Clive Aslet, the editor of Country Life, is spending a few quiet days in his cottage in Northamptonshire “in denial about my 50th birthday”. He says: “I wasn’t planning to make a particular play of it, but you’ve winkled it out.” This week’s glossy magazine, as well as featuring the usual pages of property ads and girls in pearls — “they now must have merit, not just marriage in mind ” — will be devoted to hunting. Aslet himself does not hunt but will be following a meet on Wednesday. “I wasn’t brought up to hunt but I have learnt to ride and I have been hunting,” he says. “I think it is a very sad day that it is being made illegal.” On his birthday he will be treating himself to a joint from the local butcher and a fine bottle of wine “even though it is Lent”. Clive Aslet is 50 today.
RGT
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