Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to Live Free Ride Free, where we talk to people who have lived self-actualized lives on their own terms, and find out how they got there, what they do, how we can get there, what we can learn from them. How to live our best lives, find our own definition of success, and most importantly, find joy.
Your Host is New York Times bestselling author Rupert Isaacson. Long time human rights activist, Rupert helped a group of Bushmen in the Kalahari fight for their ancestral lands. He's probably best known for his autism advocacy work following the publication of his bestselling book "The Horse Boy" and "The Long Ride Home" where he tells the story of finding healing for his autistic son. Subsequently he founded New Trails Learning Systems an approach for addressing neuro-psychiatric conditions through horses, movement and nature. The methods are now used around the world in therapeutic riding program, therapy offices and schools for special needs and neuro-typical children.
You can find details of all our programs and shows on www.RupertIsaacson.com
Rupert Isaacson: Welcome to Live Free
Ride Free, where we talk to people who
have lived self-actualized lives on
their own terms, and find out how they
got there, what they do, how we can
get there, what we can learn from them.
How to live our best lives, find
our own definition of success,
and most importantly, find joy.
I'm your host, Rupert Isaacson.
New York Times bestselling
author of the Horse Boy.
Founder of New Trails Learning
Systems and long ride home.com.
You can find details of all our programs
and shows on Rupert isaacson.com.
Welcome back to Live Free, ride
Free, where we talk to people who.
Are living and have lived, and
continue to live self-actualized lives.
what can we learn from them?
How do they do it?
how can they mentor us?
how can we do it?
It's always worth, giving
it up to the mentors.
, we have one today.
someone Rather Extraordinary.
We've got Sammy Leslie.
You probably dunno who Sammy Leslie
is because Sammy Leslie is one of
those people who likes to do it
from behind the scenes, and I had
to kind of put a lasu around her
and pull her a little bit forward.
She's now sitting in her
garden to talk to us.
We're very lucky to have her.
, Sammy runs, castle Leslie Castle.
Leslie is on the face of
it, a luxury, super luxury
resort, hotel experience thing.
Legendary thing really in Ireland, which
the great and the good and the celebs of
this world go to, and also equestrians
and also, ordinary people like you and I.
and it seems to run flawlessly.
It seems that you arrive at this
place and you suddenly get to kind
of live the baronial life, at least
for an hour or two or a day or
two or a month or a week or two.
it's Sammy who makes
this experience possible.
Sammy, Leslie.
It's not easy.
Sammy has had all kinds of challenges
in her life and yet manages to
present a dream of how life should
be to, anyone who walks or drives
through the gates of Castle Les.
And it doesn't matter whether they're
coming in with a lot of money,
it doesn't matter if they're just
coming in for a drink at the bar.
Everyone is treated the same.
Everyone is treated like a Lord or a lady.
It's a, an extraordinary experience.
it takes an enormous amount
of skill to put this together.
and it's something that
sort of sets people free.
I think anyone I've spoken to has come
away from an experience that Castle has
said this was a seminal experience in
inspiration and how the relationship
between human and landscape and
history and mythology and all of these
things have been sort of rolled into
one experience seemingly seamlessly.
And it's really all down to one person.
Sammy Leslie.
So I want to know how she does it.
, and I want to know how we can learn
to do similar things in our lives.
So, buckle up because this is a treat.
Sammy, welcome to Live
Sammie Leslie: Free Ride Free.
Thank you.
Lovely to hear you.
Rupert Isaacson: Can you
tell us who you are and.
Why you are in this position doing this
Sammie Leslie: stuff?
That's always the most terrible question.
I have no idea who, who
I am or what I do.
I just grew up at with a, you know,
very simple ethos is of all you
can do in life is the best of what
you have and by those around you.
and it doesn't matter if all you
got is in life is, you know, one
bucket of water that which could save
somebody's life or grow some very
valuable food or, or you've got a lot.
It's, it's just about understanding
what you have and how you do the best.
You know, we're, we live in a very
interconnected world, or we should
live in a very interconnected world.
And over the last couple of
decades it's just become so siloed.
You know, nature's over there and
you know, people are over there and
buildings are over here and history's
over there and smart's over there.
And, and.
You know, climate change is
something we don't even talk about.
And I mean, here we really talk about
two things are fascinated by two things,
biodiversity, which is the wonderful,
complex, interwoven, relationships
of nature and neurodiversity in the
fact that we all have brains and we
all process information differently.
And, you know, same thing,
a whole series of wonderful,
interwoven complex relationships.
I, I don't think you can silo, you
know, people and place and nature and
planet without detrimental effect.
So yeah, I suppose my part
of my family are American.
and through the Jeromes and the eyes,
they're supposed to be Sue and IO descent.
And when we were children, we grew up
very much on side of First Nation or
native or indigenous American people.
And we just wanted to kick
the shit outta the Cowboys.
sorry, I'm not allowed
to say that probably.
So we were always told to think a
bit deeper and look a bit further
and gently question everything
because life is not the series
of black and white binary boxes.
We're trying to put it into.
And it's not working as we can tell.
So you, you are coming
Rupert Isaacson: out of a
background, with some roots in
Native America, yet there you are
sitting in County Monaghan in Ireland.
Mm-hmm.
on the border with between North
and Southern Ireland, running this
fast state, and shouldering all
the responsibilities that come with
it, because it's, it's a working
estate and, it's a hotel and it's a
farm, and it's all of these things.
As far as I know, you weren't
supposed to be in this position.
No.
I'm, tell us the story.
How, where were you born?
How were you born?
How'd you end up
Sammie Leslie: doing this?
I am the, the mistress
is a legitimate child.
If you want to put labels on
people, I'm very proud of it.
You know, my mom and dad,
absolutely fell in love.
My dad had an amazing first, wife,
Agnes Burnell Hungarian, German
j who with her mom fled Berlin.
just about one of the last sort of trains
to get out before things got really closed
down and an awful lot of their family,
it didn't get down, it didn't get out.
So, always grew up with that sort
of understanding of the desperate
cruelty that humans can reflect or
can inflict on fellow human beings.
And my mom and dad were not supposed to
be, and I wasn't supposed to be either.
And, , dad went to see a
psychic, with mum and the psychic
turned around and went, ah, Mr.
Leslie.
Yeah, little, another child on the way.
Little brown.
I had brown girl.
And, mum was blonde and blue eyed
and dad was like, oh, please, is it my
wife or my mistress that are pregnant?
What's happening here?
and I came along.
so certainly a child that wasn't supposed
to, wasn't supposed to be, but I can
totally understand if my, if my mother
had made other choices, I've always
been too terrified to have children
thought absolutely terrifies me.
so yes, I was not the expected one, to do
this, and I just fell in love with place.
Here it is one of the most magical
places on, you know, on the planet.
There's this amazing little corner
of Ireland that was carved out
by the glaciers with glittering
lakes and wonderful woodlands.
And as children, we were feral children.
I mean, as we left in the morning and
we, we probably grabbed a head collar or
a bridle, and grabbed a pony, which was
normally a scruffy rescue from somewhere.
and we probably had a bit of
a packed lunch somewhere, and
we literally just disappeared.
And as long as we were home before dark
and there was not too many, too much
blood and preferably no broken bones.
nobody really noticed
or, or probably cared.
it was, it was an absolute
idyllic childhood being allowed
to be that free range in nature.
And I think that's one of, now that,
Rupert Isaacson: that, that wasn't normal
for the, children of the Land Gentry.
what, what one knows of that background
is that one was required usually to
have a, a loyalty first to cast, to clan
and then after that to family and then
after, you know, personal relationships.
No, not so much.
You seem to have come outta
something very, very different
Sammie Leslie: there.
well, my.
My dad is probably, he is the third,
but he's actually the fourth child.
The third child was still born
and is buried under a tree in
Tolbert Great Park in London.
because he was un, he was un baptized, so
therefore there was nowhere to bury him.
so he again, grew up
quite free range as such.
I think his father had sort of given
up, and he was handed over to a
series of nannies, and his hair was
dyed blonde until he was about five,
and nobody noticed, because if you
were a nanny in Hyde Park, you were
much, it was much higher status.
Well, first to have the eldest
boy, preferably blonde as well.
and if you couldn't have that, you,
you had a blonde child and literally
dad's hair was, died blonde for
the first five years of his life.
Nobody noticed.
So, and that was in London and yeah,
he, he grew up, he was born in 1921, so
it was just after the first World war.
and I think he had a little bit of free
range childhood in, in many ways as
well, because, you know, the grownups
were tired and busy at that point.
Remember, our, our, in our world,
you know, of, of big old houses,
having a relationship with your
child before there's seven can hold a
conversation, mix a, a folded lettuce,
leave with one, try this again.
Having a relationship with a child
before the age of seven when they're
supposed to be able to, you know, read
the newspaper folded lettuce, leave
with a fork and mix a good dry martini.
It wasn't something that one did really.
No.
You know, they were kinda brought up
with nannies until that point, and,
and they could be amazing, kind,
wonderful people who desperately cruel.
And one of dad's was quite cruel for her
potty training was tying if he, if he we
himself, she would tie the white nappy to
his face and make him stand in the corner.
but that was sort as improving
and Charact a good thing.
Yeah.
That was his mother.
That was your grandmother?
No, that was his nanny.
Oh, that was his
Rupert Isaacson: nanny.
Gosh.
Ouch.
Sammie Leslie: Yeah, his mother
was, and you know, it's the type of
thing somebody be in jail for now.
Indeed.
No, absolutely indeed.
But then character building
as you quite rightly say.
, so go ahead.
Expect.
So how, how did that, how did, how did he
Rupert Isaacson: then translate
from this neglected, rather abusive,
upbringing in London, to this
extraordinary wild and magical estate in
Sammie Leslie: Ireland?
Well, this was where
they came in the summer.
It was too cold really, in the winter.
and they came here for summer and
holidays and he absolutely loved it.
And, and again, kind of just went
fairwell and disappeared off into the
woods and out in the lake fishing and
out swimming and up trees and, you
know, on ponies and down to the farm.
And, you know, Very much outside
and, and, and a nature lover and
really connected with the nature.
And I think that's when he really fell
in love with spiritualism and that
sort of, um, you know, through the
American side of the family that sort
of, you know, first nation spiritualism
and connecting connection to land.
So your father,
Rupert Isaacson: well, at what
point did he then decide to
just live at Castle Leslie and
immerse himself in that landscape?
And then how did you come along?
Sammie Leslie: Well, if you go back
to 1914 when the eldest boy was
shot, the second boy didn't want it.
He wanted to become a priest.
the third boy, had had polio.
So then it was sort of put into a, an
estate company to try and protect it.
And then the next generation, my aunt
was born 1912, but she was a girl and
I was in my forties before I realized
she was the eldest child because
the next one, uncle Jack was a boy.
So I assumed he was the eldest, but
he'd been a prisoner of war for five
years and really couldn't cope with the
sort of stresses of running the place.
and it was just known as the hot
potato cuz nobody really wanted it.
So then it went to, my dad picked up
the pieces and said, I'll take it on.
and then I'm the fifth of six kids and
while everybody loves and adores it,
you know, the reality of four letter
words, like work and bill and, you
know, roof, and, you know, things that
need to be scare me now with these
Rupert Isaacson: words.
Sammie Leslie: So, I
love four letter words.
there's lots of good ones.
and, but see, at the end of the day,
people should follow their passion in
life and their career and what they
want to do and, and not do what the
world tells 'em they should do because
they're just gonna be miserable for life.
So did your,
Rupert Isaacson: did your dad, it
sounds like he managed to break free
from that kind of, tying diapers to
your face type, stringent upbringing,
and he didn't inflict that on you
or his other children, it seems.
Can you describe, what the
culture at Castle Leslie was
when you were a girl growing up?
How, how was it, what was going
Sammie Leslie: on there?
Well, dad had, I suppose he found his,
his wings literally when he went into
the RF at 19 and got away, you know,
went through the war and got away from
the constraints of, of family as such.
And then he went off and became a
filmmaker and music maker in London.
And then he came home and took over
and he started nightclub here in the
sixties and then a hippie colony.
So some of my nannies growing
up Baner and, you know, would've
been part of the hippie colony.
So it was quite sort of free thinking in
a very, you know, the, the, the Catholic
church in Ireland was not a kind church.
and as we know, so many horror
stories are unfolding all the time.
and he stayed a million miles
away from organized religion
and, just was quite a free spirit.
And most importantly, he
absolutely loved his horses.
Okay.
Tell us
Rupert Isaacson: about the
relationship with Castle Leslie and
Sammie Leslie: horses.
Oh, they've always, you know, since
we, rescued Mark Queen of Scott's in
the 10 hundreds on the back of a horse,
which is how we ended up from Hungary
into Scotland, and eventually here.
Whoa,
Rupert Isaacson: say that again.
Slowly.
Sammie Leslie: Both me, Leslie came over
as a mercenary to bring a young girl
over to Mary King Malcolm of Scotland.
her name was Margaret, and at some
point he had to rescue her from
a castle that was being besieged.
And he made a belt with three buckles,
and he threw her on the back of the horse.
And he shied a grip past the buckle
and buggered off cross countryside.
And when she became queen, she gave us a
crest with three buckles, and then granted
him all the land for a mile around where
his horse needed to stop to, to rest.
And he rode West.
I think he exhausted five horses.
And she became,
Rupert Isaacson: she
became Queen of Scotland.
Yeah.
But, and then allotted him
land in Northern Ireland?
Sammie Leslie: No, in Scotland.
In Scotland.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
How did, okay.
Okay.
Keep going.
Sammie Leslie: Well, in those days, and
then in the 16 hundreds, one of them
was a bishop and he was a bit feisty,
and they kept moving him, ran the place
he lived to the grand old age of, it
was in his hundredth year when he died.
And, he got moved over here and
he fought Cromwell and then rode
to the restoration of the king.
And when, he was offered the
Archbishop of Canterbury as, as,
as a reward, he went, no, no, no.
