, it's so interesting, you know, that the whole politic correct thing. I often ask Rowan, you know, do you have a. Word that you want me to use? Like someone with autism, what the said dad, I'm autistic. You know? Yeah, just, just, just say it. Just use
the word just, yeah, exactly. So yes, it's, you know, my dad did sort of things here during the troubles to bring kids from inner city communities in Belfast, from opposite sides together, and a sort of camping summer holidays and, and just give them some proper outdoor fun and, and forget about, you know, the troubles. And, , he did for a summer or two and then he got a phone call to tell 'em to stop. When you got those phone calls, you didn't not listen to them.
So it is a very, very magical place. It absolutely is. And it's this sort of real little bubble, especially in this ever faster growing digital world where we are bombarded it constantly with information and lots of stuff that's designed to, you know, do that four minute dopamine hit that just becomes addictive. and it's rewiring our brains and, and most people don't notice.
So it's the, you know, the deconnect disconnect and the unplug and do strange things like talk to the person you came away for the weekend with. Yeah. We've no television from the castle, just. refuse to have them, you know, there's one wing that does, but they're, they either look like mirrors or pictures and actually they're, because normally that sort of black hole of a television calls you when you come into the room to, to turn it on.
no. It's just being able to disconnect and reconnect with nature. And I think over the coming decade we will learn more and more and more about the, the healing powers of connecting with nature. And I think we'll do it in a scientific way so that we can explain, to, I was gonna say the numpties, the powers, the be that we need that connect. I was in Singapore recently and they are very strong on their biophilic architecture, which is that whole thing of growing plants in and on buildings.
Mm-hmm. And it, you know, reduces the air conditioning. It cools, you know, it, the de-stresses it, mental health, it cleans the air. It has so many positives. and that's a small island with 1% of our landmass with the same population as Ireland. And you just smiled everywhere. You just kind of fell in love with the city cuz it is so green, it's just greenery everywhere. They've been greening it's, you know, from the fifties. cuz they had quite visionary, you know, Paris at bay at the time.
yeah, there's.
I just wanna talk about that for a moment actually. the greening of buildings. Mm-hmm. I'm a great proponent of it. and it's interesting how when people talk about carbon sinks and that sort of thing, people, and people talk about forest and all the things which we should happen. No one talks about ivy growing up buildings, or, I know there's a, a, a company in Spain, for example, that's doing moss clad walls.
Mm-hmm. and they, I, I read somewhere that a, a concrete bench covered in moss actually absorbs more carbon than your average tree. These things I didn't know, but yet you see so few people doing it. And like here in Germany, I know that the moment I start to try and grow creeper up my wall, all my neighbors go, oh, oh, it's gonna do this, it's gonna do that.
It's gonna, and, and then I'm thinking, yeah, but I grew up, you know, in houses that had ivy on the walls and the, the, the house didn't seem to go anywhere. and, and the wall didn't fall off. where, where's this, this, this come from this,
this, it depends on, it depends on the wall. Ivy is an incredible plant and in so many ways, but if you've got soft water like lime water mm-hmm. It will actually get in between the stones and start to pull it apart. I mean, there's lots of creepers. I mean, we've won cold Virginia creep in a building that's probably 150 years old and it won't get into the Mosher. so some will, some will, attack buildings and others won't. But Moss is an incredible substance.
Moss lives on two things, especially spam moss. It lives on water and carbon and it literally sucks carbon out of the air and uses it as its food source. Mm. , and that's why, you know, having a lawn that's moss rather than monoculture grass is so much healthier in, in so many ways, and coaching lots of things in, in moss Absolutely cleans the air.
Yeah. I, I kind of want to do it on the side of my, my house here. I'm sort of, I'm, I'm campaigning for it. and I, I hope to be successful in my campaign with my neighbors. but it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's, it's interesting to me that there's this idea of the clean wall, the clean building, the clean, you know, well
look at, look at biophilic. I mean, it's a whole science. I mean, there are certain plants that will break up, walls of sycamore tree plant near building will break up concrete, you know, will break, break up concrete, whereas other plants will, or all their roots will just sort of wrap around things. But biophilic, it's a, it's a whole science. And do you have a particular book that you would, recommend us on that. Bio, is that anything that's on bio biophilic architecture?
