Profile: Terry Lansbury

About This Author

Terry Lansbury: JP, BSc. London, NDA (RASE), Dip Ag Sci. Cantab. Terry was born in 1926 to Jessie and Bill Lansbury; grandson of the Right Hon. George Lansbury MP and cousin to Dame Angela Lansbury CBE. By age 15 he was working on a West Cumberland farm; and the strictures of the Essential Works Order prevented the return to education he desired. Eventually Terry secured a place at the Hertfordshire Agricultural Institute where he excelled; but in 1948, his dream was shattered when his father admitted that the promised family farm was no longer a possibility. Then began a period of four years of hard swotting (and the sacrifice of normal youthful social activity) which, with the aid of hard-won scholarships, saw Terry through London and Cambridge Universities to a prestigious job in the Gold Coast Colony (White Man’s Grave). Terry married his long-term sweetheart, Brenda Walker, and they lived for 7 years in West Africa through the successive changes of Self Government, Independence and finally the Republic of Ghana. Despite Terry’s success as a head of department and on secondment to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), his health brought the family, which now included two children, back to farm for themselves in Lincolnshire. It was a roller-coaster ride on financial thin ice but they lived well, made two more children and built up a grand dairy herd. They were well-established with Terry a council chairman, magistrate and go-getter in local affairs, including carrying the flag for Labour in a traditionally Tory society. In 1974, an enforced switch to arable farming brought prosperity and an easier life, but less fulfilment. Terry negotiated a deal to give up his tenancy and in 1981 bought a hotel in Cumbria of which Brenda made a great success, after which they moved on to a larger hotel in Keswick. Now financially secure, Terry had the freedom to become active in the Rugby Club and a charity, the Lake District Calvert Trust, for which he and Brenda were fundraisers and administrators. In 2001 Terry was unanimously elected the first Emeritus Trustee in recognition of his role in the development of the Trust. Now retired, Terry reads, writes, and surveys a wonderful landscape from a hillside house which he and Brenda rescued from near dereliction. Life is good.