There's an old church and a lake
in my, the edge of my diocese.
I just want to settle there.
So he fell in love in the 1660s
with, with here and that incredible
light over that beautiful lake.
And, bought the estate of
Ridgeways for 2000 pounds.
That's a lot of money.
Rupert Isaacson: Yes.
In those days.
an unthinkable amount of money.
okay.
So you grew up, as a, the child of a
hippie commune, run by, an aristo who
had a mistress who didn't quite mean to
get pregnant, but did, and then you came
along and managed to grow up Ferrell in
this amazing place with all this history.
did you ever imagine you'd
end up having to run the show?
I I, that you must have seen as you
grew up, despite it being feral, despite
being able to take ponies and sprinters?
You must have seen it
was a lot of work to run
Sammie Leslie: a place like that.
Yeah, absolutely.
So there was this sort of wonderful
freedom of being feral around the estate.
There was the incredible and
probably the most amazing
privilege of the kitchen table.
And, you know, we were encouraged
to sit and talk and ask questions
to anybody that was there.
And the kitchen table was
always this amazing mix of
people from all walks of life.
and what was the question?
The
Rupert Isaacson: question was, did you
ever, as you were a kid, imagine that
you would end up running the place
and did you have a sense of, as a kid,
just the sheer amount of effort it
Sammie Leslie: takes to
run a place like that?
Well, so, so you know, there was the,
the feral childhood, the incredible.
Privilege, the kitchen table and
anybody and everybody that you met.
And, you were allowed to ask questions
and, you know, to ask people about
different religions and view viewpoints.
And on the outside, you know, while inside
the house was very open-minded, outside
the troubles were picking up speed.
Okay.
And that other sort of 30 something years.
So no, I just always loved the place
and wanted to do it, but, and nobody
else really seemed that interested.
I mean, there's interest, but
there's rolling up your sleeves
and doing the four letter word.
But now tell us, tell us about the
Rupert Isaacson: troubles.
So not everyone who's listening to
this, knows what the troubles were.
We, we did interview over on our, equine
assisted world, podcast, , Terry
Brosnan, who also grew up in the Troubles.
Yes.
tell us about the troubles.
What were the troubles and
how did they affect your
Sammie Leslie: place?
It started out as, as civil
rights and because it was a
very, a very unfair society.
You know, Catholics were second right
citizens, and it was very unbalanced.
and then it grew legs and violence became
the normal way of dealing with things.
And, you know, and tit fort and
became very divisive and, and divided
people in communities and, you
know, rage for about 30 something
years with the loss of about three.
You know, probably 10,
20 times of that pupil.
Seriously, androgen, traumatized.
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
So you, you were, you were living
growing up in this beautiful
place, but right on the border of
Northern and Southern Ireland there.
How did the troubles, the Protestant
Catholic troubles seep into that magical
Sammie Leslie: world?
Your, it was very funny cause I, you
know, I'm from a family of eight faith
and probably as many nationalities,
there's still a few question marks.
so we grew up in a world that was
very open and eclectic and, and you
know, multi-faced, multiracial.
And then you walked out the door and
you went, are they gonna like me cuz
they think I'm Catholic and hate me cuz
they think I'm English Protestant or
are they're gonna love me because of
the Churchill Wellington connection and
they think I'm English Protestant and
hate me cuz they think I'm Catholic.
in fact, I'm neither of the above.
so you're always doing this dance
trying to figure out you to be
incredibly careful about what you
said to who and cuz somebody would
pigeonhole you in one side or the other.
so it was a, it was a, it
was an interesting time.
Yeah.
Bias.
Did, did, did violence creep
onto the estate itself?
not really.
We were very lucky.
I mean, there were definitely
neighbors where, you know, there
were horrendous murders and
houses burned and bombs and, yeah.
Very unpleasant things.
But
Rupert Isaacson: what do you
think, what do you think made.
Castle, Leslie Haven.
Why didn't the trouble spill
Sammie Leslie: onto the estate?
I think cuz over the generations,
they've just, they've always matter.
A, a really interesting, women over
the years, you know, not the dominion
of long eggs, but long legs, fresh eggs,
need ply, you know, breeding machines.
so Christina Leslie was a widow in 1940
and with children from her husband's
first marriage and their marriage.
So I think she had seven or nine
children under the age of 16.
And, she ran the estate and she
did an awful lot of good work.
And she did the best she could in really
desperate circumstances, you know, and
there were desperate landowners and people
who just never even came to wineland.
They had no understanding of, the land.
They had no understanding of
the poverty and the hunger.
and about a third of the
states went bankrupt.
About a third of the states didn't care.
And then there was a cohort
of them that really wanted to
try and do the right thing.
And she was certainly up there with them.
And we've done a lot of research
into, you know, her life and her work.
And she was an incredible person.
I mean, this is back to the
terrible dangers of monocultures.
You know, potato was the monoculture.
It was an incredible food, and potatoes
and buttermilk are a perfect protein.
You know, it was the highest food
value per acre of anything grown.
It made a lot of sense in so
many ways, but monoculture
leaves you very vulnerable.
So you are saying if
Rupert Isaacson: I, if I'm getting
my history right, that there was a
history in the estate of when troubled
times happened, like the Irish potato
famine, the, people of Car Castle
Leslie in particular, the women of
Castle Leslie were seen to have stepped
up to help the community did that.
But that was, you know, a good a
hundred years or 120 years before
the troubles, you know, of, of
the 1970s to eighties and so on.
why would the good works of, of
a previous generation, several
generations back, matter to the
generation fighting and the troubles?
What,
Sammie Leslie: because it was
recent history in so many ways.
It, you know, it so changed
the country in so many ways.
Not desperate, loss of life,
desperate immigration, awful things
happened in so many different ways.
so no, it's, it was very
recent history in so many ways.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay, so, so, so p
people were, were still feeling mm-hmm.
The potato famine 120 years later
and saying, well, because the Leslie
family did the right thing and fed
people, we're not gonna go there
and burn that house down, basically.
Is, is that more or less what it was, or
Sammie Leslie: first?
Well, the first time houses
were burned was the 1920s
after Ireland got independence.
so they had a whole space of burning.
They burned about 400 houses.
Yeah.
And.
Stopped.
People came to burn it and
people were stopped burning it.
so yeah, it would, it
would've been part of it.
Also, my grandfather
had become a Catholic.
He'd stood for the national seat and
dairy and spoke Gail Gory, spoke fluent
Irish party, Irish Language Commission.
so, but his first cousin
was Winston Churchill.
So you had this real sort of dichotomy
of lots of people on different sides.
so I would hope to think, cause obviously
I wasn't around at the time that, you
know, it's cuz they were reasonable
people and tried to do the right thing
in the 1890s, or sorry, 1790s with a
thing called the Act of Union, which was
trying to get rid of the Irish Parliament
because it was becoming too powerful.
So we did two things.
We tried to put a bill to parliament
that absentee landlords pay higher taxes.
If they weren't gonna live in Ireland
and work their land and be part of it,
they should make, pay a much higher tax.
That stayed in Ireland that
went down a fart space suit.
And then in the active union, they were
offered, 10,000 pounds in an earldom to
vote to get rid of the Irish Parliament.
And they went no stuff it.
so I think in their own way
they've tried to, you know, do the
right thing by those around them.
and, and by here it would've
been very easy to take.
And there's, you know, there's a whole.
Series of a lot of research on what they
call the castle ray bribes and who took
the bribes and, you know, politics at the
time was, was, you know, who could, who
could pay the, who could bribe who, yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Mm.
Yeah.
That, that was Georgian politics.
I, I, I don't think much has changed,
but, so basically it seems that the
Leslie family then seems to have
had an unusually good relationship
through massive political upheavals
and violence with Yeah, I think
Sammie Leslie: the local community, yeah.
I think if you look at the original
states that are still here, and there's
probably only 12 or 15 sort of on this
sort of scale, they probably were all
here because they wanted to do the right
thing through, through the generations.
yeah, I mean, it would, you know,
even, you know, the last round, it
would be easier to sort of sell and
bugger off, but that would be, that
just wouldn't be the right thing to do.
Rupert Isaacson: So how aware of all
that, were you growing up as a, as
a child in the, did you must have
learned, did you learn all this later
or was all this history imparted to
you as part of your feral childhood?
You sort of, yeah,
Sammie Leslie: it was a
real dichotomy and yes.
You learned, we used to
do tourists at the house.
You got money off tourists if you did it.
and, but you learned all the history
and you learned all the paintings.
You learned who everybody was and yeah.
That you we're all just fellow
human beings on this planet.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All trying to, yeah, no, it, it,
Rupert Isaacson: it, it's an
extraordinary, it's an extraordinary
corner of the world in so many
ways because it's, it's so magical,
it's so beautiful, it's so wild.
And at the same time, it's so steeped
in the, messiness of the realities of
what humans get into with each other.
And yet there, the estate has
stood and there it still is.
something I know about estates
is that they generally don't make
money and often end up getting sold.
You, your dad was a hippie.
He had the hippie commune, as
you said, the four letter worked
work bills, that sort of thing,
not perhaps the most popular.
Sammie Leslie: Oh, he, he worked, he paid
bills and he tried to keep the roof on.
but you know, he had, was quite
visionary in what he wanted to do was
an amazing, very beautifully designed
sort of hotel that looked like the
hanging gardens of Babylon and amazing
golf course and all of the rest.
And he had all sorts of bikes and plans
down and was sort of heading off down
that road when, when the travels hit,
they were, bulldozing the land for the
foundations for different buildings.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
So your dad actually had the idea?
Yes.
So you'd get into tourism and then
the troubles hit and put the kibosh
Sammie Leslie: on that.
Yeah.
Two things.
tourism and, nature reserves as
they were called in those days.
Okay.
Which of course, why do
you wanna protect nature?
There's so much, but there's, it's
doesn't really make a difference.
so yeah.
So, you know, he had
an awful lot of vision.
I mean, he didn't have the sort of
business skills, but, necessary
that, you know, that we would now.
But where did you learn them?
You remember?
They had no education.
He had a, a year in university and
then after the r a f and got music.
It was, you know, the world.
We, the amount of courses and support
we have to nurture young businesses
and entrepreneurs now is fabulous.
In his day, there was absolutely nothing
and everybody was out to try and Felicia.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, no, absolutely.
So, so, so he comes up with this
vision, he's about to get going on it.
Mm-hmm.
He finds backers, then the
troubles hit, and now nobody wants
to go to this part of Ireland.
Why doesn't the estate go down?
what keeps it above water?
Sammie Leslie: Two things.
selling land, furniture, paintings.
And also he started a business round,
equestrian riding holidays because,
you know, some of the bravest people
are people that ride and especially,
you know, from Northern Ireland because
they're so used to, Being ballsy.
and we had a lot of Swiss riders as
well through a Swiss agent, that
all, so I grew up with the equestrian
center and lots of people coming
here, to ride horses and because of
the beautiful land here, and there's
this sort of amazing amount of timber
and huge amounts of cross country.
and the days before insurance got silly.
Lots of people used to come
here for, you know, riding and
hacking and, and cross country.
You know,
Rupert Isaacson: it's, I I grew
up, , in the UK riding and so yeah,
I remember seeing the adverts for
Castle Leslie in the, equestrian
magazines as a boy and, and, and
thinking, oh God, that looks amazing.
I'd love to go there.
These sweeping, you know, views and
people jumping cross country jumps
and it just all looking so amazing
and so perfect and thinking, oh,
I'd really like to go there one day.
And I sort of, it, it had always
been kind of in the back of my mind.
Yeah.
Castle Leslie.
And then, so it is amazing to me to end up
there, with you last year, , ago actually.
There's that little boy in me, you
know, that was looking at that ad,
you know, back in the 1980s going,
yes, I made it there, as you say.
, that was before the days of, insurance
and liability and people suing
each other and that sort of thing.
Taking people for cross country
riding holidays isn't exactly
the safest business bet.
In the world, cause people are gonna
fall off and they are gonna get hurt.
It's just, there's gravity.
It's just the nature of the beast.
your dad started this equestrian center
specializing in this, what happened to
it because it seemed on the outside, very
successful to me as a boy, seeing the
ads, you know, and, and wanting to go.
Sammie Leslie: Absolutely.
by, , where are we?
84.
, I was in England training.
I got my AI and then got my eye eye in
talent and I phoned home to say I got
my eye at 18, which, was quite young.
And he said, oh, but I'm really sorry
I've had to sell the equestrian center.
So I thought, well, I will buy that back.
And it took me 20 years
to, to buy it back.
and they were really gracious about it.
And then we built the new
hotel wrapped rider and the new
yard that, that you've seen.
We got some support from our tourist board
for the indoor arena and the, and the
yard, which meant we could build a sort of
a four, five star facility that normally
in those days, only people, you know, in
top competition yards managed to get into.
We just wanted to make a really
good yard accessible for everybody.
Now whether it's
Rupert Isaacson: you, you, you threw
out some acronyms there, which not
everyone listening will will know.
So I just want to just for
the, the listeners who dunno
quite what that language meant.
Okay.
So, The equestrian professional world in
the uk, most people get what's called a
bhs, British Horse Society AI assistant
instructor as a sort of basic, and then
there's an ii, intermediate instructor
and then there's an I instructor and
there aren't many BHS eyes out there.
To be a BHS eyes is like a big deal.
and you got yours at what?
Sammie Leslie: No.
Well, I got my AI at 17 and my eye eye
at 18 and I wanted my eye by 21 and I
wanted to be a fellow before I was 30.
but I had, I came, plans changed.
I came instead of going to
Germany to train at 18, I
came home and started a yard.
Cuz I just knew that if I didn't
come home and state my claim,
probably more would've got sold.
And I didn't want to be in a situation
where, I find out about it through
a phone call after it had happened.
Rupert Isaacson: So.
All right.
So you get your ii which
is a, a major deal at 18.
Yes.
