West London Types

The Banker in the Country

November
2

'Rory has all the gear and no idea'

Rory has all the gear and no idea.

One summer when Rory was fifteen he was sent to help out on his uncle’s farm. Uncle Percy didn’t have the heart to tell his sister her son was more trouble than he was worth.

But Rory went to Rosey for sixth form. And now, having convinced a bunch of school chums to join him for lockdown, he’s regaling them with tales of a British childhood spent hunting, shooting and lambing ‘on the family farm’. He omits the time he forgot to check the safety on his 12 bore and, startled by a hare, shot poor Percy.

Rory never much liked the country; all that mud messed up his Nikes and he spent most of the time on his PlayStation or trying to crack his uncle’s internet filter.

Striding forth, in full regalia; Le Chameau wellies, a Purdey gilet, tweed plus fours and a new Beretta slung nonchalantly over one shoulder, he holds forth with tales of a muddy childhood, and how he’s finally ‘come home’ to The Manor.

Bruno, his new chocolate lab, snuck out during a particularly slow anecdote, and is now several fields away.

Keen to embrace every aspect of country life, Rory took a hireling out with The Cotswold Hunt; he was thrown at the first line, but it’s okay; everyone knows cobs are maniacs.

He splatters his conversation with ‘righto old chaps’ and, during an uncharacteristically arid summer, ‘great weather for the crops, what?’ His Swiss boarding school chums are as bemused as the locals.

He fits right in. Being fired from JP Morgan was the best thing that ever happened to him. He’s only been in Stow-on-the-Wold a month and is already the life and soul. People guffaw with delight when he enters the local.

The Manor is first rate, and after he’s wooed the chair of the planning committee, his landscaped golf course will really be something else. Rory has finally found his tribe.