What begins as a portrait of neighbours at war, with no hope of bridging the chasm between modern chemical farmers and idealistic rewilders, or between the needs of food production and the worsening extinction crisis, is slowly and subtly upended, as the two Dereks learn to live alongside each other and hopeful seeds of common ground are sown.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Documentary-maker James Dawson started following Gow as he sold the last of his sheep, planning a film about the dramatic changes brought about by rewilding his farm. Then, when Dawson first visited Gow, he was put\u00a0up at the Banburys, where wife Linda has turned former pigsties and\u00a0old sheds into holiday cottages. As\u00a0soon as Dawson met Derek Banbury over breakfast in the farmhouse kitchen, he\u00a0knew he had to make a\u00a0rather different film.<\/p>\n
As well as a boundary, both Dereks share a certain charisma, bloody-mindedness, business acumen and, actually, a love of animals. Gow is an imposing, fast-talking, sweary Scot who criticises \u201cshowers of morons\u201d in conservation for convening endless committees while species plummet towards extinction. He\u2019s equally disdainful of farmers \u201cspaffing\u201d public money on Land Rovers and sticking sheep on overgrazed pastures and feeding them fish-meal from the Gambia, \u201craping what\u2019s left of a disastrous environment to produce something that nobody wants\u201d.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Banbury, who has an\u00a0impish grin and quick wit, is unrepentant about agribusiness. \u201cI\u00a0love farming,\u201d he declares in the film. \u201cIntensive farming, that\u2019s supplying the world with food. The\u00a0population\u2019s getting bigger. It\u2019s\u00a0not getting smaller, and everyone is going to be happy if they\u2019ve got full\u00a0bellies. I\u2019ve done it for 50 years and I won\u2019t change. I won\u2019t change.\u201d Or will he?<\/p>\n
double quotation markThe auctioneer called out: \u2018Derek, hair and makeup\u2019s waiting,\u2019 right in front of everyone, and they all started laughingDerek Banbury<\/p>\n
I find both Dereks in the Banburys\u2019 kitchen, where Linda is doling out tea and cake and Banbury\u2019s four grownup children (three daughters and one son) and dogs are bustling around. They are preparing to welcome an audience of farmers, neighbours and friends to a\u00a0special preview of Derek vs Derek, which is being shown on a temporary screen erected in the Banburys\u2019 biggest, newest barn.<\/p>\n
Banbury is laughing, but he is also raging: the production company was duty-bound to bring in a health and safety officer, and he\u2019s been instructed to reduce the number of chairs in the barn. \u201cIt\u2019s my farm! Nobody tells me what to do!\u201d he says. \u201cI\u2019ve done what I\u00a0wanted for 50 years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s in case there\u2019s a fire,\u201d reasons his eldest daughter, Katie.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, for God\u2019s sake! It\u2019s a steel building and concrete walls. If there\u2019s a fire, people will run out quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy Derek doesn\u2019t get cross often,\u201d says Linda. \u201cBut he\u2019s cross now.\u201d<\/p>\n
It takes all four Banbury children to\u00a0calm Derek down. A few chairs are shuffled around to enable a swift evacuation. Meanwhile, Banbury admits he was \u201ca little bit\u201d reluctant to\u00a0appear in a film where he assumed Gow would be the hero. \u201cThen James [Dawson] started going outside and filming some of my animals. Then they came up with a little payment, and it started from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Field of dreams \u2026 Farmer and rewilding advocate Derek Gow. Photograph: Joss Barratt<\/p>\n
When Dawson\u2019s cameras followed Banbury to the local cattle market, the farmer got some stick. The auctioneer called out \u201c\u2018Oh Derek you\u2019re needed, hair and makeup\u2019s waiting for you,\u2019 right in front of everyone, and everyone started laughing.\u201d When Banbury told a spraying contractor that he and Gow would soon be on The\u00a0One Show, the contractor replied: \u201cWhat, as the Teletubbies?\u201d<\/p>\n
Banbury doesn\u2019t mind because, in a\u00a0way, he is the hero of the film. As\u00a0well as documenting the transformation of Gow\u2019s land from grim mudbath to natural paradise, the film follows Banbury\u2019s journey from feeling a visceral dislike of wild boar, storks and beavers to acknowledging the losses brought about by intensive farming. Linda, his\u00a0perceptive wife, who preaches tolerance and an acceptance of beavers, is a second breakout star.<\/p>\n
The Banburys and Gow received a\u00a0standing ovation at film festivals in Thessaloniki, Greece, and in Sheffield. Banbury, who has never before visited Mayfair in central London, thinks he might have to buy a new suit for the film\u2019s UK premiere there. How does he\u00a0feel he comes across? \u201cI\u2019ve got more\u00a0confident as I\u2019ve got older and I\u00a0know what I\u2019m talking about. I\u2019m proud to be a farmer and I\u2019ve tried to do the best I can. We\u2019re tied a bit by the\u00a0price of milk, but we just keep going, we keep struggling on and we love what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
