David Fitzgerald sits down with the Lord Lieutenant of Devon

The Lord Lieutenant of Devon is David Fursdon, often seen at the side of members of the Royal Family on many of their visits to the county. But who is he and how does he manage this voluntary role with his many other activities. David Fitzgerald met him at his Exeter offices. He started by asking him what his very first job was?

“I had holiday jobs just like everyone else,” said David, thinking back and smiling. “But my very first job was folding up bits of paper to form a newsletter for the NAAFI in Germany. I did have slightly more interesting ones after that but that was my very first.
“Career wise, my first serious job was the army when I joined the 6th Gurkhas before I went to university. It all seems so long ago, in fact I have just linked up with our old association and met with people I haven’t seen for 50 years.”

You were quite a sportsman?

“I was an amateur, not a professional but I had the chance to play cricket for the Kent under 25 side. I played my main cricket at Oxford University against touring sides such as India and played against first class counties… we had a lot of fun.

“After university I took the civil service exam for something to do one afternoon. I was also offered a job by a firm of lawyers but that would’ve meant more law exams so after a while I was offered a position with the Ministry of Defence in Whitehall and went out to Geneva at the UN with a foreign office delegation at a disarmament conference at the time. We were looking at what the laws of war should be, whether some weapons were inhumane, it was a really interesting time. I was just a junior member of the delegation but I do remember being involved with the initiative on the mines convention. It was the early days of the UK putting forward the idea that mines should be marked clearly. Good practice really, because if they weren’t marked you tended to blow up your own people! It was something that Princess Diana took up years later and made the project her own.

“I was offered a dream job as a private secretary to one of the ministers but at the same time, my uncle said why not come down to Devon and take over the family place as he just couldn’t cope with it anymore. I had been married for about six months, my wife knew nothing about the place but because we were young and naïve we thought we would give it a go, so I resigned from the civil service and came down to Devon to turn my hand to agriculture.”

Speaking of which, I noticed the name James Dyson pops up in your agricultural life?

“Yes, we grow strawberries in a glasshouse and are trying to work out how we can effectively grow British strawberries out of season… for Christmas for example. What we have managed to do is to build the glasshouse right beside an anaerobic digester, and that plant generates the heat and energy needed. Using LED lighting and dealing with air movement to counteract the fact that it is damp at that time of year and there isn’t enough light we are making real headway. Last year was the very first time we managed to supply M&S with English grown strawberries at Christmas. And we’re looking at where we can go next with that project.”

It’s a very difficult balance between agriculture and land use at the moment?

“It is… they’re both very genuine needs. There’s a lot of thought about it. There is an increasing interest in food security and supply, but we don’t have enough houses and so many are not affordable for young people, so you really need the wisdom of Solomon to make things affordable for the community. I’ve been quite involved in looking at a land use framework with the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission and how we work out the multifunctional uses of land. Plus there are things like capturing carbon in trees, building houses and roads and growing food, we’ve got to find methods to resolve all of those issues.”

All of this is juggled with your Royal duties as the Lord Lieutenant

“Yes, we have had something like 15 visits a year. It is a little quieter now and I don’t think we will see that sort of rate again.

“They do go down very well, and they are muchly appreciated and well attended by the public, more so I suspect than for a visit by a politician. It is an honour to do it. It is not a job that you apply for, it is one you are asked to do. You don’t get an awful lot of notice either.

“It’s not all glamour, take the last Remembrance Day on Plymouth Hoe where I was wearing my uniform and standing in the pouring rain, water running down my neck.

“Beside me was The Archbishop of Canterbury who was wearing just his surplus... absolutely soaked! But he was very good natured about it and carried on with the service. I had to lay the first wreath and I remember thinking that my leather soled boots and spurs and wet flag stones might not mix so I trod very carefully.”

So, what is next in your diary?

“I cannot remember off the top of my head exactly what is on the immediate horizon as people put things into my diary on a regular basis.

“I do know that I have been invited by the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh to have lunch at Bagshot Park as one of the Lord Lieutenants in what was Wessex which was their former title ‘The Earl and Countess of Wessex’.

“There we will talk about what is going on in the counties that make up that old title and discuss what they want to do and see on their visits.”