I I, I remember there was maybe a few I
eyes in the part of England that I grew up
in, and they were all fearsome, ironclad,
English horsey women, bellowing
to each other as Macedon Bellows.
Toon, exactly.
Across the Primeval Swamp and Yeah.
, and they were all, you know, it had
taken them into their, into their
thirties or forties to get there.
It's obviously it was a major achievement.
Sammie Leslie: Get that.
Go ahead.
Tale is an incredible school.
I mean, Talend, the Equestrian
Center Tale is, is phenomenal.
So, Talend Talend, so Pam Ands and
Molly Siv Wright's Equestrian Center.
So I was there for four months and
you know, it's an amazing bootcamp.
and they produced incredible
riders, one after the other.
I'm not one of them, so, but, you
know, horses were never going be able
to take, make the sort of money that I
needed to put the place back together.
So it was always horses,
hospitality, and heritage.
What
Rupert Isaacson: made you feel,
I mean, the hospitality industry
is notoriously, demanding.
it grinds people down.
I've had lots of friends who
were chefs, hotelier, that sort
of thing, and it took a toll.
and, the, the world of
horses, the equestrian world,
similarly, you get bashed up.
You it, it looks glamorous from the
outside, but we know that it's, it's a
lot of shit shoveling and falling off
and getting trodden on and so forth,
and there's massive financial overheads.
So to come in at 1819 and say,
okay, I'm gonna get this equestrian
center that's just been sold, I.
How did you, how did you let alone going
into hotel man, you know, making a hotel?
Sammie Leslie: How did you begin?
Oh, the wonderful thing about Young
is being f was young and Fool Hardy.
, so at 18 there was another stable yard
in the back of the estate, which has
been the sort of working horse yard.
, the one where the equestrian center was,
was the agent's yard for his horses.
Then there was a second yard
for the carriage horses.
, and then the third yard was the
hunters and the working horses.
So I took the old third yard on the back
of the estate and, and, and started there.
, and I got a grant, , from
the County Enterprise Board.
I didn't actually, I got a, , an ANCO
grant for about 1200 quid, , and started
the yard and worked up from there.
So how did
Rupert Isaacson: you find your clientele?
How did you find your, your stuff?
How did you, how did
you run a team as just a
Sammie Leslie: kid like that?
When I, I've been outta school five
years, four years at that stage.
So in my head I wasn't a, I
wasn't a kid school at 15.
, So, , teaching, so teaching was something
I'd always loved and, and did quite well.
And also, flat work and, and
schooling and, and breaking horses
that everybody had marked up.
, and ended up having some
nice horses through.
And then I sold a horse out to Canada.
, and at 21 I just knew I
needed to get away and travel.
I always wanted to come home.
so I went out to Canada after pk, the
little bay mayor that went out and
worked in Canada for a while, and then
Virginia and then San Francisco and out
to Australia and traveled and worked
and traveled work for about three years.
Why wasn't
Rupert Isaacson: the, lump the, the
financially troubled estate sold out
from under you while you, while you
were doing that, how did you, or did you
take a risk that it might, it might just
not have been there to come back to?
No.
Sammie Leslie: I knew that I
needed to get away and travel.
I mean, he must have sold
something quite well to be able to
survive for a couple more years.
and then, , he actually did
sold something that sold.
Okay.
And then I got to go to
hotel school in Switzerland.
My sister got to film school and
my other sister got to university.
and then, , back into financial trouble.
And he got a big offer from a Japanese
corporation, , to become, I think their
cultural liaison center for Europe.
And I, I shortened my
course in Switzerland.
so I doubled my hours.
I was doing 60 hours a week study.
And then, I remember I was down in
the FR fridges downstairs and, I
can't remember what I was getting.
And the phone call came in and
he said, are you coming home?
And I said, just give me six months.
This was November,
December, or maybe January.
I said, just gimme six months
to December and I'll be home.
And I came home when I was 24.
Ok.
Ancient.
I work.
Rupert Isaacson: And you got Yeah.
Really?
In, in, in the old days in
Ireland, you'd been an old mate.
what, so did you get, did you
get to work alongside your dad?
no.
He had pulling it up
again and putting, getting
Sammie Leslie: it back on it feet.
Not really.
I mean, dad was 48 when I was born.
So what age was he at that point?
I was 24.
So he was sort of early seventies.
And am I right?
Late sixties?
Rupert Isaacson: you were
talking to the wrong person
Sammie Leslie: for maths.
Yeah.
48 60.
Yeah.
He was early, early seventies.
And it was, cause I remember
doing his 70th birthday.
and he also, when he'd smoked,
which, if you've got, you know,
weaker lungs is, is not the cleverest.
He nearly died when we were
children from double pneumonia.
And they, you know, doctor
said you'd continue to smoke
and you've got six months.
He'd also, you know, always had asthma.
and then he got em emphysema and he
lost about a third of his lung capacity.
So big damp, cold house.
I mean, the problem with damper
is there's less oxygen in it
and it's much harder to breathe.
And he really couldn't
cope with winters here.
So he was around my first winter
and in his ski suit, he literally
got into a Red Sea scoot and lived
into, lived in it for the winter.
your body self cleans after a while.
And then, he'd come home
for a bit in the summers.
So he died in 2 0 1, so I was 34.
He'd just been home 10
years at that stage.
so yeah.
So you, you found
Rupert Isaacson: yourself at 24?
Mm-hmm.
Saying, okay, I'm going to take this
huge lumbering place, which is very
beautiful, and I'm gonna make a worldclass
hotel and question center out it.
Sammie Leslie: How'd you even begin?
I was a lovely old saying
that the best way to eat an
elephant is one bite at a time.
so you just do little bits.
So I started with horses the first
winter, and then I did, t runs.
I got a grant for 5,000 for
the town enterprise board.
And then I sold my dad's card
for the other five grand.
And then bit by bit, he
left a five of us.
So I got an agreement with the rest
of the family, and then I started
six bedrooms, and then I bought out
all the freehold from everybody.
And then just bit by bit,
you just keep picking away.
That's all you can.
How did you, how did
Rupert Isaacson: you find the guests?
How did you, how'd you find the staff?
How did you find the team?
How did you run that?
You make it sound so
Sammie Leslie: easy.
It couldn't have been.
It's always listen, having children,
I wasn't brave enough to do that.
in all wonderful forms that they,
that they come in, and they, there's
wonderful proof of local, people
who came to work from, I mean,
some of our team were 14 when they
started, still in contact with them.
and they're mothers now,
which is wonderful to see.
and yeah, we remember we were in
an area where there weren't an
awful lot of jobs at that time.
And just built it up.
but, you know, I, I don't
make it all look wonderful.
Now I have incredible CEO who's, who's
been here 15 years at this point.
It's his birthday tomorrow, and there's
a team of probably 200 on the estates.
So they're the ones that really
make it look fabulous and seamless
and, and wonderful, not me.
How, how, how
Rupert Isaacson: many people were working
on the estate when you began to put
Sammie Leslie: it all together?
Bridget Earl Housekeeper still lived
here, who's been retired twice, but kept
coming back cause the house was very much
her life and I very much understand that.
who else was here?
Jack Heini, one of the old
foresters was a wonderful character.
Eugene Dinkin, the old head
gardener's son was rounding about Mrs.
Dinkin.
His mom was on the back, in
the back gate Lodge.
Harry was retired from, manager.
He was in one of the gate
lodges, the wonderful Gourney clan
where Jackie started in the yard.
She's been here since I was
12, very much part parcel.
and she's in the stewards in the
dairy house, and that's theirs.
so yeah, there were people scattered
around the gate lodges and, me.
Okay.
And you built it
Rupert Isaacson: up to 200.
Incredible.
I know that you, I know
that you battled some,
Sammie Leslie: oh, it's not me.
Say that again.
It's a huge team effort.
It's not just me.
Yeah.
But
Rupert Isaacson: on I know,
I know what you're saying.
And you're very modest at the same time.
It's, it's, it's, it's, it's been
grown and coaxed and nurtured.
. So, you, , you pulled
this estate, this sort of all basically
bankrupt estate up by its bootstraps.
You managed to, at beginning age 24,
begin with a hotel and equestrian
center, which is not an easy thing.
You mentioned that you left school at 15.
I know that you, you've, you've talked
to me about your struggles with dyslexia.
Mm.
Can talk to us about that and, and how did
that inform your self perception and your,
feeling of yourself as an entrepreneur?
And
Sammie Leslie: you know, what's
really funny is really interesting
is, you know, I love the now the fact
we can talk about neurodiversity and
that we, the human mind process this
information in so many different ways.
And, and we're starting to, starting
to understand some of them, the m
part of an entrepreneur, cohort.
And, they were looking at, there's a
lot of research being done into sort of
the percentile, with the people that
think differently in whatever the norm
is supposed to be in the first place.
But the entrepreneur brain and
that sort of, Thinking differently
is, is is huge correlation.
You know, I don't, you know, people
talk about thinking outside the box.
I've never found the box.
I don't know what the box looks like.
It's just, so when you go through school
and you come from a house like this,
it's not easy because they go here.
The fact you think you are, you,
you know, you're from the big house.
Do you think you're special?
You know, Dean Swift, the great writer
in the 17 hundreds, complained that our
house has loads and loads of shelves
upon which it many were books written
by the Leslie's all about themselves.
you know, and they went on to
write notes, 200 books after that.
So, to come from a very literary family,
and not be able to read and write the same
way everybody else does, wasn't easy.
And there was, you know, you tried to
say your dyslexic and then people just
said, oh, you thought you were special.
And so, no, it wasn't, it
certainly wasn't the easiest time.
But then you went home into this
wonderful freethinking world
where anything was possible, and
then you just got the ponies.
And the great thing about horses
is they don't read and write
and they don't speak English.
And, you know, they see pictor
really, and they see shapes and
textures and ratios and, you know,
they think in a, you know, they don't
need to do the academic bollocks.
I mean, look at, just watch any, you
know, horse going, you know, cross country
at a high level or dressage at a high
level, or show jumping or you know, at
at barrel racing, any of the, the sports.
And you go, God, you know, their
brain function is incredible.
Their, because their
brain controls their body.
I mean, they're amazing.
they process so much information at
such high speed and they don't read and
write and they don't speak English and
Rupert Isaacson: Right.
But they're also not expected to
run businesses though, are they?
I mean, so, so
Sammie Leslie: no, they do.
They probably, but no, so I think
it was that perception, that
ridiculous perception of what we
understand, intelligence to be,
you know, there's this, so this
whole thing about intelligence
and you have to be intelligent and
intelligence was linked to academia.
there we're now understanding there is
so many different forms of intelligence.
and I think the absolute hard reached ness
of intelligence equaled academia in school
was very damaging for a lot of kids.
I could see how,
Rupert Isaacson: coming back from a
school where you've basically been
told you're stupid, you know, and I
remember when I was a boy at school, mm.
Dyslexia was considered to be, by
a lot of teachers stupidity.
And now we know it's actually
sort of part of genius syndrome.
but.
Of course it, it wasn't
looked at that way.
And I could see how coming back to
this, you know, fairy world, with
the, with ponies and hippies and
amazing, could give you a safe haven.
But then of course you had to
go out and, you know, cope with,
even with the horse world, sitting
exams, doing that sort of thing.
And then of course you go
off to, to Switzerland and
you go to, catering school.
how did you, how did you function
Sammie Leslie: there?
Well, I think with the equestrian
in my day, it was all oral or
practical, which was great.
Or teaching.
And so you didn't have to do the written.
it was brilliant.
So even in high level was, I don't think
in my day there was any written papers.
and in hotel management, a lot of, at the
beginning was practical, but I learned
all the work rounds and I learned how
to, they didn't mark you on your reading
and write, you know, your writing skills.
but I learned how to, to learn as
such in the way that was needed.
And I got a 5.8 average outta six,
by year three, which was not bad.
The language has tripped me up.
my language has brought my scores
down cause I just, what people
forget is just, I, this is my
theory and I'm sticking to it.
His dyslexics brains are very
logical and that they're always
looking, taking vast amounts of data.
Most other people don't even see, when
they look at something, you know,
whether it shape, color, texture,
size, and they're always trying
to process it into a form of logic.
And we, there's so many different logics
that you can take outta a series of data.
as we know from data mining now, is
that, that's my theory, that that's
what we're always trying to do.
And then that makes the place a sort
of a safe and a calm place because
you can put things in an order that
they're supposed to be and you know,
that the world says they should be.
And language is no,
language is no logic to it.
It's other than German.
Right,
Rupert Isaacson: exactly.
Which is what I'm
struggling with right now.
but e exactly.
So you, you go off to Switzerland,
, dyslexic and then you're expected
to do stuff in other languages and
you're juxtaposing letters and so on.
Cause you're taking in all this
information and yet you achieved
this high grade point average.
how,
Sammie Leslie: I just studied, I mean we
had 48 hours of lectures and practical a
week and then I doubled my course and did
60 and then, in a start, eight in the
morning and then two hour lunch break.
But I did library for lunch and you
know, took a sandwich in and studied.
You just work.
And then I'd work till sort of six
o'clock in a Saturday night or eight
o'clock in a Saturday night, go out
for dinner, go clubbing, sleep or
ski the next day and start again.
So, you know, you were doing 80, a hundred
hours a week, between classes and study,
but that's, but that's what it took.
I mean, that's what, what you'd do
in horses and that's what you do
in hospitality in the early days.
Rupert Isaacson: Sure.
at what point did you find though,
that the dyslexia was no longer
tripping you up in any way?
was not impeding you?
Was there a, a point where you were like,
actually it's just not even an issue.
I've been told this is, or or
was it a slow thing was more
Sammie Leslie: No, no.
Oh, definitely.
It's always there.
You learn work rounds.
I mean, I've got my own email
language and my own written language.
Everybody on my team knows that.
because I read by shape,
recognition and placement of word.
And if you don't give me the context
at the beginning of a document Yeah.
Can get me.
