James Rebanks: ‘Sheep are fast. For 500 you’d need 200 shepherds’

The shepherd, 41, on the history and poetry of the Lake District, 'obnoxious, posh people' at Oxford and Tolstoy

Without a sheepdog, you're no shepherd. You're just a bloke running around waving your hands. Sheep are faster than you, cleverer, and they're on their own terrain. To manage 500 sheep you'd need 200 shepherds. But with 20 dogs you can get away with five or six people.

I grew up as a typical farm lad. I wanted to do what my granddad and dad did. I knew the wider world was there, I just wasn't terribly impressed by it. It seemed to me you could be like David Bowie or George Michael, or you could be a modest hard-working person, living a good life.