30 Daily Express Wednesday, April 8, 2020
EXCLUSIVE
By Deborah Collcutt
J
ULES HUDSON has an uncharacter-
istically grave expression on his face.
Gone is the boyish enthusiasm fans
of his Escape to the Country TV
show know and love. At his home in
the Welsh borders, he is voicing
concern about the impact of coronavirus on
the property market, and the knock-on effect
of that on our lives.
“People are in a heartbreaking position
they did not expect to be in after coming
through a difficult winter,” says Jules, who
has had all future shoots for the popular BBC
series cancelled.
“It is going to be difficult,” he says. “It will
depress prices and the opportunities to move
for many people. This was the year people
thought after the uncertainty of Brexit that
they could move, and now this. But it’s not
property Armageddon and many people with
pensions and savings will have the chance to
invest their money in bricks and mortar.”
To steer people through it, Jules has teamed
up with the National Trust to publish The
Escape to the Country Handbook for anyone
considering relocating to the countryside, a
move which is still achievable if you do the
necessary research, he says.
“One of the joys of doing a show like
Escape To The Country is that every year, you
are introducing people to the possibility of
owning a real slice of history,” says Jules, 50.
He is sitting in the breakfast area of his
kitchen, by the log-burning stove, in the 16th
century timber-frame farmhouse he shares
with his wife, Tania, and son, Jack, five.
The grade II-listed house has been substan-
tially renovated since the couple moved in
in 2012 and is a stunning mix of grey-painted
walls, exposed beams and flagstone floors.W
HEN he met his wife, on a sailing
holiday in Antigua, he was living
in a little cottage in the Cambrian
mountains and had fallen in love with west
Wales. Jules, who studied field archaeology at
university, and Tania, who was then financial
director of Historic Royal Palaces based at
Hampton Court, started house hunting
around Hay-on-Wye.
“I fell in love with the rolling hills,” says
Jules. “As a landscape archaeologist, it was a
great place to read a landscape and work out
patterns of settlement. It was a great comfort,
understanding the context of a place.”
Jules was born in Colchester to a family
with a proud military history. His original
career choice was to join the Army, and he was
due to be commissioned at Sandhurst in 1993
when the regiment he was about to join was
disbanded and his life took a different path.
In one of several outbuildings, which Jules
has turned into a workshop and cosy study, he
keeps a cigarette case and Bible belonging to
his grandfather.
“He fought with distinction at Dunkirk,” he
says proudly. “He was marking out enemy
positions but he didn’t have a pen and paper
so he scratched them out in this cigarette case.
“I was nine when he died so I don’t really
remember him but if I could bring any
member of my family back it would be him.
“My love of the Army stems from him and
my childhood in Colchester. I would go to the
Military Tattoo and carnival – it was the
event of the year, I’d be there on my
father’s shoulders in the Castle Park.”
Instead of following in his grand-
father’s footsteps Jules did a mas-
ter’s degree in archaeology at
Durham University and started
TV production work in 1996,
for the Discovery Channel,
Channel 4’s Time Team and
BBC Two’s Horizon and then
in 2005 he crossed the tracks
to presenting.
But that longing to serveJust hang on, says TV’s Jules Hudson.
The market may be tough, but buyers
should still cling to that rural dream
‘A per
hous
somewhe
so captu
imaginat
embra
imperfeON DUTY: In uniform; right,
on Remembrance Day with
wife Tania in 2017never went away and in 2016, Jules returned
to Sandhurst. By then, he had been presenting
Escape To The Country for nine years.
“I was 46 and none of my previous experi-
ence counted – I had to start soldier selection
all over again with the young lads,” he
says, laughing. “Mind you, the sen-
ior staff recognised me from TV
so they were quite curious.”
Jules passed out in August
2017 and was commis-
sioned into the Royal Mon-
mouthshire Royal Engi-
neers, feeling like he had
finally scratched an itch.
Now he could be called on at
any time to fight.
“I would do my duty,” he
says. “If I’d known more about
myself back then, I would haveDon’t despair...
your chance
WILL come to
escape back
to the country