“En garde!” says the shaven-headed fencing trainer, Denis Cranwell. Then: “Fence!” His two duellists spring into action, slashing and thrusting for all they’re worth. Beneath their masks and pads, one wears a tracksuit; the other, a Spider-Man costume. Both are about 3ft tall.

“On the whole, four-year-olds are surprisingly disciplined,” says Denis, as he keeps one eye on the warring children. “That said, at times it can be like herding cats. Cats with weapons.”

Spider-Man wins. The two children shake hands, happily jumping up and down as they do so. In the corner, another little boy is crying. “He’s upset because he didn’t win,” Denis explains. “He has a hunger for victory, which is great.” He gestures towards a teenager who is preparing for combat. “That guy used to cry all the time when he was young. Now he fences for England.”

This is the Newham Swords Fencing Club, a few miles from the Olympic Stadium in east London. The club was formed in 2005 to divert children on the borough’s council estates away from crime. These days, Newham is taking the sport by storm. At last week’s British Youth Championships, they won gold medals in the under-18 and under-14 boys categories, and silver in the under-12 girls. They also have the GB under-20 champion, under-17 gold and silver medallists, and 11 England internationals.

“Fencing is traditionally an elite, public school sport,” says former Olympic fencer Linda Strachan, who co-founded the club. “But because of where the Newham kids have come from, they understand the fighting mentality. They’re never given anything on a plate, and fight for everything. So they’re fearless, and have lots of heart. All we do is add the technique.” Continue reading on the Telegraph website

I am heading out on safari. This may conjure up images of mosquito nets, giraffe and pith helmets. But let’s not get carried away. I am in Suffolk.

Since 2009, a former Londoner called Polly Robinson has been organising “food safaris” along the East Anglian coast. These are safaris in the loosest sense: clients are not seeking wildlife, but farmers and fishermen in their natural habitats.

“People have lost the connection with their food,” Polly tells me as we board our boat, a traditional wooden clinker, at Orford Quay. “Food has become heavily sanitised and packaged. I’m bringing people back in touch with proper food, made by artisan producers, the way it has been done for centuries.”

East Suffolk is particularly rich in independent producers and retailers. The 40-mile triangle that encompasses Lowestoft, Martlesham and Stowmarket has not a single big supermarket. This, according to Polly, has enabled small-scale operators to thrive in the area.

The engines groan into life and we strike out on to the waves. Under a vivid blue sky, a lobster fisherman grabs a succession of briny buoys and hauls them into the boat. On the end of each rope is a lobster pot. The first few contain nothing but crabs, which are tossed nonchalantly into a box. Finally, in the last one, there they are: two black, writhing lobsters with vivid cobalt markings.

The fisherman, Dave Rolfe, imparts some wisdom. “If you’re going to buy a live lobster like this,” he says, “make sure the shell is old-looking, covered in barnacles and crust. They grow to fill the shell, then shed it and develop a new one with room for growth. So the older the shell, the fuller it will be of meat.” Continue reading on the Telegraph website

“Ah,” cries Alan Titchmarsh, “I’m so happy.” He bounds over to 15-year-old Jack Mitchell – who has just told Titchmarsh of his plans to study horticulture at Plumstead College – and gives him a bear-hug. “Horticulture is a proper academic subject,” he enthuses. “People don’t recognise it, and they should. It’s so wonderful that you’re going to make it a career.”

Oathall Community College, in West Sussex – a “rural comprehensive” where children can complete their studies while working on a farm – is in a state of huge excitement. Alan Titchmarsh himself is on a tour of the campus, surrounded by a gaggle of pupils who cheer, take photographs on their mobile phones and ask him to sign autographs.

A school like this, with its great focus on farming, is perhaps the only place in the world where Alan Titchmarsh can be a teenager’s pin-up.

The star has come to open the new school farm shop, which was built with a £15,000 grant from the Prince’s Countryside Fund. Already, pupils have developed a solid understanding of how to farm animals and crops. The shop – to which they will have to apply for a position, just like a real job – will introduce them first-hand to the final stage of the product life cycle.

“Energy and resources are coming under more and more pressure,” says Roseanna Curtis, 15, secretary of the Young Farmers’ Club. “So learning how to produce food and sell it is really important.” Continue reading on the Telegraph website

I do feel a little bit like I’m living in the future,” says Jane Gibson, coyly. “But you get used to things. Automation has become part of everyday life.”

Reader, if you harbour even the slightest Luddite tendency – if you worry about your children playing video games, dislike the idea of Kindles, or fret that social networking will make traditional friendships obsolete – look away now. When it comes to technology, the Gibson family pulls no punches.

In fact, they have built their lives around it. Almost every room in their 150-year-old, four-bedroom, stone farm house in Yorkshire has at least one television (the house has eight in total), all of which are centralised and can play any film or television show on demand. They also host a bewildering variety of computer games.