So once there's context, then
say it says cat at the top of a
document, you know, all those shapes
are going to be related to cat.
So then your brain recognizes all, all
of the words and that relate to cat or
what a cat might get up to, and therefore
it figures out the shapes of the words.
And then it puts them in so they,
you know, there you can see words
that are similar shapes, there
could be lots of things, but I
know they're related to cats.
So it could be only one of 20 words.
And I know the context, so I'll work
out what's actually on the paper.
So, no, we, we don't read
by letters on a page.
I mean, how ridiculous would that be?
Seriously?
Rupert Isaacson: unimaginative.
Indeed.
what about numbers?
did your dyslexia, go to numbers as well?
And, and
Sammie Leslie: No.
Cause I learned, I learned early
on that numbers are ratios.
There's 10, you know,
one to 10, one to 12.
After that everything
is a ratio within that.
Mm.
So, you learn all the ways of quick
multiplication and division and all
the rest, which of course you lose
once you start using calculators.
but numbers are highly logical.
Okay.
Two plus two will always be four.
Depends on your accountant, but
yeah, depends on your accountant.
I have.
And two.
And two and two could be 22, but
two letters beside each other
could be a whole load of things.
Right.
Rupert Isaacson: Do you find, or did
you find then the same difficulty in
reading and understanding nuance, emotion,
sarcasm, that sort of thing with you?
Or is that never a
Sammie Leslie: problem?
Oh, absolutely.
It depends on the writer.
I've just finished reading Ben Goldsmith.
God is an Octopus and it is one
of the most magical supplying
books I think I've ever read.
Because of his ability to portray
incredibly complex situations like
the death of his very fabulous and.
Wonderful daughter at 15 in a farm
accident to his, going through the
desperate grief and really falling
in love with an understanding
nature and, and rewilding.
And he ended up, you know, in Deborah,
the department of, food and Agriculture
in, in the UK for five years.
But because his English is so low, I
don't know, it's just so easy to read.
So you really get the highs and the lows.
there are other writers that try
and write simple stories, but use
complicated English, and you're sitting
there going, why is that word there?
What does that mean?
You know?
And, and the words just, I I I don't
understand their flow of English.
So, God give me, I would, I think I
just pull my tail toenails out if you ask
me to read Shakespeare or old English.
yeah, I love his works and it play
because you can figure out what they're
trying to say because of the body
language and the setting and the costume
and, there's lots of other ways to
read the emotion within a play that
you just can't read in a, in a book.
And that's
Rupert Isaacson: interesting because
I know, I know you to be a reader.
and yet there you are with dyslexia.
was there a point where reading
kicked in as a pleasure?
Sammie Leslie: studying veterinary
notes for, it was veterinary notes
for horse owners, write, reading
all the, the manuals for anatomy and
veterinary and stuff for teaching.
They're all very logical.
I think, you know, somebody like
for me, Patricia Cromwell, the, the
crime writer again, writes in a,
a language that makes sense to me.
So, but there are other writers, I
just cannot get beyond sort of page
three because I can't make sense of
the, the, the order of the, that they
use words a big words ade marmalade.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
That's a, that's a, it's a big word.
It's a word that makes me, it's, it's
a, it's word for a cat, isn't it?
I think that's, yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Sammie Leslie: yeah.
Marad Duke and Marmalade,
they're both types of cats.
Did you,
Rupert Isaacson: is Marad Duke a a dog?
Yeah.
Marad.
Duke's a a Great Dane, I think, isn't it?
but maybe a great Dane that eats cats
and therefore they taste like marmalade.
yes, exactly.
When you were a kid growing up,
feral, , in the woods there, were you
reading then, or did it, did it kick in
Sammie Leslie: later?
No, no.
Later.
Oh.
I think it was always, oh God.
I was always reading books on
horse training for the first
number of years of my life.
And then, when I was
traveling, you probably started
to read more for pleasure.
Okay.
especially a long train journey
or somewhere, or sitting in
a train station or backpack.
You know, backpacking can
be a very slow moving.
So definitely started to read
more there and wanting to read
books about the country and the
culture that I was going to see.
Right.
I made the reading shogun
before I backpacked around Asia.
Okay.
Rupert Isaacson: so it kicked in for
you sort of more in your twenties.
That's the dyslexia side.
Now, I know that you also
battled cancer, and that's a
difficult thing in any context.
but when you've got the weight of a large
business on you and, the livelihoods
of lots of people, and the well and,
and, and the land because it's, it's not
just a business as in people and money.
You're, you are looking after landscape,
you're looking after woodland,
you're looking after livestock.
You're, talk us through that.
Sammie Leslie: Well, I, I've been in and
outta hospital since my 20, late twenties
with, some form of extreme exhaustion.
And then in my, early forties I did
an amazing thing called the Hoffman
process, which is probably, but for me,
definitely it's a sort of week long course
and you just literally get stuck into
understanding how your behavior works
and the things that you've learned and
what serves you and what trips you up
and, and you know, sort of how your brain
makes sense of things that are confusing.
and I think that helped me let go of
a lot of the sort of confusion of,
you know, the, when I was younger.
so funny enough, when I got a diagnosis
with cancer, breast cancer, I think it
was also a bit like, cuz I've done so much
veterinary, it's just like, well, this
is just something we need to deal with.
and it hadn't started to spread, although
I found the lump in June, went to the
doctor 10 days to get an appointment.
I had a, I had problem with the gro
now that was really annoying and
very painful and something else.
And I actually forgot
to say about the lump.
And then in November I was, seeing
somebody in New York at the time
and he said, look, we can't, I
just, he did, couldn't do the
long distance bit and other bits.
And he said, oh, I meant to say, by
the way, as he was walking out the
door, there was a bit of a lump.
I think maybe you should get it checked.
And I went, Oh, fuck, that's lump.
I should have got, I meant to get checked
in June and it was quite a bit bigger.
So, I went home and, I just didn't
tell anybody until one person, because
I can't do all the faffing about it.
And I went through surgery and came
out and 24th of December and ran
a Christmas drinks party here for
a hundred something people, which
started the annual Christmas drinks
PE party for everybody locally.
And, then a few days later
a friend hugged me and burst
my stitches at a party.
That was, was, I'm still not
trying to tell anybody, but, I
ended up back in hospital.
No, it was fine.
I mean, the, the, the, it's a very
guided process, you know, surgery,
chemo, and radio and, and the different
drugs and you come out the other end.
And I hate to say I loved Wringle.
I mean, I, I struggle with long
hair and I've always got my hair tied
up and had always very hairy legs
and stuff, so somebody said Me too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But yours are supposed to be, somebody
said if you wax your legs the couple
of days before each chemo session,
you'll end up with no leg hair because
they're, they're too weak to grow back.
So that, that was an upside.
but then, a year later
I was diagnosed with ms.
multiple sclerosis and that was a
bit more annoying because that's a
bit more shadow box and you never
quite know what tricks it's going to.
To pull on you.
so, and, and it's for life.
I mean, there's no, as yet,
there's not no sort of, you know,
I'm 12 years after breast cancer
now, so I don't even think of it.
MS is a little bit more annoying.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
So Ms.
it's in my family.
and I know the, exhaustion factor
as well as the other things.
And I also know the exhaustion factor
of, of, of being an entrepreneur and
working in hospitality, let alone at
the scale that you're doing it there.
how do you possibly cope?
I was three.
Sammie Leslie: I slept for three
and a half months last year.
That worked really well.
And then I moved my office
home to my garden shed.
Do you like my sky?
I
Rupert Isaacson: do like your sky.
Yes.
I wish, I wish the, I wish
the, listeners could see it.
There's a sky painted, she's Sammy's
sitting in her garden shed, which is her
office, and she has the sky painted on
the ceiling and the painted on the wall.
It's
Sammie Leslie: wonderful.
Well, it's wall the wall's
wallpaper and then the sky.
Yeah.
For blue sky thinking.
so you do, yeah, I moved home,
my office home, which is great.
and my kitchen or a garden table
became the boardroom during our
outside boardroom, during covid.
But I do have to be a little bit
careful cause I could go kitchen, office
garden, kitchen bed, kitchen office
for a week and then realize I actually
haven't left the premises for a week.
so yeah, but it, it's, it's, it's
Rupert Isaacson: a flippant thing
to say though, to say, well, I
slept for three and a half months.
You, you, you and I, Beth know you
can't do that because of the demands
and pressures of, of the job and
running everything that has to be run.
Sammie Leslie: How do
you No, I didn't, Amanda.
I did.
And there was no,
Rupert Isaacson: how how did you
manage to achieve that though?
given, and there must be listeners
who are battling with this right now.
Sammie Leslie: No, I, I've got, I've,
I have an amazing team and they've
really got my back and I have an amazing
person who helps me, in my house.
And, and you know, they must have
Rupert Isaacson: needed
decisions from you.
They must have needed.
Really?
Sammie Leslie: No, it
could run at that point.
Very rarely.
It wasn't three and a
half months in a row.
It was, you know, a
day here, a week there.
Right.
you know, it was, it was in and out.
and they kind of also tend to know
when I'm getting a bit wobbly.
So, you know, the, those
sort of front load stuff.
So yeah.
Even yesterday I was on the
computer and my eyesight shattered.
So it's like a clear kaleidoscope and
everything moves around the place.
Mm mm Right.
I can't.
I can't.
And I was, I was, I was proofreading
a, a, a spreadsheet of figures.
I was like, this just isn't working, cuz
they're all moving all over the place, so
just go to bed and I got it done today.
So, yeah.
What would you say, I
Rupert Isaacson: mean there, there, there
will be listeners, who are facing cancer,
MS and other, fairly serious challenges
who are trying to keep businesses,
jobs, families, and so on together.
as someone who's made go of
that, what's, what are your
Sammie Leslie: tips?
I think there's all, you know,
if, if you've been a half decent
person in life, I think there's
always a lot more people around you
that want to help than you think.
And sometimes you need to ask and
sometimes you need to let people help.
sometimes you need to show your
vulnerability and just go, you
know, my team know that if they
hear me, my voice goes to certain.
Level.
Level.
And I'm slow and I'm starting to
not be able to complete a sentence
and I'm trying to fight through it.
because I, you know, you just,
you, you do fight through.
I've got work to do.
I need to keep going.
Somebody will quietly say, maybe
would, you know, we'd like a cap.
You need to take a break or fuck off.
Useless.
isn't now at some point, you know,
and I now start, I just know you, you,
you can't fight extreme exhaustion.
You just end up being a cranky cow.
And I apologize for everybody out there.
I've ever been ultra cranky too
when I'm too tired because I'm a
thundering bitch when I'm exhausted.
But it's normally because, you know, to
actually be able to, you know, last year
I had a, a week where it took me five,
four days to get from my kitchen as far my
bedroom to the kitchen for a cup of tea.
you know, I found a couple of
coffee sweets in the bathroom on
day three, and that was kind of the
first thing I'd eaten in three days.
so that's just, when it hits
like that, there's just,
there's no point in fighting it.
And you just have to
roll up and go to bed.
I mean, that, that's
Rupert Isaacson: an interesting
thing that you say, ask for help
and allow your vulnerability to show.
Because, you know, you, we, we, all of us
who grew up in, in our generation, were
brought up with a stoic, Value system and
Sammie Leslie: stiff lip
Rupert Isaacson: in, in it.
Rich, it's very much stiff upper lip.
pull your socks up.
and you know, it, it doesn't
come easy to do that.
and definitely also when we were
younger, we would've actually
been penalized for that.
at what, and so I think there's a lot
of people who'd be listening who like
us would struggle with asking for help.
At what point did you manage to sort of
give up that rugged individualist thing
and say, okay, I'm just gonna fuck it.
I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna
Sammie Leslie: ask.
I think, well, with breast cancer
I certainly had to back off and,
and, you know, let my team do more.
And you know what, they're all
way more talented than me and
much better at the job than I was.
And you know, they've always shown
and grown and it's wonderful.
it's wonderful to see.
MS has been a bit more of a
struggle, I think, cuz the extreme
exhaustion is quite insidious.
And there are times you push through
it and you get, and, and it lifts and
you're like, oh, I can keep going.
I can get to that meeting, I can get to
that party, I can get to the shops, I can.
And then there's other times there's
just absolutely no point whatsoever.
Just, and then I got a thing called Noro
ring that tracks my, sleep and activity
and heart rate and all of the rest.
So I can, it starts to tell me when I'm
starting to dip, and that's when I go,
okay, I'm not recovering as I should.
I, I'm, I've just slept 14 hours
and I'm still exhausted, so I
need to be a bit more careful.
So certainly being able to, and
then you can flick back through, you
know, the last two or three weeks
or last month, or eight weeks and
you kind of go, yeah, okay, I need
to be a bit more sensible here.
So, wearable technology, the,
the, the, the joys of bio.
What's the, , is it bio electronics?
Yeah, bio feedback.
Is it, is it biofeedback where
they use electrical pulses to
measure the chemical reactions
that are happening with your Right.
I remember big words like marmalade.
That, that, that's it.
And you know, it's, it's, it's been
great in, you know, monitoring and
times you think, I've got a really
good night's sleep and you're
looking and it goes, no, you didn't.
And then by lunchtime
you're going, no, I didn't.
Yeah, you're right.
Rupert Isaacson: Interesting.
Do, do, I mean, I, I think that's,
there's probably a lot of people
listening now go, actually, that.
That's me.
I often wake up exhausted.
Why do I wake up exhausted?
what is going
Sammie Leslie: when?
There are great things, there are great
things that very unobtrusively measure
what's happening when you're asleep
because we go through this whole cycle
of different sleep types and, you know,
you can get a great night's sleep, but
your alarm wakes you up in the middle
of deep sleep and you feel like, you
know, being hit in the head by a mallet
is just, you've woken up the wrong point
in your sleep cycle and you know, it
tells you when your midpoint is and your
heart rate and your body rate and your
body temperature and oxygen saturations
and, in a very, very simple way.
