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Countryfile's Inspirational Women

Anita Rani is in Yorkshire celebrating some of the many remarkable women who have been featured on the programme over the years.

Anita Rani is in Yorkshire celebrating some of the many remarkable women who have been featured on the programme over the years. She revisits stories of courageous and determined women - from those who stepped into male shoes, working the land during the First and Second World Wars, to a female polar explorer with a big attitude. Anita also meets the women making their mark on the countryside today, from a champion tree climber to an ornithologist whose passion for birds has a long lineage. Plus the graffiti artist with big and bold ideas about flora and fauna, and farmers of the future.

55 minutes

Last on

Mon 7 Jan 2019 00:25

Music Played

  • Bonobo

    Cirrus

Land Girls

Land Girls

Anita visits the Yorkshire Museum of Farming to meet Iris, a land girl from the Second World War. 

Anita finds out what life was really like for the women who worked the land - before she has a go herself by getting behind the wheel of a 1945 tractor at the museum’s onsite farm.

Tree-climbing

Tree-climbing

Anita aims for the top when she travels to Askham Bryan agricultural college to meet Jess Herbert, head of horticulture.

Jess, also a champion tree speedclimber, sets her a challenge to climb the tree to ring a bell, but will she have a head for heights…?

Agri-Tech

Agri-Tech

Anita catches up with lecturer and third-generation farmer Amy Guymer in the recently-built agricultural technology centre. 

Anita discovers that Amy was a student at the college and has come full circle as she now teaches ‘crops and agricultural mechanisation’ for the college. 

Anita sees the tech up close as they hop on board a self-driving tractor.

Herb Passion

We meet Jekka McVicar, in her award-winning herb garden. 

Jekka is renowned for her passion for herbs, with which she has worked for the past three decades.  

And someone who takes full advantage of Jekka’s knowledge of culinary herbs is chef, Romy Gill.  

Romy is amongst a handful of women restaurant owners in the UK who use Jekka’s herbs to create flavoursome dishes.

Faunagraphic

Faunagraphic

Anita meets Sarah Yates - aka ‘Faunagraphic’ - who’s bringing a touch of colour to Askham Bryan College. 

She’s a graffiti artist with a difference: her huge murals are exclusively wildlife based and they brighten up city walls across the country, bringing the countryside to an urban landscape.

Feather Protestor

Feather Protestor

Anita meets Annabel Rushton from the RSPB to find out all about the organisation's beginnings. 

We discover that one of the founding members, Emily Williamson, was a protestor against the use of feathers in ladies' hats.

As dusk sets in, Anita meets Professor Melissa Bateson, who is Emily Williamson’s great, great, great niece but was unaware of her family connection when she went into her specialised field, ornithology.

Credits

Role Contributor
Presenter Anita Rani
Executive Producer William Lyons
Series Producer Joanna Brame

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