The heart of the house – or as Jane puts it, “the room we spend most of our lives in” – is a fully automated home cinema, with a seven-feet screen on which they can watch films, television and browse the internet. And when they’ve finished doing that, the two boys, Thomas, 14, and Ryan, 12, take over the big screen for some PlayStation fun (their favourite game at the moment is Assassin’s Creed).

“But they can’t just watch and play whatever they like,” says Jane. “Even if I’m out of the house, I can see exactly what they’re watching on my iPad. If I don’t approve, I can press the ‘lockout’ button and the screen will automatically go dead until the following morning.” Continue reading on Telegraph website

The smells of inner London are usually characterised by exhaust fumes, kebab shops and other unmentionables. In a hidden corner of Islington, however, a very different scent is in the air: the distinctive manure-and-straw of a farm.

“Islington has the least green space of any London borough,” says Liz McAllister, manager of Freightliners Farm, as we shelter from the rain in a grubby marquee and watch the chickens pecking outside. “Our main aim is to bring a piece of countryside into the city.”

Around us, children are gathering around low tables. Some are making beeswax candles; others are having their faces painted yellow and black; a few are throwing toy bees into buckets with paper petals stuck to the rim, trying to win some Haribo “nectar”. The whole day has a beekeeping theme.

Freightliners Farm, established in 1978 on just over an acre, hosts a range of animals, from rare breeds of pigs to goats, cows, sheep and chickens. There is also an impressive aviary of exotic birds, and a wooden café serving hearty, home-made food. Now, the Green Insurance Company has donated £10,000 to fund the “Buzz Club”, a beekeeping group for children and young people. An apiary has been built and the bees have been installed; today, amid a flurry of bee-related activities, the club is being launched. Continue reading on the Telegraph website

“This has absolutely nothing to do with Easter bunnies,” says Eddie Hutchings, one of Britain’s leading rabbit judges. He takes in the hall with a sweep of his hand: everywhere there are “rabbit fanciers” (as they call themselves), holding rabbits, discussing rabbits, grooming rabbits. “The media is always after cute, fluffy bunnies,” he says. “But we take it much more seriously.” This is clear from their clothing; all are dressed in spotless white coats, to “keep off the fluff.”

I am at a village hall in Langham, East Anglia, where the Colchester and District Rabbit Club is holding a “show” – a competition to find the most perfect rabbit. 130 cages have been set up for the event, and every one of these is now occupied.

The animals gaze out at me, chewing contentedly (they will be examined, but not asked to perform). There are pink-eyed bunnies and muscular brown hares; a bizarre collection of Lionheads, which resemble twitching balls of fluff; a dog-size Continental Giant called D’Arcy (his owner, David Cutts, heaves him out and shows him to me proudly, referring to him as “a big, randy chap”); and the notoriously aggressive Polish Dwarf, its beady eyes glinting. I pray that my antihistamines are equal to the task.

“There are 50 breeds in the world,” Eddie continues, “and 40 of them are represented here. Each breed has a number of variations, including colour, pattern and suchlike.” Are they expensive? After all, show-quality dogs can set you back thousands of pounds. “Some can be,” says Eddie. “The big ‘uns go for up to 10 quid.”

Pat Gaskins, editor of Fur and Feather magazine (which, she says, having been founded in 1856, is the longest running animal magazine in the world), has overheard us talking about money. “No fancier is in it for profit,” she says. “We’re in it for the glory, for the honour. For the passion.” Just as well, really. Today’s winner will be awarded the princely sum of £1 (plus a rosette).

Passion certainly runs high in the rabbit world. It is common, I am told, for people to become “bunny widows” when their significant others take up the hobby. In some cases, they can be abandoned altogether when their spouse makes off with a fellow fancier. One elderly man – the proud owner of 49 rabbits – tells me that his golden wedding anniversary is due to clash with a rabbit show. He has discussed it with his wife and they have agreed that “the rabbits have to take precedence”.

“She didn’t know what she was letting herself in for when she married me,” he laughs. “When we met, I was breeding hamsters.”  Continue reading on the Telegraph website

Vines being planted on the Rathfinny Estate in Sussex, which will become England's largest vineyard

“My husband retired from his City job when he was 45,” says Sarah Driver as she noses her car up a steep country lane near the village of Alfriston, East Sussex. “I was terrified that he’d just be sneaking around the house with nothing to do, making a nuisance of himself for 40 years. So when he said he had signed up for a full-time course in viniculture, I was delighted. Little did I know the scale of his ambition.”