And then you can start to see
the sort of patterns and I inject
with interferon every two weeks.
And it is interesting to,
to watch what it says.
and you're going, yeah, I feel
like I'm been hit by a bus and just
cause I have been hit by a bus, it's
okay to just go, yeah, my body's
struggling for the next two days.
Would, would
Rupert Isaacson: your, would you say that
your main, strategy for keeping up with
work while having MS is, managing sleep,
managing exhaustion, managing tiredness,
Sammie Leslie: managing sleep?
I do a lot of juicing.
So, I hate cleaning my juicer.
So do it probably every two weeks, and
then freeze it, which is fantastic,
and then have to remember to take it
outta freezer, but I do most days.
so just trying to always make sure I, I
get, you know, lots of good micronutrients
and looking after gut health.
You know, it's a little
bit like soil health.
We're starting to realize how
complex it is and, and how important
it is for, you know, for our
body health and our brain health.
Beyond
Rupert Isaacson: taking probiotics then,
what, what do you do for your gut health?
What tips have you got
Sammie Leslie: for the rest of oh, well
I've on a new one now that's around
repairing gut, cuz I've definitely got
leaky gut then, you know, it depends.
It's really good liquid pro, probiotics
that are survive getting into your gut,
lots of fiber because your gut needs
it and listening to your body and just
seeing what foods work and don't work.
Rupert Isaacson: So what, what foods
do you find don't work for you?
What would, would you say
that there's foods that
Sammie Leslie: I don't.
Yeah, modern gluten.
we forget that wheat has been
systematically bred for a long time to
have a higher and higher gluten level.
The breads, when we baked it
in the old days, had a, you
know, eight to 12 hour proof.
So, you know, the yeast reacted
with the gluten differently and you
know, actually and stretched it.
so modern bread, commercial
bread's a one hour proof.
There's an awful lot of chemicals in it.
The gluten is very high.
You can often get a gano phosphate
sprayed on the, the bread before
they, because if you do in the small
levels, the wheat thinks it's dying.
So it shoves all of the
nutrients up into the grain head.
So you get a bigger grain
head and a, a bigger yield.
and that's legal in some countries.
And you don't know where your bread,
your breads actually come from.
So, you know, what was one of the
most magical, purest things and
the most delicious things that man
developed over the years, which was
breads, which was water and yeast and
bread and flour and tiny bit of salt.
Or it mightn't even have yeast.
I mean, look at all the magical birds
around the world and, you know, we've
turned it into this monster substance
that so many additives and things in it.
And I think for a lot of people, if
you've got delicate gut health, whether,
you know, we just don't digest it.
I certainly don't digest it.
It
Rupert Isaacson: seems
to be a growing thing.
I mean, I live here in Germany
and obviously bread is a massive,
massive part of the culture.
Breads, cakes, you know,
baked goods and brutal people.
Proud.
You know, it, it's, part of the
national pride and more and more people
are showing up gluten intolerant.
And it happened to my wife,
and I remember for a while
we like, can't be, can't be.
And it's like, oh no, it
really looks like it is.
And then all of the pushback is
very interesting from the older
generation saying, oh, that's
just all, you know, hip, hip,
hippie, bullshit, blah, blah, blah.
But you see so many people
now, who were not, intolerant
10 years ago, 20 years ago.
And as you say, it really does seem
as though the process of bread making
has become as effectively turned it
into a toxic substance unless you're
getting, you know, very artisanal,
Sammie Leslie: you know?
Yeah.
So it's, I think it's a balance between
gut health and unhealthy bread as such.
Now I do some work in southern Italy,
and, you know, it's locally grown.
We, it goes down to the mill.
It's mill that day.
It's a 12 hour proof.
It's slow coaching, big old ovens.
It comes up out, you know, loaf the
size of a car wheel, you know, in the
supermarket you get, you know, you buy
a quarter of a loaf or half a loaf and
it doesn't go off for days, and then you
just toast it and it's magical and, you
know, the bread kind of lasts a week and
I don't have, you know, I can eat quite a
lot of that without getting into trouble.
Gimme a slice of, you know,
white pan toast here and you
know, I'll be on the floor.
but this is, it's just getting so
hard because, you know, I, I work with
food and I also work in a, a county
that produces a huge amount of food,
and I'm fascinated by ingredients.
But even the most simple thing that we
made, so in southern Italy, you know,
you buy the local wine for when you're
52 years in the supermarket, and that's
the best wine because when they're
making it at that price, one, it's
local, and two, they haven't put any
additives in it because they, you know,
they can't afford to and sell price.
So for export, right, right.
Yeah.
It's not traveling.
So you can put 16 different
substances in wine, in small
amounts and not put it on the label.
Ok.
Wine should be grape juice and yeast.
Yes.
Where, and the sulfur is normally burnt
off on the top of a big fat to take the
air out to stop the fermentation process.
And I, it's so hard.
I mean, I, yeah, listen, you've got me,
you've got me, you've got me on a, on a
rant, but I just wonder how many people
are, are going through all sorts of
things that they just don't realize that,
you know, that's coming from our food.
And also quite often because our soil is
so depleted, a lot of our food doesn't
really have very much nutrient in it.
Well, you
Rupert Isaacson: are in the hospitality
business and I've eaten a castle,
castle, Leslie, and the food's amazing.
you, you need to, look after
your own health for this.
I know that you take a lot of care,
with the food that you serve there,
and you're, and you're serving, you're
serving it in industrial sized quantities.
I mean, you, you've got a lot of guests.
You can have hundreds
of guests that mm-hmm.
how do you manage to dance that
dance of making sure that all those
people don't end up eating the
Sammie Leslie: poisons too?
We do.
We do the best we can.
I mean, there's a lot more we'd like
to do, and, you know, there's certain
things, you know, I would love to
find a really good, you know, free
range producer of pork at scale,
but we, you know, we can't find one.
but it is changing.
And more and more we do.
I mean, things like the venison
oil just comes off the estate.
I mean, that's as wild and
as healthy as you can get.
And it's us mimicing nature and doing
what nature would've done in taking out,
you know, the, the old and the weak,
that, that nature would've taken out.
so, you know, that's,
that's really healthy meat.
I mean, if I had a magic wand, but then,
you know, I'm an oddity in terms of food.
Most people eat what they,
what tastes fabulous.
And, you know, our
taste buds are designed.
For, salt because we need it.
We can only taste five things.
Mm-hmm.
Sour and that our taste buds
going, oh, don't eat it yet.
Plant's been very clever and gone.
No, don't eat us yet because
our seeds aren't ready.
You know, there's a brilliant vocal
called botany of desire that that, really
explains how Mother nature's tricked
us into doing what she needed us to
do, to continue to move seeds around
the place when they were ready and
drop them in other places to continue
the species, you know, the, the, the
advancement of the, of the plant species.
You know, we think we're in control.
We're really not.
So nature has sour to
go, don't eat us yet.
Cause the seeds aren't ready.
and it's got sweet to go, oh, do
eat us now because we are ready.
So we eat it, we eat the seed, it passes
through our gut, we drop it somewhere
else, you know, nicely wrapped in a
little bit of poo as a natural fertilizer.
And, and all animals do this.
And that gets, you know, nature gets
us to spread the seeds around us.
And bitter is, please don't eat me.
I'm poisonous.
I really don't want you to eat this seed.
And that bitter poison, our brain's gone.
No, no, I'm not going to to do that.
And that's the four things.
Our brain tongues, taste and umami,
which is that, mushroom meat one.
but apart from that,
everything else is smell.
All our other flavors are smell.
And our brains, our, we,
our brains confuse the two.
We're so convinced that so much
what we taste is what we taste.
It's not, it's what we smell.
That's why when you have a cold, you
lose your appetite cuz nothing tastes
food still tastes when you have chemo.
The two things, you don't lose
our lemon for some reason.
And ginger, they're the two
flavors that you can still,
they're the last flavors to go.
Interesting.
Rupert Isaacson: Wonder why that might
be interesting that that's, it's
because they're basically medicinal.
Do you think?
Or that's your word?
Sammie Leslie: I I maybe came as such an
unusual, you know, it's such an unnatural
thing that they're just by chance the
last things that, the last things that go.
but it is, yes.
One of the chemo tricks definitely
with breast cancer, remember all
chemo drugs are different, but,
they're the two, the two flavors
that you can, the, you can get.
But the food industry has figured out
what's known as the unholy trinity
was the salt, fat sugar ratio.
Cuz you would never get salt
and fat and sweet, sorry.
salt sugar and sweet salt,
sugar fat together in nature.
You wouldn't get salt sweet
together, salt offy caramel.
Mm-hmm.
And you get that.
And, and there are foods that will
hit the bliss point to tomato catchup.
You put eat te tomato
catchup and do a brain scan.
It hit the, hits the bliss point.
And so much of our food is
designed to hit the bliss point.
And, and you just want more of it.
but it's not designed for nutrition and
it's not designed for fo soil health, and
it's not designed for gut, gut health.
And then we wonder where we've gone wrong.
Rupert Isaacson: So talk to me about
food production and soil health.
You are, you are actually involved in the
production of food there, on the estate.
what do you guys do on there for
Sammie Leslie: that?
Well, of course that keeps soils healthy.
Oh, well, we're by, we've a whole
strategy done to start doing some
major rewilding regenerative farming
and biodiversity friendly gardens.
So in September, October this year, we
have to be able to really step it up, but
do it in a way that it's monitored so that
we can show what's actually happening.
because, you know, the whole rewilding
or, you know, nature regenerative, sorry,
there's something banging on my roof.
that, that whole nature led
regeneration, is not always that well
ma measured and monitored to be able
to show the, the real impacts of it.
So yeah, that's what we'd love.
Rupert Isaacson: What, what are
you do, what are you doing to, to,
to measure what, what, what, okay.
What, what are you doing to measure
and mon monitor it and what sort
of scale are you doing it on?
Sammie Leslie: Uh, we hope to
do a good few hundred acres.
There's new technology out, uh, where
you can constantly monitor the carbon
in the soil, both the available
carbon and the inherent carbon.
It's looking at air
quality and water quality.
Um, it's looking at, at, um,
the, we've done all our baselines
on all our different species.
So to have a look at as its
changes what species come back.
Because about 30% of climate change, they
reckon is linked to loss of biodiversity.
Well, kinda the worst countries in
Northern Europe or Ireland and the
uk in terms of biodiversity loss.
We've just, that Ireland.
Why is that?
Why is that, do you think?
We didn't notice.
I mean, I went to Scotland last year
to look at a Rewilding project, and
I find the Highlands so beautiful.
And I'd known about the clearances,
the human clearances, which
were unbelievably horrendous.
I didn't realize that they just cut
all the trees down and put sheep in.
So all those wonderful wild Heather
Moores, which were wonderful for deer
stalking for, you know, a handful of
the, the, you know, the wealthy elite
actually just denuded late nature.
I mean, the salmon population
is about to collapse.
And Scotland, you know,
and that's their native.
Ish.
You know, it's just getting, we
are, we've, as somebody wants.
Well, two things.
, somebody said it's a bit like flying a
plane and throwing bits out the window
that you've no idea what they were
wondering why suddenly, you know, at some
point the blank brushes, , and the other
one, somebody said the other day, you
know, even if parasite is clever enough
to know not to, to bleed its host dry.
And in Ireland we wiped out our
entire genetic stock of pigs.
Every small holding in
how Ireland had a pig.
They were just part and parcel
pigs are nature's plows.
They root all the time.
They're always turning soil over,
which allows seed to get in and
all that natural regeneration.
And somewhere in the seventies and
eighties, because we didn't think
there were of any value, and we
wanted to breed the Dutch, you know,
the big fat white dutch pigs that
are, are produced meat at high speed.
We wiped that entire
species and nobody noticed.
You know,
Rupert Isaacson: I mean, cause when you
go to Ireland, you look around and go,
wow, it's beautiful, it's countryside,
it's green, it's, it's it's nature.
There's hedges and woods and birds.
And you, you don't, you
don't go to Ireland and think
biodiversity loss when you look
Sammie Leslie: around.
Huge, horrendous.
So in our county alone, we, the last 10
years, we've lost 1% of our heteros beer.
That's 10% of our heteros
gone in one decade.
You know, our air quality is
not great with our intensive,
, with our intense farming.
We have monoculture grass cuz
we've got one species of grass.
So, you know, you, you our,
you know, our b population is,
you know, on getting critical.
I mean, it's just thing after thing.
But cause we look so green and
virden, we think we're okay.
We're not, you know, we're, we're
went down to less than 1% native
woodland in this country, , in the
fifties in this, because we just
cut down all of our native woodland.
Anything that we had just
got chopped up and burnt.
We put a, we wanted to put a tax on
standing timber, native standing timber.
My dad was part of the campaign
to go, this is ridiculous.
You know, we need our trees.
And then we plant 7% of our island
with Norway and Sitka, which is a, not
an a non-native commercial forestry.
And just because it looks beautiful, it
doesn't mean it's, it's biodiverse rich.
Yeah.
And we reckon, I mean, the world, oh,
there's so many statistic globally that
we probably only have between 50 and
60 years of crops left because we've.
When we started to manage to, , harvest
nitrogen into a stable form to be
able to sell us nit nitrogen based
fertilizer, it's too toxic for
our soil and it's killing all the
mycelium, and it's killing all the
living, , microbiology in the soil.
So slowly all our soil is dying.
And that's
Rupert Isaacson: an interesting
connection, which I, I haven't
heard put so directly before.
It's, I just wanna back up
there for some of the listeners.
So what we hear a lot about depleted
soil health, and we hear a lot about,
, loss of fertility, but it tends
to get said rather than explained.
That's very interesting.
I hadn't heard anyone before now
Sammie Leslie: just used, there's
an amazing iron company called Super
Soil, and they've got a great video
that that sort of sh that explains it.
So I've cogged it, I, I've cogged
some of it from, from their video.
