WHEN Herefordshire author and farmer John Lewis-Stempel discovered he had won a top literary prize for his book Meadowland: the Private Life of an English Field, he was so shocked he had to sit down.

He was attending the award ceremony of the Thwaites Wainwright Prise 2015 in London last week after being shortlisted together with five others.

“The short list was very strong,” said the 52-year-old from west Herefordshire. “I read the other books in the shortlist and I thought there was no way I was going to win.”

Before the winner was announced, each book was presented with a description and short film and then, without identifying the winner, the judges described why they had selected the winning entry.

“I am usually laid back about these things but, I was so tense, I could not think. There was this awful waiting and then there came this moment of realisation that I was the winner.

“I was so shocked I had to sit down. I was bemused by the whole experience. I got up to receive the cheque and I was completely blank,” said John, who received £5,000 for winning.

The prize is sponsored by Lancashire brewery Thwaites and John said fortunately someone gave him a refreshing glass of beer to help him recover from the shock. Another bonus of winning was receiving a large crate of Wainwright beer with a special Meadowland label on each bottle.

He is quick to point out that, as a resident of a prominent cider producing county, he is partial to the apple nectar too.

“This is only the second thing I have won since leaving school. The other thing was the three-legged race at my son’s school,” he said wryly.

Since the ceremony, John has been involved in a whirlwind of interviews. “I have hardly touched earth since it happened.” But he added that farming acts as a great leveller. He rushed back from London to Herefordshire having realised he hadn’t planted his wheat.

The Thwaites Wainwright Prize aims to reward outstanding literary titles inspired by the general outdoors, UK nature and travel and is sponsored by Thwaites Brewery, of Blackburn, which brews a golden beer called Wainwright Ale.

Chair of judges Dame Fiona Reynolds said: “From an exceptionally strong shortlist, we found a book whose prose reached for perfection and which, combined with an authentic passion for a land the author knows to the depths of his bones, swung into the lead: Meadowland, by John Lewis Stempel.

“An utterly captivating book, we found Lewis-Stempel’s narrative original and inspiring. Bewitchingly beautiful, honest and effortless, this is a book that should make us all want to explore the wonders and realities of nature on our doorsteps.”

Tim Smit, from The Eden Project, described it as: “A magnificent love letter to the natural world, full of wisdom and experience, written with wit, poetry and love. I want to scream from the rooftops: buy it, give it, read it.”

The book records the passage of the seasons from cowslips in spring to the hay-cutting of summer and grazing in autumn, and includes the biographies of the animals that inhabit the grass and the soil beneath - the badger clan, the fox family, the rabbit warren, the skylark brood and the curlew pair, among others. Their births, lives, and deaths are stories that thread through the book from first page to last.

John has been writing for 25 to 30 years and produced around 50 books – mainly on history. He grew up in Herefordshire - his grandparents had a hop farm - before going to university and moving to London to work.

He moved back to the county with his wife Penny, where they brought up their two children Tristram and Freda, to combine his two professional passions of writing and farming. The idea for meadowland came as he was walking around one of his fields.

“I am as guilty as anyone of rushing through life and I realised I had a gorgeous hay meadow and I was not stopping and appreciating it,” John admitted.

“I told people I was going to write a book about it to make sure I actually did it. I wanted to share how wonderful a traditional hay meadow is and how ecologically important it is. Hay meadows show how humans and nature can work together.”

“I am absolutely perplexed by the book. I did not think there would be much interest in it but I have focused people’s attention on something they were overlooking.”

He pointed out there had been a 40 per cent increase in the sale of nature books in the past year, which had probably contributed to the interest in Meadowland.

John, who is passionate about nature and the outdoors, said he enjoys it so much he had removed the doors from the cab of his tractor so he can feel the wind and elements when he uses it. “I do enjoy being connected with nature.

“One of the things I really miss from my childhood is an old fashioned wheat field with wild flowers like poppies and cornflowers.”

He is trying to recreate that and harvest it in a way that will result in old fashioned sheaves in the fields. “I think it will be more beneficial to the animals. The benefit for livestock is that there is more nutrition because the stalk has not been crushed by the modern harvesting method.

“What I’m doing is about feeding people and looking after nature as well. I think we need to give nature a helping hand.”

John is currently working on a new book called Where Poppies Blow which looks at the part nature played in the First World War.

“When the soldiers were in the trenches, one of the things that kept them going was their connection with nature. The British men were living closer to nature than ever before because they were living in the trenches.”

He said some soldiers referred to hearing the skylarks while others adopted wildlife as pets. “No animal was safe from being made into a pet by the British soldiers. It helped them maintain a connection with home.” The book is due to be published in November but John said he has to finish it first!

• Meadowland: the Private Life of an English Field will be Book of the Month in both National Trust shops and Stanfords bookshop, in Covent Garden, London, throughout May. Meanwhile, John Lewis-Stempel is appearing in conversation with Fergus Collins, editor of Countryfile Magazine, today Tuesday April 28 at 6.30pm at Stanfords.