Mm. not off the top of my head. Ok. Well, I should go a look at up and it, and it, and it changes from place to place because, there are things that grow well in different climates and there's lots of different micro climates as well, and lots of different reading mat or lots of different building materials. So you would want to do it specific to the building materials used in, in your area and the plants that grow happily in
your area. What are you doing at Castle Leslie with that
out interest? With the new building, the new exhibition space, we want it to be as biophilic as possible. so yeah. So
what would you, what would you do? What, what, what, what can you disclose? What, what, what are you gonna,
I don't know yet. It's at concept level. so we haven't got into the design detail at this point. That starts, I think in September this year. cause we're working in conjunction with our tourist board and our county council. and we want to do something that just hasn't been done here before, but that's normal on the estate. The estate built, you know, one of the first pumped water systems where an estate and a village, there was steam driven. So you turned on pumps and the water just popped out.
And, you know, we did integration rebred integrated wetlands for sewage, where it's not just reeds, but it's 22 species of plant that eat all of the, you know, the phages and the slime eat all the bacteria in the water and the water's got half the nitrates and half the phosphates of the water already in the river. so, you know, nature is an awful lot of innovative solutions and I, and, you know, nature as an answer to na, as a nature, as a solution to every one of nature's problems.
Cuz if it didn't, it would've silted up long ago. You know.
Yeah, I, I've seen that, that that serious treatment plant on your, on your estate, and it it does Is it, does it do the whole village or is it, is it
just the It does, it does up, no, it does. Up to the equivalent to 2000 people. Yeah. It's amazing. And it looks like it's water garden and the biodiversity, and it is unbelievably high. Yeah. It's a water meadows.
Yeah. How long has that been in? Did you, did you plant that? Did you put that in deliberately Two
years? Yeah. No, that was worked with Amazing. Was we very open-minded county council and worked with an amazing designer called Rory Harrington who designed it. and we worked with them, and went, yeah, absolutely. Let's test bed. It, let's, let's be the first to build one of these in, you know, in a historic setting for, in a village and an estate. and that, that's what we just want to do more of and trialing and test bedding stuff as well. And we won't get everything right, but That's right.
You know, then you share what works and what didn't work and somebody else might go, oh, well actually if I turn that around and flip that upside down and put that over there, that might work. And then, you know, somebody has to be brave and be quite happy to make all the mistakes. We've just ended up in this world where everything has to be perfect and research the nth degree before we do it.
And I mean, I think one of the, the saddest things in our world is how insurance is just starting to rule the world is just stopping, , creativity. It's stopping people taking chances. It's stopping people experimenting, because of the fear of not getting it right and getting sued if you don't get it right. Mm. You know, the downside of not trying in the first place is starting to bite, weigh the downside of something going wrong.
How do you cope with that? Because you're, you're dealing with a high risk, thing at Castle Lessi. You, you still have an equestrian center that specializes in cross country riding. Cross country riding, innately dangerous activity. Yeah. How do you deal with this insurance issue?
we make sure it's as safe as possible. The jumps are designed to be as safe as possible. They're all under, you know, a certain height or the landing. The takeoffs are kept in really good condition. You know, the horses are, oh, there's my wild cat. The horses are, highly selected to be able to make sure that there is, you know, as safe as possible. And still most people who come riding except that there is some risk. but, you know, 1.35 million people die in car accidents globally a year.
Yeah. And we still drive. And what's amazing is we teach people, we don't teach people to drive very well, and we don't do the continuous upskilling. and I think we could do an awful lot more in road safety. Mm-hmm. But because it's still, you know, profitable for the insurance industry, nobody's really got stuck in to make it as safe as it could be.
I mean, I did my regular license and then I did a class one HTV license for 40 foot trucks and sitting in a week in a, for a week in a cab with one dri other driver and an instructor between us either driving or wa watching and listening. I mean, I learned so much compared to what I learned in my regular driving license, which I did 40 years ago. And nobody ever has checked whether I drive well or not.
You know, you sh we should do our driving license and come back a year later and do another bit and then at next year do another bit. And over the first sort of five years have, have continuous improvement and then come back in every five years for a chop up because we learned bad habits.
Why did you learn to become a truck driver?
To drive a truck? Yeah. I'm sorry, horses. Of course, if you're going to transport horses around the place, you need to be able to drive a truck and you could do in the south a rigid license and then an Arctic license, c n d license. Or you could go up north and for the same amount of time, an effort, you could learn to drive a 40 foot. And I hate to say they are fabulous to drive. You still drive a truck? No, I'm you. You need to keep all your driving up. And, also cyclists terrify me now.