But basically over every acre
of land, there's about 30
tons of nitrogen in the air.
And all the microflora and microbiology,
sorry, in the soil would draw
that down and feed it to the plant
roots, and that kills the mycelium.
And then you've got the no,
well, then you have this, no, in
nature, that's what it would do.
And this, you have this amazing web
underneath of mycelium, which kind
of, they call it the wood wide wire,
but you know, it was sort of nature's
highly intelligent system that it
knew where to move water and where
to move nutrients around the soil.
Um, but the, the, the microflora
would pull the ox, the nitrogen,
basically outta the air.
So a scientist, I think Uber realized
how this worked and they went, oh my
God, if we can capture nitrogen and put
it in a stable form and put it into bags
that we can sell to farmers, they can
up the nitrogen value in their soil,
which you do, but it's quite harsh.
So it slowly kills the natural process
within the soil, and you become reliant
on constantly putting in nitrogen that
then starts to deplete the soil further.
, so an Irish companies come up with
an amazing product called Super Soil,
which feeds a micro, a micro flora.
I've got microorganisms to then
start to naturally draw down the
nitrogen out of the soil, almost
Rupert Isaacson: treat treating
the soil like the gut, like almost
like, probiotics in the gut.
Yeah, microorganisms
Sammie Leslie: for the soil.
Yeah.
I mean, you look at the number of
microorganisms that we have in on
our body and in our gut, and it's,
you know, it's in the thousands,
half of which we have no idea of what
they're and what they actually do.
And it's the same with our soil.
So these, a lot of money
outta selling nitrogen, right?
The
Rupert Isaacson: now these, these
regenerative, farming, practices that
you're starting to do on the estate
and for food production and so on.
And, taking that into the commercial
side cuz you're obviously feeding it
to people in the restaurants, as many
restaurants on, on the estate and so on.
Mm.
how much education are you
giving the guests and the punters
who show up on to the estate?
How, how much are they
Sammie Leslie: aware of this?
Not much.
In two or three years time, we hope
to have an amazing exhibition space.
and there will always be a need for
intensive farming as such, but whether
it is lab grown meats, whether it is
black, so fly larva as a, as a protein
source, whether it's vertical farming,
but one where we manage to get all the
micronutrients into, into the plants,
you know, food is going to change.
Absolutely.
Massively.
Tell us about
Rupert Isaacson: this, this
exhibition space that you are, you
are putting into the, to the estate.
What's going on with that?
What, what is that?
Sammie Leslie: we.
Want to do a really interesting
space to tell our story of our
relationship with people and planet.
and also the understanding the human
body in a really fun way that, you
know, can work for school kids and
it can work for neuroscientists.
and that's all I can
tell you at this point.
Otherwise, I would have to kill
you and Eliana would not be happy.
Give us, give us
Rupert Isaacson: a little bit, a tiny t a
tiny tidbit more what, what, what is it,
what, what is the mission of the estate
with this, in the ne in the coming years?
What, what is it you want
Sammie Leslie: to achieve?
I think the irony is that this
estate was always very innovative.
And, you know, you had amazing
women and you had a whole
series of very innovative men.
And then of course you got the odd
generation that, would just enjoyed life.
but in general, you know, they were
innovative and, and funk differently.
and I don't know, what about
you with the dyslexic brain?
It doesn't really stop.
You're always going, what if, and if I
did this and if I did that and turn that
upside down and we put that over there
and, you know, it's, it's, it's just so
back to how can you do the best with what
you have and by those around you, right?
Rupert Isaacson: But what, what is it
that you, you want to, is, is would this
be an a sort of ecological, educational.
Yeah.
We space.
Similar to say Eden in
the UK or something like
Sammie Leslie: that, or, yeah.
Well we, we've been, and I think Tim
Schmidt's amazing and, and we've been
talking, it's how do you tell the
story in a fun way for people that just
kind of want to float along the top?
And how can you tell it in an educational
way from children through to academics?
How can you share research?
How can you do food schools and, and the
learning right the way through, you know,
the different, the different levels again,
you know, from I said fun and easy to,
you know, to to, to serious food and, and,
and, in gut health and how can you do
that in, in, in a, in a series of spaces.
And technology allows us to
do that now quite easily.
So
Rupert Isaacson: in the next, in the next
few years, we can come to Castle Leslie,
not just to experience beautiful nature,
ride horses, eat amazing food, and look
at incredible art and history on the
walls of the stately home, but also to
learn about, soil health, ecology and
Sammie Leslie: the land.
Absolutely.
And our relationship, cuz I don't
know about you, but, last year
with the hot summers, you know,
really started to get scary.
We're really starting.
To see it.
And you know, one of the stats is that
by 20, if things continue as they are,
by 2050, 80 million people will be on the
move every year through climate change.
Yeah.
And when you start to get into the
conversation around climate justice
and, you know, we're on 12 tons of
carbon roughly per head in Ireland,
and my unofficial goddaughter Somali,
her mother's an for African Met, is an
amazing human rights campaign around fgm.
And you know, Somalia is going into
its sixth year of, of desperate trash.
You know, there's parts of that
country that you just wonder,
will they ever be livable again?
You know, it's, it's, you know, it's
parts of the world that are flooding.
More and more of the world is becoming
inhospitable and people have to move.
What's fgm?
Rupert Isaacson: You said?
Fgm.
Sammie Leslie: Oh, you're a boy.
female genital mu mutilation.
Okay.
, yeah, Google it, it it is.
I know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Probably the biggest killer of children
at worldwide that is totally preventable.
You know, disease and war
famine are horrendous.
The human imagination
Rupert Isaacson: of all the things that
one could come up with to pointlessly
do that is one of the ones that.
But mystifies me that, that someone,
you have someone sitting around going,
you know, what should we do this year?
Oh yeah.
Well, maybe we should invent
Sammie Leslie: this thing called
female genital mutilation.
Is that, how does one even come
up with that subjugation of women?
But that's a whole other indeed subject.
And, you know, it's, it's part, you
can say it's part of a culture, and of
course it is, but it's also how did it
become part of that culture, you know?
And it, it was something that was
sort of started by the Egyptians and
spread into surrounding countries.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
But yeah, what, I mean, we all grew
up with, you know, institutionalized
suffering that was sold to us at Exactly.
We found, we went to, as we were
beaten and that sort of thing,
saying, well, this is the culture.
And I think we all said, well,
actually that's not a culture I
particularly want to, to participate in.
You're just making me participate
Sammie Leslie: in it.
And, you know, and, and you know, and
as people in the western world, we
can't sit there and wag the finger
and go, you know, that's wrong.
all we do in the, in the first
foundation is help people on the
ground who want to make a difference
and support them and what they, and,
you know, understand the ways they
want to change their own culture.
You know, this western thing of going in
and going, you know, we're white, we know
better than anybody else is, is a load of.
Well, sure.
It doesn't
Rupert Isaacson: work.
It just doesn.
It just doesn't work.
I mean, yes.
I, I, I, from my years in human
rights, it's, it, it, for sure.
And, and at the same time, I, I
feel, and I think everyone knows
that there are things that go beyond
culture that are just purely human.
but it's very easy to hide behind
culture and say, oh, this thing is a,
is a valuable cultural practice, even
though, you know, it kills people.
and you know, therefore, you know, so,
and it's, it's a dance one has to do.
It's, it, it, this is something that
you are involved in, in, in, in,
in the large degree in your life.
Is it?
I miss human rights
Sammie Leslie: work.
Well, I met them an amazing girl
trip called if Met when her, the, her
the life story of her film, sorry.
When the film of her live story
was being made, it's an amazing
film called A Girl From Mogadishu.
Mm-hmm.
And I said, how can I help?
And I asked about her, did she
have a, a charity or a foundation?
And she said she did, but it was
sort of very much a Facebook page.
And she's an incredible campaigner
who's done amazing things.
So I just helped set up the sort of formal
legal structure behind the foundation.
got about eight, 10 years ago so that
the structure was there to really
allow her to do her work and get
the sport behind her that she needed
and the fundraising that she needed.
and also, you know, the little bit of
governance and measurement to be able,
you know, to, to, to go to the bigger
funders and go, this, this works.
So she came up with this amazing
campaign called Dear Daughter, where
parents, mothers, fathers, aunts,
uncles pledge not to cut their child.
And that's been incredibly
powerful, giving people, the power
to say, as an individual, say,
no, I don't want my child cut.
I don't want my niece or my nephew cut who
you know, I'm looking after, cuz they're,
no, their parents aren't here anymore.
and it's very ground roots and, you
know, it's very much her campaign.
and it's really starting to take traction.
What's the name of her organization?
IRA Foundation, I F r
I f, sorry, I f r A H.
And her name is Ra,
Rupert Isaacson: r a h, IFA.
F r a h.
Yeah.
Sammie Leslie: Foundation Ra.
And, I Raed.
Mm-hmm.
And it's called the IFRA Foundation.
And, she was trafficked,
long story, horrendous story.
And she was trafficked into Ireland
around probably 15 or 16 years old.
And she actually ended up
having the legislation.
The law changed here and the
legislation enacted before
she even got her citizenship.
She is one of the most phenomenal
human beings I've ever met.
And when she was on the campaign
trail, and back in Ireland,
she used to live with me.
And I never, ever heard
her once go pour me.
The world is a terrible place.
She's just like, be a voice, not a victim.
it needs changing, so how do we change it?
And lots of amazing people got on
board and in behind the foundation
room, a fabulous ceo, an incredible
chair, somebody who's very senior
in obstetrician who's just retired
and from work and come on board.
And just slowly bit by bit giving
people the, the voice to say, no,
this is the change that we want.
Do you, do you, do
Rupert Isaacson: you harness
the, clientele of Castle Leslie
in the educational and funding
Sammie Leslie: process?
No, because people come here on respite
and there's that balance between using
the platform you have and, and you know,
and, and take, you know, and I'll be
using it for the want of a better word.
So, on either World Women's Day or
World FGM Day, which is the 6th of
February, we will celebrate ifra.
but
Rupert Isaacson: just writing this down
world, FGM day is the sixth of bed.
Sammie Leslie: Yeah.
I mean, IFRA got FGM onto the charter for
human rights, you know, before she was 30.
Good Lord, she, 28 when
her biopic was made.
Rupert Isaacson: And she is someone
who's also found resilience at Castle
Leslie, as, as so many have interesting.
Sammie Leslie: no, well,
not re not resilience.
Respite, so, right.
Usually, yeah.
She, and the only reason she moved out
10 days before, before she had a baby,
which turned out to be about four weeks
before Covid lockdown, because she
needed her own house and her own space.
I have a, a one and a half bedroom
house, so, it, it worked out well.
And Sarah is amazing.
Sarah's her daughter who's.
She will be four at this point.
And the IFRA Foundation
Rupert Isaacson: is operating
out of Ireland, is that right?
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah.
how interesting.
Yeah, it's interesting you say it
got one and a half bedroom house.
People assume when you drive up to
Castle Leslie and you see the castle
and you see the lodge and you see
all the other buildings in which
things happen, you think, well, that
must be where Sammy Leslie lives.
And then of course, we find out where
you actually live, is in Narnia.
that's one of the best
things I've ever seen.
for those, maybe I sh I, I should
probably shouldn't disclose how
you get to Nia because that's a
bit of a secret within the castle.
But suffice to say that you live in a
very tiny sliver of the whole thing.
the, the rest of it is, is, is,
is given over to the enterprise.
Sammie Leslie: yeah.
Well, I live in amazing little corner.
I mean, it's small, but it's a fact.
This little corner of the house.
But, you know, my bedroom was an artist's
studio, so it's got windows on four sides.
and is is quite an amazing space
to, to hold up in, hold up in.
But no, I've never lived in
a normal, anyone in my life.
I've either lived in lorries in
Australia with the horses or an old
cattle shed in, in Dublin, or slept
in stables in Sydney at the show.
I've never or lived at work.
I've never lived in like a normal
house with a front door and a back
door and, you know, not attached to
anything else or even a row of houses.
I've never lived in a normal house.
I wouldn't know what to do.
well,
Rupert Isaacson: yeah.
probably go look for, go into
the garden and, and move into
the shed like you've done.
yeah, the, I I know that, you also
have an interest in special needs.
absolutely.
And, I know that you are beginning
to think towards this with, with
the Castle Leslie Estate as well.
Talk us through what, what your
ideas are there and, and, and
what's happening with that.
Sammie Leslie: Well, while back, , I
started here about this, , guy
that had come up with this amazing
thing called the Horse Boy Method.
and it just absolutely fascinated me
at the healing power of, of horses.
And we've got lots of land and
lots of space and lots of horses.
And I think when you grow up
learning slightly differently, you
know, and, and, and you realize
that we know so little about how.
The brain grows and
functions and, and works.
and it was anything that I can,
it's back to, you know, all you
can do in life is best with what
you have and by this around you.
If we've got all these incredible things
here, and then one day go by chance,
I got locked behind a door with you.
and, at a, an event for autism
that somebody asked me to go to.
So that's, I suppose when the
conversation really ramped up.
and I started to know more and more
people whose children have been diagnosed,
going, if I can help in any way, it's
the least I can, it's the least I can do.
What would you, what, what's, what's
Rupert Isaacson: your vision, when
it comes to the estate with autism?
What, what in your perfect
world do you think will Oh,
Sammie Leslie: absolutely.
What will happen?
Hopefully.
we're lucky that they built
three stable yards on the estate.
So the yard behind the lodge,
would stay pretty much as it is.
The second yards become self
occasional accommodation and the
third yard on the back of the estate.
I think that's where we were going.
We could create magical spaces.
You introduced me to the
incredible David Doyle went.
We went down to Liz Kennet and looked at
all the amazing things that he's achieved,
and he's been up to us as well going,
okay, we have the space, we have the
want, we have the, we hope also the way
to start to tell the, the stories about,
you know, how we learn and also how EQU
based therapies, movement therapies,
nature-based therapies can really work.
