"I don't think there's anything better you can do in the middle of your life," he said in a recent interview, "than to pick it up and shake it around a bit, do something different, live somewhere different, talk another language. He turned from music to literature, devoured the works of Thomas Hardy and acquired a girlfriend who came from Blandford Forum in the heart of Hardy country. ", When the bottom fell out of the shearing business, Stewart ran a sheep farm with Ana Exton, now his wife, near Crawley beside Gatwick airport. Ever since Robinson Crusoe appeared in 1719, scores of Englishmen have reported back from their journeys to wild regions, which they have successfully tamed or brought to a working simulacrum of home, or claimed as part of their emotional territory. Chris Stewart MUX stock SEC Form 4 insiders trading. '", And, of course, as Bill Bryson discovered when writing about the British, a population loves being told how charming and eccentric they are. There, the 16-year-old met Peter Gabriel, Tony Banks and Mike Rutherford, and together formed the first incarnation of the multimillion-record-spinning machine that was Genesis. And, almost immediately, awkward questions crowded in: how could he fix a domestic water supply? His books go down a storm in Spain, though they weren't published there until seven years after their success in the UK. Prior to Genesis he had been the drummer in The Garden Wall, a short-lived group formed by Peter Gabriel and Tony Banks. The beauty of clean white wool purling off pink skin and revealing this naked creature beneath – it's highly erotic.
", When a gang of shearers arrived that summer, Stewart had another epiphany. Chinese seemed an obvious choice – it's the world language that's spoken by most but understood by fewest. Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? To buy it for £8.54 free P&P, call 01326 569444 or go to independentbooksdirect.co.uk, It's 15 years since the former international shearer and chronic optimist wrote the bestselling Driving Over Lemons, Thriving over lemons: Chris Stewart’s first book about buying a remote Andalusian farm became a huge global best-seller, which he has followed with three more quirky books, Stewart says: 'I don’t think there’s anything better you can do in the middle of your life than to pick it up and shake it around a bit'. Stewart regards me wryly through his granny glasses. Independent Premium Comments can be posted by members of our membership scheme, Independent Premium.