Sarah Todd: Nothing glamorous about hard work of life on the farm

HOLLYWOOD actress Cameron Diaz has become the latest celebrity to wax lyrical about forsaking her blockbuster scripts for life on the farm.

The American actress has joined a host of other superstars, including Liz Hurley and Kate Winslet, to feel the lure of becoming a farm girl.

She says she's "read a lot about agriculture" and feels the industry is calling to her.

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So, what if little old me had read a lot about the film industry and felt it was beckoning? The movie moguls would laugh such an idea out of court.

That's the thing about farming. Everybody thinks they can do it. Never mind the generations who have spent their lives blathered up laying hedges, digging drains, breeding animals... They're just fools. There's something about these celebrity conversions to farming that seems somehow insulting. As if being a farmer is something anybody can do, so long as they have enough money. There's so much more to it.

It's been interesting watching the young handlers at the summer shows. Some beg and borrow bits of land and shed space to keep their animals. They're as keen as mustard to get a first foot on the farming ladder.

Because of property prices, the lack of places to rent – often tied-up with the selling-off of council-owned farms – it's a dream that for many will remain unfulfilled. Unless they get together with the offspring of some Hollywood superstar at the local Young Farmers' bash…

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Finally, figures just out have revealed that the cost of clearing up Britain's litter epidemic has risen by almost 100m, ten per cent, in just one year. Our throwaway culture costs 858m a year. We're supposed to be in an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty here and still the grass verges and hedge bottoms are full of other people's rubbish. To my knowledge, nobody from the council has ever been to litter-pick. Perhaps a good job for young offenders?

Growing up in the 1970s, there was a very memorable Keep Britain Tidy campaign. Perhaps it's time to go back to grass roots and make people feel ashamed for chucking sandwich wrappers and such-like out of their car windows.

Talking of campaigns, road safety should be brought back for children. Were you a member of the Tufty Club? The roads are busier than ever, so where is a Tufty figure when we need one?

On the same subject, whatever happened to cycling proficiency tests? They're needed now more than ever. Old-fashioned common sense campaigns. We've had a decade of nanny-state public information – let's get back to basics.