So it's a huge learning care for me.
I know I'm an absolute novice in this
field, but I just know that we've got
the bits to be able to put together,
hopefully to do something magical
and, and to, to really help people.
It's funny,
Rupert Isaacson: you, me,
you mentioned David Doyle.
I, I, would I say I want to get
David Doyle on this podcast?
He flatly refuses.
He will not, he will not speak.
so I need, which
Sammie Leslie: chime down on
Friday and why won't he speak?
He
Rupert Isaacson: is the, the most
strangely modest man, as you know.
So I want to just let listeners who
might not know who David Doyle is, let's
just say, tell you who David Doyle is.
David Doyle, is the current,
incarnation of the Wizard Merlin.
I met David Doyle, in 2012.
I did a, a demo of Horse
Boy Method in Limerick.
And I got an email three years later
saying, oh, you won't remember me.
I was at that thing.
I took your website to the Irish
Parliament and got 3 million
Euro and we were just building a
state-of-the-art horse boy center.
Did you wanna come look at it?
Like I, I'm sorry, what did you say?
And I went there and I looked, I, and
I said, David, how did you do this?
And as you know, David, he's one of
these, he, he, he speaks very softly.
He, oh, you know, I just
talked to these people.
And subsequently he started all
these extraordinary autism, centers.
His daughter has very severe autism
and also had a very good reaction
through horses, as did my son Rowan.
And he's created an, an entire
paradigm shift in, I would say, in the,
mental health culture, in Ireland.
It's now creeping into Europe.
so the fact that you are working
with David Doyle makes me as an
autism dad, so incredibly happy.
and I wish, ok,
Sammie Leslie: it's up to you.
I mean, I wouldn't have, wouldn't
have met him if it wasn't for you.
Rupert Isaacson: Anyone who's
listening, check out David Doyle.
St.
Joseph's Foundation.
it's in Charleville in, county Cork.
you ever meet that man?
It will be a tree, but yes.
You know, th this idea that you, an
estate, it's, it's very interesting to
me because you, you drive, you know, you
drive into Castle Leslie, and you can feel
as you drive in a shift in the atmosphere.
And it seems to me that there is some
sort of healing spirit to the land.
It's, it seems to me, is no, no
coincidence that the Leslie family
coming out of the explosive reformation,
renaissance history of Scotland and
England, then one bishop finds himself
there by this beautiful lake and in the
17th century, and no matter what craziness
goes on in the rest of the country, and
in fact right there, you know, the, the,
the, the Cromwell and the English coming
in and killing everybody, and then all the
risings against the English, and then the
tr the first round of troubles, and then
the second round of troubles and, and the
potato famine and all of these things.
So many estates burned, were
attacked, were hated, you know,
with, with good reason by the
lo not Castle, Leslie Castle.
Leslie always stood.
And as you say, the, the people there
always seemed to have been interested,
un unusually for their historical
time, in doing the right thing.
And there you are.
you weren't even supposed to
inherit this day and then you put
Sammie Leslie: back on, didn't date.
Okay.
I bought it
Rupert Isaacson: even more,
you know, that there you were
and you had to buy the thing.
Mm-hmm.
and get it back on its feet.
And, and it seems to have always the,
the, the, and now you're getting it, you
know, from, okay, it's a luxury hotel
and yes, there's any question center.
It's all fabulous.
It's all fantastic.
And at the same time, the restoration of
soil, sustainable agriculture, rewilding,
and now human rights, special needs.
You can feel it when you drive in.
What do you think is the
sacred nature of that land?
I'm very happy to get
as woowoo as you want.
I'm all about that.
I dunno, what is it?
What is it?
Are there sacred?
Are there sacred sites on
Sammie Leslie: there?
there's huge Iron Age for behind us.
Naven Fork sees the hikings of Sters
about 10 miles from us, but I don't know.
I, the lake is 70 feet
deep, but I don't know.
And I, I saw something the other
day on Instagram where a guy put
a electrode into the soil and on
a little meter nothing showed.
he put, he held one piece in his hand.
He had flip-flops on.
Nothing happened.
He took his flip-flops off and you
could see the electric current shoot up.
I would love to measure
the electromagnetics here.
I don't know what it is.
It is a very special place.
Maybe it's the light off the water.
It does have a very, it has
an energy all of its own.
and it is a place all of its own,
you know, I, you know, do what
I can and, and whole team to.
but it is a living, breathing thing.
Mm.
And you, it, it, it seems to be a place
Rupert Isaacson: that has encouraged
people, strangely, generation
after generation after generation,
through a violent history.
to, to sort of step up
to their higher self.
so it's, it's hard not to ask, are
there ancient pilgrimage sites?
Are there ancient Druidic sites?
Is there ancient?
Is there, is there, are there old
Sammie Leslie: stories?
not, well, there's Crown Oaks on the top
lake, but they would've been inhabitation.
Not that we, no, I mean, there is
one small ancient site on Kilty
bags, but a small wrath that got
bulldozed out in the late 18 hundreds.
I've seen it on an old map.
but I haven't found a very sacred site,
Rupert Isaacson: no.
On stories about saints.
No fairy rings, no
Sammie Leslie: occult, , I
mean the small stuff.
St.
Patrick came to this village
and so Vikings came here.
The Iron Age, settlements were here.
The Vikings came here.
St.
Patrick came here.
he built small church here.
I, not that I find, but it doesn't mean
there isn't, because Christian faith was
very good at wiping out earlier things.
I don't know.
But it is, it certainly is a magical
place and it gets most people.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
Yeah.
It's definitely a place
where you come to here.
I've stayed there with my
son and, the adorable run.
The adorable run.
And, he is hilarious cuz you,
you so can he put him up in
one of the rooms in the cast?
And he, I went to check him.
He said, I feel like Henry VII in here.
And
Sammie Leslie: he said, I just
need to, I just need to, I
Rupert Isaacson: just need to lay on
this, on this bed with this canopy.
Cause it makes me feel royal.
but that he came away saying, because, you
know, he, he's autistic and he's sort of
ultrasensitive and ultra authentic always.
He says, he said, dad, there's, there's
something healing about that place.
I want to go back there.
There's something healing.
He said, it makes me
feel better in my head.
Sammie Leslie: that's,
you know, it's wonderful.
We can talk about stuff cuz in the old
days it would be, oh, you know, it's all
woowoo and fluffy and all of the rest.
But I think more and more, you know,
we're starting to show our, our connection
of nature, our loss of connection with
nature, is, is hugely de detrimental.
you know, that getting into
water, it's walking in mud, in
the marshes, it's, you know, it's
sitting on trees and under trees.
It's just being immersed in nature, which
of course is our natural place of being.
I mean, it takes this wreck,
something like 10,000 years for
one genetic change to, to happen.
you know, in a, in a species.
And we've gone, we've shifted so fast
in the last few hundred years to, being
totally disconnected from nature.
and I'm not sure that's healthy.
So the more we can do to help people get
reers into nature in, in different ways,
yeah, that's what we want to look at.
And it's just how can
create a healing place?
How can we create respite, you know, how
can we create respite for families with
children, you know, with autism and other,
what's, what word am I allowed to use?
You can't say issues.
Difficulties.
Oh gosh.
Rupert Isaacson: Conditions
I think is probably the, yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, yeah, sorry.
Well that's, it's so
interesting, you know, that the
whole politic correct thing.
I often ask Rowan, you
know, do you have a.
Word that you want me to use?
Like someone with autism, what
the said dad, I'm autistic.
You know?
Yeah, just, just, just say it.
Just use
Sammie Leslie: the word
just, yeah, exactly.
So yes, it's, you know, my dad
did sort of things here during the
troubles to bring kids from inner city
communities in Belfast, from opposite
sides together, and a sort of camping
summer holidays and, and just give
them some proper outdoor fun and, and
forget about, you know, the troubles.
And, , he did for a summer or two and then
he got a phone call to tell 'em to stop.
When you got those phone calls,
you didn't not listen to them.
So it is a very, very magical place.
It absolutely is.
And it's this sort of real little
bubble, especially in this ever faster
growing digital world where we are
bombarded it constantly with information
and lots of stuff that's designed to,
you know, do that four minute dopamine
hit that just becomes addictive.
and it's rewiring our brains and,
and most people don't notice.
So it's the, you know, the deconnect
disconnect and the unplug and do
strange things like talk to the person
you came away for the weekend with.
Yeah.
We've no television from the castle, just.
refuse to have them, you know, there's one
wing that does, but they're, they either
look like mirrors or pictures and actually
they're, because normally that sort of
black hole of a television calls you when
you come into the room to, to turn it on.
no.
It's just being able to disconnect
and reconnect with nature.
And I think over the coming
decade we will learn more and more
and more about the, the healing
powers of connecting with nature.
And I think we'll do it in a scientific
way so that we can explain, to, I was
gonna say the numpties, the powers,
the be that we need that connect.
I was in Singapore recently and they
are very strong on their biophilic
architecture, which is that whole thing
of growing plants in and on buildings.
Mm-hmm.
And it, you know, reduces
the air conditioning.
It cools, you know, it, the de-stresses
it, mental health, it cleans the air.
It has so many positives.
and that's a small island with
1% of our landmass with the
same population as Ireland.
And you just smiled everywhere.
You just kind of fell in love
with the city cuz it is so green,
it's just greenery everywhere.
They've been greening it's,
you know, from the fifties.
cuz they had quite visionary, you
know, Paris at bay at the time.
yeah, there's.
Rupert Isaacson: I just wanna talk
about that for a moment actually.
the greening of buildings.
Mm-hmm.
I'm a great proponent of it.
and it's interesting how when people talk
about carbon sinks and that sort of thing,
people, and people talk about forest and
all the things which we should happen.
No one talks about ivy growing up
buildings, or, I know there's a,
a, a company in Spain, for example,
that's doing moss clad walls.
Mm-hmm.
and they, I, I read somewhere
that a, a concrete bench covered
in moss actually absorbs more
carbon than your average tree.
These things I didn't know, but
yet you see so few people doing it.
And like here in Germany, I know that the
moment I start to try and grow creeper
up my wall, all my neighbors go, oh, oh,
it's gonna do this, it's gonna do that.
It's gonna, and, and then I'm thinking,
yeah, but I grew up, you know, in houses
that had ivy on the walls and the, the,
the house didn't seem to go anywhere.
and, and the wall didn't fall off.
where, where's this,
this, this come from this,
Sammie Leslie: this, it depends
on, it depends on the wall.
Ivy is an incredible plant and in
so many ways, but if you've got
soft water like lime water mm-hmm.
It will actually get in between the
stones and start to pull it apart.
I mean, there's lots of creepers.
I mean, we've won cold Virginia creep
in a building that's probably 150 years
old and it won't get into the Mosher.
so some will, some will, attack
buildings and others won't.
But Moss is an incredible substance.
Moss lives on two things,
especially spam moss.
It lives on water and carbon and it
literally sucks carbon out of the
air and uses it as its food source.
Mm.
, and that's why, you know, having a
lawn that's moss rather than monoculture
grass is so much healthier in, in so
many ways, and coaching lots of things
in, in moss Absolutely cleans the air.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
I, I kind of want to do it on
the side of my, my house here.
I'm sort of, I'm, I'm campaigning for it.
and I, I hope to be successful
in my campaign with my neighbors.
but it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's,
it's interesting to me that there's
this idea of the clean wall, the clean
building, the clean, you know, well
Sammie Leslie: look at, look at biophilic.
I mean, it's a whole science.
I mean, there are certain plants
that will break up, walls of sycamore
tree plant near building will break
up concrete, you know, will break,
break up concrete, whereas other
plants will, or all their roots will
just sort of wrap around things.
But biophilic, it's a,
it's a whole science.
And do you have a particular book
that you would, recommend us on that.
Bio, is that anything that's
on bio biophilic architecture?
Mm.
not off the top of my head.
Ok.
Well, I should go a look at up and it,
and it, and it changes from place to
place because, there are things that grow
well in different climates and there's
lots of different micro climates as
well, and lots of different reading mat
or lots of different building materials.
So you would want to do it specific to
the building materials used in, in your
area and the plants that grow happily in
Rupert Isaacson: your area.
What are you doing at
Castle Leslie with that
Sammie Leslie: out interest?
With the new building, the new
exhibition space, we want it
to be as biophilic as possible.
so yeah.
So
Rupert Isaacson: what would
you, what would you do?
What, what, what, what can you disclose?
What, what, what are you gonna,
Sammie Leslie: I don't know yet.
It's at concept level.
so we haven't got into the
design detail at this point.
That starts, I think
in September this year.
cause we're working in conjunction with
our tourist board and our county council.
and we want to do something that
just hasn't been done here before,
but that's normal on the estate.
The estate built, you know, one of the
first pumped water systems where an estate
and a village, there was steam driven.
So you turned on pumps and
the water just popped out.
And, you know, we did integration rebred
integrated wetlands for sewage, where
it's not just reeds, but it's 22 species
of plant that eat all of the, you know,
the phages and the slime eat all the
bacteria in the water and the water's got
half the nitrates and half the phosphates
of the water already in the river.
so, you know, nature is an awful
lot of innovative solutions and I,
and, you know, nature as an answer
to na, as a nature, as a solution
to every one of nature's problems.
Cuz if it didn't, it
would've silted up long ago.
You know.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah, I, I've seen that,
that that serious treatment plant on your,
on your estate, and it it does Is it, does
it do the whole village or is it, is it
Sammie Leslie: just the It
does, it does up, no, it does.
Up to the equivalent to 2000 people.
Yeah.
It's amazing.
And it looks like it's water
garden and the biodiversity,
and it is unbelievably high.
Yeah.
It's a water meadows.
Rupert Isaacson: Yeah.
How long has that been in?
Did you, did you plant that?
Did you put that in deliberately Two
Sammie Leslie: years?
Yeah.
No, that was worked with Amazing.
Was we very open-minded county council
and worked with an amazing designer
called Rory Harrington who designed it.
and we worked with them, and
went, yeah, absolutely.
