Captain Ben Coutts MBE is one of life’s great characters. Aged 86, he has long retired from farming, but the land has been the love of his life. A born storyteller, he can talk endlessly and entertainingly about the rural scene in Scotland, usually with a large dram near to hand – and has written many of his tales down in half-a-dozen books.

Arriving at his countryside cottage near Crieff, where he lives with his wife Sally, you immediately sense that this man has a sense of humour. For on his gate is a sign stating: ‘The Captain’s word is law’.

Well over six foot tall with a booming voice, it is perhaps little wonder that he was in

broadcasting for over 50 years, including having his own farming diary on BBC Radio Scotland. One of a family of six, his father, a Church of Scotland minister, wanted Ben to be a vet, but after failing his final exams, he had to make his own way in life. His first job was as head ponyman at St Fillans, then as a teenager in the barren 30s, he went to work as a groom at a Sussex stud, where he was paid £2 a week with no days off.

‘I joined the Sussex Yeomanry territorials – just to get a fortnight’s holiday at their camp,’ Ben explains.

At the outbreak of WWII Ben rose quickly through the ranks and at 24 became the youngest Sergeant Major in the 5th Indian Division (if not the entire Middle East). After the Eritreian and Abyssynian campaigns, he was proud to be commissioned back into his own regiment – something that is very unusual – and he finished the war as a Captain.

‘The army turned out to be the making of me,’ Ben says. ‘It was only after I proved that I could control men that I was given a farm manager’s job – at Strathallan Estate in Strathearn. The owner gave me the job as he felt guilty that he hadn’t gone to the RAF.’

Ben’s sense of humour is legendary and he has a hearty joie de vivre. Perhaps he enjoys living life to the full as he was lucky not to lose his on more than one occasion. The first was during the war when at the famous

garrison of Tobruk, stray shrapnel completely blew off his nose.

‘That was a near miss and it took 25 operations by a famous surgeon Sir Archie McIndoe to rebuild it,’ Ben says. ‘Then the ship we were sailing home on was bombed. The Laconia was made for disaster – it was a bad cocktail of women, children and wounded soldiers guarding Italian prisoners.

‘Luckily I had just had an ingrown toenail removed, otherwise I would have been on guard, but I was below deck when the ship was torpedoed. By the time I got back up on board, everything was a shambles and I never got on a lifeboat – probably just as well as they all turned upside down.

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