Michael Morpurgo

...

Morpurgo style.

Yes.

Oh, does he write in bed, Morpurgo?

Michael, yeah, Michael Morpurgo writes in bed.

Oh.

I'll tell you who else does that, Judy Finnigan.

[laughs] Oh, I'm really...

Another one, I'm really obsessed with Michael Morpurgo as a kid.

I would say he was one of my very favorite authors.

I've got really [laughs] mixed feelings about him, 'cause he's incredible.

I think it's getting worse as he gets older too.

Is it? Okay.

My, my brother had a few Michael Morpurgo books that I remember reading him, and I was like, "Ah, I'm really struggling with this." But then Kensuke's Kingdom was certainly in England at the time, like my school year, everyone read Kensuke's Kingdom in year six.

Right.

Horses were, too.

Michael Morpurgo wrote the novel War Horse, about the experience of a farm horse going to war.

Right at the beginning of the, of the war, when the army came to the villages all over the country, the farmers often sold them, because they were paying good money.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And the, it, the publisher commissioned Michael Morpurgo to do-

Yeah

...

Spring, the great Michael Morpurgo.

Yes.

Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize winner, uh, to do Summer.

I liked, there was a poetry book and I can't remember what it was called.

But it was Michael, I think it was Michael Morpurgo and Michael Foreman.

I think it was a collection of poetry or something.

Beautiful watercolour, soft, pastel-y, weird characters.

At the time, I was writing a series of books about the young James Bond, which were very popular.

So I got an invite, and, and every children's author that you've ever heard of in this country was there, whether it was Anthony Horowitz, Francesca Simon, J.K. Rowling, Philip Pullman, Eric Hill, Raymond Briggs, Michael Morpurgo, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

There were loads of us there, and there were loads of children there having a great day out.

It was a very sunny day, and there was this big event where they did this huge show where young actors were impersonating various characters from children's fiction, which the Queen watched with specially selected guests.

In today's episode of Farming in 5, the entire SFI 26 window 2 funding has been allocated.

Farmers Consultant Red Tractor's dairy, beef and lamb changes, Blue Tongue Ram fertility concerns could force breeding delays and Michael and Claire Morpurgo's farming charity celebrates 50 years.

Now, DEFRA has confirmed the second window of the Sustainable Farming Incentive 2026 has closed for applications, with the entire budget allocated in just a few hours.

Shadow Farming Minister Robbie Moore said the situation was just ridiculous.

Mike Glover said the evidence demonstrated the severe impacts of BTV3 infection on semen quality in a substantial proportion of rams tested for breeding this autumn.

He added that it may be necessary for some farmers, particularly those who normally breed early, to delay the start of their breeding season until the rams and ewes have recovered sufficiently from the short- to medium-term effects of blue tank infection on fertility.

And finally, the charity Farms for City Children, set up by writer Michael Morpurgo and his wife Claire, is celebrating its 50th anniversary.

Michael and Claire both had a powerful vision to give children the chance to connect with farming and the countryside In the last five decades, the charity has supported over 105,000 children and young people to learn, grow and thrive on their farms in Devon, Pembrokeshire and Gloucestershire In a video shared by the charity, Michael said, I think what we realised all that time ago was that there are a lot of children missing out on the good things in life The good things in life as far as Claire and I were concerned was the countryside and nature and we knew children were not seeing and experiencing this.

[laughs]

Michael Morpurgo, Michael Morpurgo.

[laughs]

Go on.

Every time I see him, I saw him on something recently going, "And Michael Morpurgo, um, here on the Putney River Bank." Of course he's on the Putney River Bank.

Where the hell else is he gonna be with a Panama hat?

Oh, yeah, always the Panama.

I, um...

So whenever they would start reading from storybooks, the storybook prior to Pinocchio that Monica reads to David from is, I believe, called Outlaw.

It's by Michael Morpurgo.

Michael Morpurgo is very famous in the UK, less famous in the US.

He wrote War Horse.

He's written a lot of kids' books that very frequently involve a main character kid and some sort of animal.

I was actually, where I first met both Jasper William Cartwright, my co-host on Three Black Halflings, and Jonathan Charles, our resident bard at Three Black Halflings, was on a production of The Butterfly Lion, which is based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo.

So very interesting there.

But the poem that is read is partly taken from the poem The Stolen Child by William Butler Yeats.