Let's test bed.
It, let's, let's be the first to build
one of these in, you know, in a historic
setting for, in a village and an estate.
and that, that's what we just
want to do more of and trialing
and test bedding stuff as well.
And we won't get everything
right, but That's right.
You know, then you share what works and
what didn't work and somebody else might
go, oh, well actually if I turn that
around and flip that upside down and
put that over there, that might work.
And then, you know, somebody
has to be brave and be quite
happy to make all the mistakes.
We've just ended up in this world
where everything has to be perfect and
research the nth degree before we do it.
And I mean, I think one of the, the
saddest things in our world is how
insurance is just starting to rule the
world is just stopping, , creativity.
It's stopping people taking chances.
It's stopping people experimenting,
because of the fear of not
getting it right and getting
sued if you don't get it right.
Mm.
You know, the downside of not trying in
the first place is starting to bite, weigh
the downside of something going wrong.
Rupert Isaacson: How
do you cope with that?
Because you're, you're dealing with
a high risk, thing at Castle Lessi.
You, you still have an equestrian center
that specializes in cross country riding.
Cross country riding,
innately dangerous activity.
Yeah.
How do you deal with this insurance issue?
Sammie Leslie: we make sure
it's as safe as possible.
The jumps are designed to
be as safe as possible.
They're all under, you know, a
certain height or the landing.
The takeoffs are kept in
really good condition.
You know, the horses are,
oh, there's my wild cat.
The horses are, highly selected
to be able to make sure that there
is, you know, as safe as possible.
And still most people who come riding
except that there is some risk.
but, you know, 1.35 million people
die in car accidents globally a year.
Yeah.
And we still drive.
And what's amazing is we teach people,
we don't teach people to drive very well,
and we don't do the continuous upskilling.
and I think we could do an
awful lot more in road safety.
Mm-hmm.
But because it's still, you know,
profitable for the insurance industry,
nobody's really got stuck in to
make it as safe as it could be.
I mean, I did my regular license and
then I did a class one HTV license for
40 foot trucks and sitting in a week in
a, for a week in a cab with one dri other
driver and an instructor between us either
driving or wa watching and listening.
I mean, I learned so much compared to
what I learned in my regular driving
license, which I did 40 years ago.
And nobody ever has checked
whether I drive well or not.
You know, you sh we should do our
driving license and come back a
year later and do another bit and
then at next year do another bit.
And over the first sort of five years
have, have continuous improvement and
then come back in every five years for
a chop up because we learned bad habits.
Rupert Isaacson: Why did you
learn to become a truck driver?
Sammie Leslie: To drive a truck?
Yeah.
I'm sorry, horses.
Of course, if you're going to transport
horses around the place, you need to
be able to drive a truck and you could
do in the south a rigid license and
then an Arctic license, c n d license.
Or you could go up north and for
the same amount of time, an effort,
you could learn to drive a 40 foot.
And I hate to say they
are fabulous to drive.
You still drive a truck?
No, I'm you.
You need to keep all your driving up.
And, also cyclists terrify me now.
Yes.
I mean, in the old days you didn't
have to watch out for as many people
in your blind spot and cyclists that
come up both sides of you, it's humanly
impossible to be able to watch your left
and your right mirror at the same time.
As well as look at your windscreen.
You're, you know, at some point you
will miss somebody on one side or
the other because they're everywhere.
I don't know how they drive through towns.
I really don't take my hat off
to, to guys who drive 40 foot.
Anybody that drives 40 foot.
Rupert Isaacson: It's it's, it's amazing.
One thing I didn't expect to come
out this interview is that, was that
Sammy Leslie is a truck driving ma.
I love it when I
Sammie Leslie: go to get my hire car and
they kinda look at the section on your
license to see, have you got a driving?
And they're like, oh.
no.
It's, it's, it, it's good.
But you know, it's back to continuous
improvement and upskilling.
and we don't have it in, in driving.
So, listen, I've,
Rupert Isaacson: I've learned a
lot on this, on this interview.
I'm gonna go off and look
at biophilic architecture.
I'm gonna go and look at Super Soil.
Sammie Leslie: Is that Yeah,
super Soil's, the Irish company,
they're not that far from here.
That is looking at feeding the
soil and making the soil healthy
so it can draw down the nutrients
that it needs rather than,
Rupert Isaacson: and getting
away from the nitrogen, the harsh
nitrogen, that's killing the mycelium.
Right?
Yeah.
Sammie Leslie: And the micro
within, within the soil.
you mentioned a book so Becomes
Dead rather than having, you
know, a living soil, it literally
just becomes a dead substance.
Rupert Isaacson: you mentioned
a book, you mentioned two books
earlier on, which I want to just,
draw people's attention back to.
You mentioned a book called
The Botany of Desire.
Is that
Sammie Leslie: correct?
Oh, botany The Botany of
Desire by Michael Poland.
Tell us a little bit more about that.
And he wrote another book
that he was very famous for.
Which I can't remember.
and bot the botany of desire is basically
one of the principles behind Rewilding.
Except it's what the botany, what how
we behaved, and it's how nature taught
us to do the things it wanted us to do
to move seed round in different places
so plants could continue to, to move.
Because if seeds just fall beside
the mother plant all the time, you
just get this clump that's always
fighting for the same nutrients.
But if, you know, if a peach tree could
get you to eat the peach seed and all,
and then poo the seed out half a mile
away, that peach tree had much more
chance of surviving because it wasn't
falling on the roots of, of its parents
and fighting for the same nutrients.
And that's why we taste in the way that
we do, which is, Sarah, don't eat me.
I'm not ready.
Sweet.
Please eat me now.
bitter.
Don't eat me.
I'm poisonous and I don't
want you to to eat me.
And, salt is our body's need to
look for, I was gonna say isotopes.
No electrolytes.
Electrolytes.
Thank you.
Rupert Isaacson: so this is basically
how plants have domesticated
Sammie Leslie: humans.
Exactly, and it's back to our
arrogance of humans, thinking.
I'm gonna see what Michael put.
Oh, the Omnivores dilemma, which
is about, eating plants for meat.
but the botany of desire, it's very
small little book is just real reminder
of we are so deluded in thinking that
we are in control of this planet and
we are in control of Mother Nature.
We will be the fifth race of humanoids
to wipe ourselves off this planet.
And nature will continue.
Hey, why break this tradition?
You know?
Cause it's painful.
It's a lot of unnecessary suffering.
indeed, indeed.
And that ability for nature to make
us do what it needs is, it's also
what it does to the rest of nature.
You know, it's not just us, the
same rules behave, you know, apply.
but yeah, nature's very clever.
Rupert Isaacson: Then you also mentioned
a book, God is an optimist, Ben
Sammie Leslie: Goldsmith.
Oh, an Optimist.
Please tell us a bit more about that.
Oh, it's such a beautiful book
and I've just finished reading it.
he's an amazing environmentalist,
an amazing human being, and
they is very sadly lost Irish,
their 15 year old daughter in.
a freak farm accident.
and it is his incredible
love for, family, for his
daughter, the grieving process.
I do not know how any human being
deals with the loss of a child.
and have you found healing in nature
and went on to become an incredible
campaigner for, rewilding and
nature led restoration reject.
and it's his journey, but it's just
written in a such a beautiful way.
I've been asked to biography
and I'm going, oh my God, if
only I could write like him.
Rupert Isaacson: it is on the list.
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm gonna get
God is an Octopus Ben Goldsmith.
Yeah.
The bot desire Michael Poland.
Okay.
Sammie Leslie: Yeah.
And then yes.
And then Wilding by Isabella Tree
is a seminal book on letting nature,
again, nature led regeneration.
And they've just done a book called
Wilding, which is the how to manual
of wilding, large and small in
regenerating Nature to be able to give
it its place and space that it needs.
Wilding by Isabella Tree.
Tree.
Yeah.
Rupert Isaacson: Okay.
Great name.
okay,
Sammie Leslie: so Rewilding was
the first book, and then wilding
is the manual on how to do it.
Okay.
And it's just written in a very lovely
language, very simple and easy to, to do.
And, and
Rupert Isaacson: is that something that
people who just have a backyard regular?
Absolutely.
Good benefit.
Okay.
Sammie Leslie: Fantastic.
Yeah.
I'm, yeah.
Backyard or a big space doesn't
Rupert Isaacson: have
to be cause of estate.
Sammie Leslie: No.
It can be your balcony.
Fantastic.
Can be anything.
And then finally,
Rupert Isaacson: dear daughter,
the IFRA Foundation, I f r A H.
Yeah.
fgm, female genital mutilation.
people should look up that.
Sammie Leslie: absolutely.
And there's absolutely, there's
lots of ways, to get involved
or to support, support.
the Dear Daughter campaign is people,
a mother or a father or an aunt,
or an uncle or a guardian camp,
committing not to cut their child.
and
Rupert Isaacson: then if people want
to, get in touch with you or get
involved in some of the initiatives that.
Castle Leslie's involved in, and I know
obviously if they want to just come
and stay in the hotel, they can Yeah.
Look up Castle Leslie online and book.
but if, if people wanted to get
involved in the, the Rewilding side,
the so regenerative side, the, the
special needs side, the human rights
side, what, what's their best way?
Should they contact
Sammie Leslie: you?
What should they be?
with the Leslie Foundation, which we've
set up a newly fledged charity, amazing
board of people and people coming on
board, or, you'll find me there as well.
So, yes.
The Leslie
Rupert Isaacson: Foundation.
Yeah.
Is that.org, is that
Sammie Leslie: a.net?
dot org and then also through the
main website, through Castle Leslie.
And, and is that Castle?
Rupert Isaacson: leslie.com.
Dot com.
Castle leslie.com.
And Leslie with an
Sammie Leslie: ie.
Family with a y and Leslie with an ie.
Castle
Rupert Isaacson: leslie.com.
And the Leslie Foundation,
is that, is it one word?
The Leslie Foundation?
Sorry, is it, is it, is it the,
is it the Leslie Foundation?
org.
Sammie Leslie: I'm funny
feeling it's do ie.
Rather.
Rupert Isaacson: Ok.
Let me, I'm gonna look it up
here on my phone just so we
get the Leslie Foundation.
Let's see.
Sammie Leslie: I should know.
Rupert Isaacson: God forbid one
should no one's own website.
I know.
Foundation, let's see.
It is, you've got castle
leslie.com that we know.
let's see.
The Leslie Foundation accept the cookies.
Yes, I will accept the cookies
here.
I see info at, you're right.
It's i e info at Leslie Foundation, ie.
Info at Leslie with an i e l e s l, ie.
Foundation dot i ie.
So confusing me two ie.
Sammie Leslie: Within the same.
It's terrible.
How often do you, how often do
you do your own website, you know?
No, exactly.
Exactly.
Do you mean you don't spend
days googling yourself?
Did I've gone all red.
Must be the light.
Rupert Isaacson: I think I did that
last in 2000 or something like that.
And then I sudden I realized that I was
profoundly uninterested in myself, but
I was very interested in other people.
Yeah.
, and that's sort of been
how it's gone ever since.
I find myself rather boring.
, but I find.
Sammie Leslie: I would agree with that.
People like you Absolutely fascinating.
I'm really boring, honestly.
Well, I think you just,
Rupert Isaacson: you just
put the light to that.
, Sammy, it's been, it's been a treat.
Thank you for letting us into
the world at Castle Leslie.
, I, I would, I would strongly urge anybody
listening, put it on the bucket list.
Get your ass to Castle Leslie
at some point, even if it's just
to go have a bit of food and
walk around that piece of magic.
It's an extraordinary, extraordinary,
extraordinary, landscape.
And it's one of the few that
is really sort of open, to
people, but it's so undiscovered.
, and you, you, there is a
sense of freedom there.
, I remember my son and I walking across
one of the bogs by the Lake Barefoot and,
, feeling in the oc feeling the October
mud coming up through our toes and just
reveling in the sound of the bird song
and the deer on the hill, and to know that
all this amazing work is being done there.
Sammy, incredible.
So thank
Sammie Leslie: you.
There's, there's, there's,
there's lots more to do.
we're only just starting.
I
Rupert Isaacson: can't wait.
I can't wait to be back.
I will be back as quickly as I can.
and hopefully the crowds after
people listening to this podcast,
I still get first dibs at the
door if you see me showing up.
I got there first, so I'm sorry.
You have to let me in first.
thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you, Sammy, for your
time and giving us a bit of a
glimpse of this magical kingdom.
Sammie Leslie: Well, you're very welcome.
And it, and it's going to be an amazing
journey over the next few years and
have lots of people come on board.
Absolutely.
Well, thank you for having,
Rupert Isaacson: I I cannot wait
to see what you're doing, what you
do with the, with the, ecological,
educational center, what you
do with, the autism projects.
It's gonna be, it's, it's gonna be
Sammie Leslie: fascinating.
And I'm just sorry you're not
here on Friday with, when we,
when the architects are here.
Rupert Isaacson: I no particularly is one
of those architects is a mate of mine.
And I do not get to raise
a glass with you too.
But I will, I will hold
it in credit, for the
Sammie Leslie: next time I'm there.
It's only the beginning.
Yeah, no, thank you for
sending two more away.
Thank you.
Sleep
Rupert Isaacson: well, rest Well, I will.
Sammie Leslie: Okay, I'll Bye-Bye.
Bye.
Rupert Isaacson: Thank you for joining us.
We hope you enjoyed today's podcast.
Join our website, new trails
learning.com, to check out our online
courses and live workshops in Horse Boy
Method, movement Method, and Athena.
These evidence-based programs have
helped children, veterans, and people
dealing with trauma around the world.
We also offer a horse training
program and self-care program
for riders on long ride home.com.
These include easy to do online
courses and tutorials that
bring you and your horse joy.
For an overview of all shows and
programs, go to rupert isaacson.com.
See you on the next show.
And please remember to
press, subscribe and share.