Independent Newspaper article: 'Banker to Farmer'

This article from The Independent is one of many to be written over the years. There seems to be an almost insatiable appetite for variations on the theme of change of life type stories.

There was a certain irony for Jan McCourt when he was made redundant from his job in the City. Having come to something of a personal crossroads as he approached early middle-age, he had none the less reconciled himself to serving out another decade in the rat race. The compensations of investment banking being what they are, however, three years earlier he had taken the precaution of buying Northfield Farm, a small working concern in the rolling countryside near Oakham in Rutland. Losing his job proved a decisive turning point. "That was when I thought, 'I don't want to be considered over-the-hill at 37'. I wanted to be doing something that I was responsible for myself – something tangible," he recalls. He had always felt happiest during childhood holidays spent on his grandparents' farm outside Dublin and had fostered a long-term ambition to reconnect producers with consumers as well as working with rare breeds such as Dexter and White Park cattle. Today, he presides over one of the most respected meat brands in the country, and having learnt to raise and butcher his own animals, he sells them at Borough and Broadway markets in London, as well as at music festivals and to top restaurants.

But making that decisive switch 12 years ago was not easy. "I certainly miss the money and I do miss some of the buzz that there was from putting a deal together," he says. "Although the hours were sometimes ridiculous in my previous life – you could be in at 6am and not leave until the early hours – with your own business you never switch off." There have been plenty of troubles on the way. His marriage to Tessa, the mother of his three children, fell apart under the strain of the challenges he faced. He has been forced to sell nearly 50 of his 150 acres to keep his head above water. There was the aftermath of BSE to contend with, two onslaughts of foot and mouth, one of which spread to within six miles of his farm gate. Then he nearly died when he was crushed by a tractor in a horrific accident which smashed his pelvis and broke his hip. After a two-year convalescence, he is forced to contend with reduced mobility and near-constant pain. It was a harsh reminder that farming is a dangerous business, but he was not deterred. "Even then, faced with the terror of not being here for the children, I don't ever remember thinking I wish I had stayed in the City – that just never crossed my mind. At least now I feel proud of what I have done and like the fact that the family business will survive me." Today everyone mucks in. Eldest daughter Charlotte, now 17, helps with the chickens and the music festivals while son Leo, 15, has taken to caring for billy goat kids that until now were discarded as an unwanted byproduct of the dairy industry. Tessa has also returned to work on the farm. "It is not an easy option. People look at what I do and think: 'That would be nice to sit around in the country all day long, write my novel and party all night.' But it is not much of a party life," he admits.