Yes. I mean, in the old days you didn't have to watch out for as many people in your blind spot and cyclists that come up both sides of you, it's humanly impossible to be able to watch your left and your right mirror at the same time. As well as look at your windscreen. You're, you know, at some point you will miss somebody on one side or the other because they're everywhere. I don't know how they drive through towns. I really don't take my hat off to, to guys who drive 40 foot.
Anybody that drives 40 foot.
It's it's, it's amazing. One thing I didn't expect to come out this interview is that, was that Sammy Leslie is a truck driving ma. I love it when I
go to get my hire car and they kinda look at the section on your license to see, have you got a driving? And they're like, oh. no. It's, it's, it, it's good. But you know, it's back to continuous improvement and upskilling. and we don't have it in, in driving. So, listen, I've,
I've learned a lot on this, on this interview. I'm gonna go off and look at biophilic architecture. I'm gonna go and look at Super Soil.
Is that Yeah, super Soil's, the Irish company, they're not that far from here. That is looking at feeding the soil and making the soil healthy so it can draw down the nutrients that it needs rather than,
and getting away from the nitrogen, the harsh nitrogen, that's killing the mycelium. Right? Yeah.
And the micro within, within the soil. you mentioned a book so Becomes Dead rather than having, you know, a living soil, it literally just becomes a dead substance.
you mentioned a book, you mentioned two books earlier on, which I want to just, draw people's attention back to. You mentioned a book called The Botany of Desire. Is that
correct? Oh, botany The Botany of Desire by Michael Poland. Tell us a little bit more about that. And he wrote another book that he was very famous for. Which I can't remember. and bot the botany of desire is basically one of the principles behind Rewilding. Except it's what the botany, what how we behaved, and it's how nature taught us to do the things it wanted us to do to move seed round in different places so plants could continue to, to move.
Because if seeds just fall beside the mother plant all the time, you just get this clump that's always fighting for the same nutrients. But if, you know, if a peach tree could get you to eat the peach seed and all, and then poo the seed out half a mile away, that peach tree had much more chance of surviving because it wasn't falling on the roots of, of its parents and fighting for the same nutrients. And that's why we taste in the way that we do, which is, Sarah, don't eat me. I'm not ready.
Sweet. Please eat me now. bitter. Don't eat me. I'm poisonous and I don't want you to to eat me. And, salt is our body's need to look for, I was gonna say isotopes. No electrolytes. Electrolytes. Thank you.
so this is basically how plants have domesticated
humans. Exactly, and it's back to our arrogance of humans, thinking. I'm gonna see what Michael put. Oh, the Omnivores dilemma, which is about, eating plants for meat. but the botany of desire, it's very small little book is just real reminder of we are so deluded in thinking that we are in control of this planet and we are in control of Mother Nature. We will be the fifth race of humanoids to wipe ourselves off this planet. And nature will continue. Hey, why break this tradition? You know?
Cause it's painful. It's a lot of unnecessary suffering. indeed, indeed. And that ability for nature to make us do what it needs is, it's also what it does to the rest of nature. You know, it's not just us, the same rules behave, you know, apply. but yeah, nature's very clever.
Then you also mentioned a book, God is an optimist, Ben
Goldsmith. Oh, an Optimist. Please tell us a bit more about that. Oh, it's such a beautiful book and I've just finished reading it. he's an amazing environmentalist, an amazing human being, and they is very sadly lost Irish, their 15 year old daughter in. a freak farm accident. and it is his incredible love for, family, for his daughter, the grieving process. I do not know how any human being deals with the loss of a child.
and have you found healing in nature and went on to become an incredible campaigner for, rewilding and nature led restoration reject. and it's his journey, but it's just written in a such a beautiful way. I've been asked to biography and I'm going, oh my God, if only I could write like him.
it is on the list. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna get God is an Octopus Ben Goldsmith. Yeah. The bot desire Michael Poland. Okay.
Yeah. And then yes. And then Wilding by Isabella Tree is a seminal book on letting nature, again, nature led regeneration. And they've just done a book called Wilding, which is the how to manual of wilding, large and small in regenerating Nature to be able to give it its place and space that it needs. Wilding by Isabella Tree. Tree. Yeah.
