The reach of the life of Charles Henry Plumb, Baron Plumb, was elucidated upon his recent passing at the age of 97 by the scale of the tributes paid to him from the heights of the British and European establishment.
As the numerous broadsheet obituaries made clear, he had been one of the great political figures of his generation, rising from the presidency of the NFU in the 1970s to become Britain’s only president of the European parliament between 1987-89.
A flick through the colour plates of his memoirs, The Plumb Line, shows him meeting with luminaries from US president Ronald Reagan, to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, to Pope John Paul II.

Farmers Weekly – May 2022