As we reach the crown of the hill, a green and pleasant Sussex landscape is revealed: a sun-soaked, slanting bowl of 600 acres, protected from the prevailing winds by an escarpment of National Trust land. In the distance, blue and magnificent, is the English Channel. This is the Rathfinny Estate, which the Drivers bought in October 2010 for around £4 million. Under Mark Driver’s stewardship, it will soon be England’s largest vineyard.

To most people, the words “English” and “wine” (like “French” and “Pimm’s”) should never be used in the same sentence. The idea conjures up images of Sixties Babycham, or of dodgy elderflower plonk brewed in bathrooms by dandruffy men with flowery shirts and unkempt beards. Not exactly the epitome of sophistication.

“Disgusting!” says Driver when we meet. “That’s what English wine was like 20 years ago. But these days it’s a different story. Our sparkling wine has now officially been recognised as world class.”

Over the past eight years, English sparkling wine producers have won more international awards than any other country. In 2010, Sussex-based Ridgeview won the esteemed Decanter award, the first time it had ever been awarded to a non-French producer. In the same year, Nyetimber’s Classic Cuvée, a sparkling wine also made in Sussex, beat the likes of Bollinger and Pommery to win the award for best in the world. A similar accolade was given to Cornwall-based Camel Valley in 2009, and to Ridgeview in 2005.

“Climate change has meant that over the last 20 years, southern England has come to share the same climate as the Champagne area,” Driver explains. “We already have almost identical chalky soil, as Rathfinny lies on the same band of chalk that forms the Paris Basin. Now this is reflected in our wines. This is the time for English fizz.” Continue reading on the Telegraph website

Tristan Gooley picks me up at the quiet, rural railway station in a tangerine-coloured Land Rover equipped with a snorkel. The snorkel goes from the engine through the bonnet, so that the vehicle can traverse “deep waters”. There is also an “expedition roof rack”, an alarming array of headlights, and a winch. This, I think to myself, will be a ramble to remember.

First, a few words about the Gooleys. Tristan’s father, Mike, a former SAS officer, founded Trailfinders, the largest independent travel company in Britain. Tristan, 36, is vice-chairman of the business, and every two years takes time off to have adventures of his own. He has climbed Kilimanjaro, hiked from Glasgow to London, and parachuted off a building in Australia. Most impressively of all, he is the only man alive to have crossed the Atlantic solo both by sea and by air.

The man himself, however, is dismissive of his accomplishments. “I am no longer motivated by extremes,” he says as we roar down country lanes into the South Downs. “In my twenties I got my thrills out of mountains. But now I get them out of a gentle walk.”

This new, mellower Gooley – who has young children, a wife and a country home – has restyled himself as a “natural explorer”, the title of his latest book (his first was the popular The Natural Navigator). His basic principle is that the everyday world can offer up a wealth of exhilaration if we only open our eyes to it. “It’s a more daunting challenge to find wonder in a hill than a mountain,” he tells me, quoting his new book. “And a great achievement to find it in a molehill.” The tough guy car, he says, was bought third-hand and has never been used in an expedition. Continue reading on the Telegraph website

City people believe that pigs can fly. At least, that’s if Anne Cianchi, one of the founders of the independent pig farm, Emma’s Pigs, is to be believed. “Many people have absolutely no idea where their food comes from,” she says. “At farmers’ markets, we often get asked for pork wings.”

This, she says, is symptomatic of the modern trend towards packaged, processed food. In contrast, emblematic of the counter-trend – in which more and more people are seeking to reconnect with their food’s origins – is Emma’s Pigs’ “pig-your-own” service.

Here’s how it works. You pick a piglet. The farm sends you monthly photographs of it, and updates you on its progress. You can even come and visit. Six to seven months later, once you have indicated how you want the meat butchered, piggy arrives on your doorstep in a polystyrene box.

Demand for the service, Anne says, is growing. Similarly, as modern man strives to reforge the broken links of his food chain, butchery courses are springing up all over the place – even in the heart of the city. Off London’s fashionable Marylebone High Street, for example, can be found the Ginger Pig meat shop, where people congregate by night to be initiated into the ancient art of butchery. Some participants are dreaming of rearing pigs in the countryside; others are considering putting their skills into practice on the kitchen table. The majority, however, simply want to regain a hands-on insight into meat: where it comes from, the different types of cuts, how to wield a knife properly, and how to tell the good from the bad. And, given reports that Austerity Britain is swapping beef for pork, amateur butchery is more popular than ever.

On the evening that I attended a course at the Ginger Pig, it started off on the wrong foot. One of the participants, a chap called Andy Brampton who worked at the All England Tennis Club, volunteered to take the carcass down from the hook. As he hoisted it over his shoulder, one of the trotters scythed through the air and nearly knocked out a 21-year-old engineer called Gemma. In response, our jolly instructor hammed it up. “That’s what we like,” he said. “Start as you mean to go on.” Continue reading on the Telegraph website