Okay. Great name. okay,
so Rewilding was the first book, and then wilding is the manual on how to do it. Okay. And it's just written in a very lovely language, very simple and easy to, to do. And, and
is that something that people who just have a backyard regular? Absolutely. Good benefit. Okay.
Fantastic. Yeah. I'm, yeah. Backyard or a big space doesn't
have to be cause of estate.
No. It can be your balcony. Fantastic. Can be anything. And then finally,
dear daughter, the IFRA Foundation, I f r A H. Yeah. fgm, female genital mutilation. people should look up that.
absolutely. And there's absolutely, there's lots of ways, to get involved or to support, support. the Dear Daughter campaign is people, a mother or a father or an aunt, or an uncle or a guardian camp, committing not to cut their child. and
then if people want to, get in touch with you or get involved in some of the initiatives that. Castle Leslie's involved in, and I know obviously if they want to just come and stay in the hotel, they can Yeah. Look up Castle Leslie online and book. but if, if people wanted to get involved in the, the Rewilding side, the so regenerative side, the, the special needs side, the human rights side, what, what's their best way? Should they contact
you? What should they be? with the Leslie Foundation, which we've set up a newly fledged charity, amazing board of people and people coming on board, or, you'll find me there as well. So, yes. The Leslie
Foundation. Yeah. Is that.org, is that
a.net? dot org and then also through the main website, through Castle Leslie. And, and is that Castle?
leslie.com. Dot com. Castle leslie.com. And Leslie with an
ie. Family with a y and Leslie with an ie. Castle
leslie.com. And the Leslie Foundation, is that, is it one word? The Leslie Foundation? Sorry, is it, is it, is it the, is it the Leslie Foundation? org.
I'm funny feeling it's do ie. Rather.
Ok. Let me, I'm gonna look it up here on my phone just so we get the Leslie Foundation. Let's see.
I should know.
God forbid one should no one's own website. I know. Foundation, let's see. It is, you've got castle leslie.com that we know. let's see. The Leslie Foundation accept the cookies. Yes, I will accept the cookies here. I see info at, you're right. It's i e info at Leslie Foundation, ie. Info at Leslie with an i e l e s l, ie. Foundation dot i ie. So confusing me two ie.
Within the same. It's terrible. How often do you, how often do you do your own website, you know? No, exactly. Exactly. Do you mean you don't spend days googling yourself? Did I've gone all red. Must be the light.
I think I did that last in 2000 or something like that. And then I sudden I realized that I was profoundly uninterested in myself, but I was very interested in other people. Yeah. , and that's sort of been how it's gone ever since. I find myself rather boring. , but I find.
I would agree with that. People like you Absolutely fascinating. I'm really boring, honestly. Well, I think you just,
you just put the light to that. , Sammy, it's been, it's been a treat. Thank you for letting us into the world at Castle Leslie. , I, I would, I would strongly urge anybody listening, put it on the bucket list. Get your ass to Castle Leslie at some point, even if it's just to go have a bit of food and walk around that piece of magic. It's an extraordinary, extraordinary, extraordinary, landscape. And it's one of the few that is really sort of open, to people, but it's so undiscovered.
, and you, you, there is a sense of freedom there. , I remember my son and I walking across one of the bogs by the Lake Barefoot and, , feeling in the oc feeling the October mud coming up through our toes and just reveling in the sound of the bird song and the deer on the hill, and to know that all this amazing work is being done there. Sammy, incredible. So thank
you. There's, there's, there's, there's lots more to do. we're only just starting. I
can't wait. I can't wait to be back. I will be back as quickly as I can. and hopefully the crowds after people listening to this podcast, I still get first dibs at the door if you see me showing up. I got there first, so I'm sorry. You have to let me in first. thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Sammy, for your time and giving us a bit of a glimpse of this magical kingdom.
Well, you're very welcome. And it, and it's going to be an amazing journey over the next few years and have lots of people come on board. Absolutely. Well, thank you for having,
I I cannot wait to see what you're doing, what you do with the, with the, ecological, educational center, what you do with, the autism projects. It's gonna be, it's, it's gonna be
fascinating. And I'm just sorry you're not here on Friday with, when we, when the architects are here.
I no particularly is one of those architects is a mate of mine. And I do not get to raise a glass with you too. But I will, I will hold it in credit, for the
next time I'm there. It's only the beginning. Yeah, no, thank you for sending two more away. Thank you. Sleep
well, rest Well, I will.
Okay, I'll Bye-Bye. Bye.
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