I could only just be squeezed into the family christening robe in March, 1938.
Playing with toy soldiers as war clouds gather, summer 1938.
Insecurely perched on the flighty Blackbird above the Whee-air jump.
With Clarissa and armfuls of the Angora rabbits we bred at Gaytons during the war.
Hanging on tight to fiery Mincepie (aged 25) a star of the VWH Pony Club with former owner John Oaksey.
Wet weather gear – suitable for a Welsh summer.
Miranda inspects a fine potato crop in the 16-acre.
A family portrait taken at Tenby where we stayed with Cousin Geraldine most summers.
My younger brother soon became a dab hand at bottle feeding orphan lambs.
A walk with our Nanny-to-be, who was saved from colic by, and named in honour of, the actress Celia Johnson.
With Boney, the sausage-stealing, selectively-deaf Dalmatian, who was killed by a car in 1939.
A handy rock to rest on after a long walk to the Begwns.
Family tea at Gaytons just after the war.
Mummy with some of Lucy the labrador’s nine-strong litter.
Siesta for Mrs White, stroppiest of sows, with her young family.
Helping (or possibly hindering) neighbouring farmers who were gathering their flocks for dipping.
Mummy feeding Jemima, the Jill ferret – so free with her teeth that she was best handled in gloves.
More suitably dressed for Ascot than farmwork, my grandmother Lady Barstow turns hay with a pikle.
The geese that escaped the fox come racing for morning corn.
Wartime haymaking at Abernant.
Perfect going on the short-cropped turf of Aberedw Hill; me on Warrior, and Gerry on the Smatcher, with young Nesta running free. Summer, 1951.
A lovely day’s fishing at The Rocks, near Builth Wells, for me, Olivia and Gerry – but we caught nothing at all.
Jumping Taffy in the Sporborgs’ field, Much Hadham.
Flash, who would go rabbiting with his mother Judy for days at a time.
Mummy looking unusually pensive by the Chapel House lily pond in 1942.
I am unusually tidily dressed for tea with visitors in the Fforest garden overlooking the moat, 1953.
Heygrove, the Hereford bull, weighed the best part of a ton and smashed through gates like matchwood.
The Radnor and West Hereford Hunt meet at Fforest Farm. On foot, Bridget Hart-Davis (among hounds) and my grandfather, Sir George Barstow, in mackintosh (centre).
Wild Welsh Mountain ponies greet tame ones above the Fforest.
A long way to the top. Sylvia Weale and Miranda climb the haystack.
Gerry, me, Olivia, Miranda and George on the garden wall, c.1954.
Jack Howells on everyone’s favourite tractor, the Fergie 20.
Winterscape: Beili Bychan common, enclosed as part of Fforest Farm, photographed by Olivia.
Scot, the best dog in the world – though certainly not the best sheepdog.
Summer holidays 1953. My first perm was deeply unflattering and all my clothes had shrunk.
Olivia and I take a break with Scot in the Fforest garden, summer 1953.
My Coming-Out Dance during the Suez crisis was distinctly short of National Servicemen friends. Left to right: David Rutherford, me, my parents and Granny.
My wedding to Duff Hart-Davis was on 22 April 1961, the wettest day of the year - but also the happiest.
Full circle: our daughter Alice, born 1963, learns to rise to the trot on Nutty, with Preciway, retired steeplechaser, setting the pace.