His father started out with just 14 cows, and in those days he could support his family with a small farm of\u00a0less than 150 acres. Like most farmers, Banbury has had to expand \u2013\u00a0and intensify production \u2013 to survive. His farm has become a small village of barns housing 200 milking cows, with 600 in total. While sparrows still chirrup on the farm and swallows dip over the pond, Banbury has noticed the loss of nature as he fertilises, sprays and takes three or four cuts of silage each year. \u201cI wish there was more insects and birds and bees but I\u00a0don\u2019t study that. I study my crops,\u201d he says in the film.<\/p>\n
Dawson documents the tensions when rewilding and intensive farming\u00a0share the same corner of north-west Devon. Gow\u2019s wild boar escape and rootle up Banbury\u2019s pasture. Banbury has the boar shot. Banbury \u201chates\u201d storks, and don\u2019t talk\u00a0to him about beavers, which are\u00a0acclaimed by conservationists for\u00a0creating new wetlands that become havens for wildlife: \u201cI\u00a0can\u2019t see\u00a0that they do any good at\u00a0all. They\u00a0just do vicious damage,\u201d he\u00a0thunders. When Gow writes a book\u00a0about the history of wolves in\u00a0Britain and hosts a conference considering their reintroduction, Banbury and other local farmers are\u00a0apoplectic.<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to The Guide<\/p>\n Get our weekly pop culture email, free in your inbox every Friday<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n And yet, Banbury is taken to see\u00a0Gow\u2019s meadows, which after unpromising beginnings, are today burgeoning with rare birds, wildflowers and butterflies, and admits \u201cwe\u2019ve got to have areas like this for the wildlife\u201d. Gow does not want to rewild the world, but suggests if every farmer set aside 10% of their least productive land for wildlife, it could reverse the extinction crisis. \u201cI\u00a0hate to say it but sometimes he\u2019s right,\u201d nods Banbury on film.<\/p>\n Battle fields \u2026 Dereks Banbury and Gow. Photograph: Joss Barratt<\/p>\n \u201cThe man\u2019s a psychopath when it comes to hedgerows,\u201d Gow initially says of Banbury, but as the film progresses, there is talk of Banbury allowing hedges to grow wild and create corridors for nature to move through his neat green fields. So will\u00a0he? \u201cIt depends on the land. It\u00a0depends if we\u2019re paid for it,\u201d he tells\u00a0me. Banbury is due to re-fence his\u00a0fields this autumn; Gow hopes he will make a bit more space for nature.<\/p>\n For all Gow\u2019s bristle, Linda recognises him as a \u201cbig Scottish softie at heart\u201d. Has Gow\u2019s view of farmers softened as well? \u201cI do have great sympathy for them, especially the older men,\u201d he says. \u201cSome of them are just bastards. They are hard, hard farmers but they know what has happened. They know of the loss of nature. These inflexible and difficult old men are the last generation who understand that.\u201d<\/p>\n Today, Gow gives rewilding talks with illustrations from the Ladybird books of the 1950s and 60s that recall a\u00a0lost British countryside \u2013 \u201cpictures of\u00a0the redshanks with chicks and hedgehogs and bats in these beautiful woodlands under a full moon at night.\u00a0And you look and think: that\u2019s attainable. It\u2019s not alarming. It\u2019s not scary. It\u2019s actually something that\u2019s quite alluring.\u201d\u2019<\/p>\n double quotation markMost conservationists have to understand farming and farmers better and, despite all the rhetoric, I\u2019m not sure they doDerek Gow<\/p>\n Gow\u2019s latest big idea is that farmers could be paid to do what he does: breed rare wild animals in captivity and release them. They would then be invested in seeing local populations of \u201ctheir\u201d wild animals thrive. \u201cThey\u2019re the guys that are sitting in the pubs at\u00a0night, they\u2019re talking to their neighbours. If there are issues, it\u2019s much easier to resolve them amongst themselves,\u201d he says. \u201cAs a farmer, you become part of the solution. You\u2019d feel good. But most conservationists have to understand farming and farmers better and, despite all the rhetoric, I\u2019m not sure they do.\u201d<\/p>\n More than 300 farmers and neighbours turn up for the Banburys\u2019 special screening, where they are served local cider, pasties and ice-cream. They laugh loudest at Banbury\u2019s put-downs of rewilding. But, as Gow says afterwards, \u201cwhen the film finished, no one was arguing\u201d against the facts of nature loss. As well as a cinematic release, Derek vs Derek will be shown at special on-farm screenings across the country. Its makers hope it might forge new conversations and even new working relationships between farmers, conservationists and rewilders.<\/p>\n Has the two Dereks\u2019 relationship been strengthened by the film? Gow took the Banburys to see flamingoes when they visited the film festival in\u00a0Thessaloniki together. He also ensured Derek and Linda found a cab after the show in Sheffield. The first thing Gow asks when he pops into the Banburys\u2019 kitchen the morning after the screening \u2013 after ribbing them about their St George\u2019s flags flying from their farm buildings \u2013 is whether he can borrow their trailer. While he\u2019s there, Linda serves him another of her\u00a0generous cooked breakfasts.<\/p>\n Are Derek and Derek friends? I ask Banbury. \u201cYeah!\u201d he beams. A big sincere smile. \u201cYou can\u2019t be no other can you, when you\u2019re neighbours? He\u2019d do anything for me. And I\u2019d do anything for him.\u201d<\/p>\n Derek vs Derek<\/a> is in UK cinemas from 2\u00a0October.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789743372_51_500.jpg\")
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