Interview
Most children love storybooks
featuring idyllic adventures
running around the
countryside, riding horses and
feeding farm animals – but for
Matt and his brother Simon
that was real life.
The family home was Brickfields Horse
Country, which was developed as a
successful tourist attraction by their late
father Philip, a farrier and accomplished
horseman whose roots were in rural
Herefordshire.
When they weren’t at home on the
Island around the horses, the brothers
would spend lots of time with their Legge
relatives ‘up country’ around Pencombe
and Bromyard, who counted livestock
farmers and butchers among their ranks.
“Though dad was actually a farrier by
trade” says Matt, “all our Island neighbours
were farmers and we spent so much time
with the relatives that I suppose you could
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say that, yes, farming was pretty much in
the blood”.
So it was hardly surprising that after
passing his A-levels at Ryde School, Matt
decided to study agriculture at the De
Montfort University in Leicester.
“I moved off the Island for a change
of scenery” he says, adding that he
also considered changing his working
‘scenery’ for a while, contemplating a job
in the marketing department of the Mars
Corporation.
But it was to be the disastrous Foot and
Mouth epidemic of 2001 that indirectly
brought him back onto a more familiar
path. He explains that he had planned
to take a year out after Uni and enjoy
spending some time preparing for the
season’s point-to-point riding events – but
Foot and Mouth put paid to that, with
the whole year’s events calendar being
abandoned.
“I’d finished Uni to get the horses ready
for the racing, training them out on the
field” he says, “so when it all fell through I
thought : ‘well, I’d better get a proper job
then!’”
It was at that point that the NFU just
happened to be advertising a position at
its Island insurance office, and Matt says it
instantly sparked his interest.
“I was curious to find out more about
the connection between insurance and
farming, and when I was offered the job I
thought maybe I could do it for a couple
of years” he recalls.
As it turned out, within 18 months, Matt
was running the agency, and he actually
ended up doing the job for 10 years.
Life change
It was in 2009, after the untimely death
of his father at the age of 57, that Matt
found himself with some pretty hefty
responsibilities for a young man of barely
30 years old.
As executor to his father’s estate, Matt
took over the running of Brickfields, which
he ran until its sale in 2013. During this
time, Matt resigned from his insurance job
but was offered a part time role with the
company, as a locum agent.
“I was very lucky to be able to do that” he