Jodie Kidd

Sum up Jodie Kidd in one sentence – a horse-mad home counties beauty who’s been a model, racing driver and championship polo player – and she sounds awfully like a Jilly Cooper heroine.

But Kidd’s story has a twist. These days you won’t find her on the red carpet, but pulling pints in her local, which she now owns. And while ‘pub landlady’ may not be an obvious career choice for the great-granddaughter of Lord Beaverbrook, the 39-year-old couldn’t be happier.

‘We’ve got one side which is a proper pub, with dogs and bar snacks and pork scratchings, and another area we’ve created for fine dining, and… oh, it’s just so exciting!’ she exclaims. ‘I’m going to make it as successful as I can.’

Making a success of things comes naturally to Kidd. The youngest of three, she spent most of her ‘wonderful’ Sussex childhood on horseback, and seemed destined to follow in her father Johnny’s hoofprints as an international showjumper.

But in her mid-teens, sprouting seven inches in one year made life rather tricky: ‘My legs were so long that every time I jumped a fence I would knock it down with my foot,’ she recalls. ‘Being tall didn’t bother me, but that did.’

Modelling was an obvious career for a 6ft 2 blonde with unfeasibly pointy cheekbones, but Kidd was determined to follow her showjumping dream. It was only when she outgrew her pony that fate stepped in.

‘The trailer that I had to take my pony to the shows was too small for my first horse, so I had to get a bigger one,’ she explains. ‘Obviously I didn’t have enough money, and someone said “You should try modelling”. My mum was friends with someone who owned an agency, so I went to see them, and that was it.’

She never did buy that trailer. Kidd’s first catwalk show was for Alexander McQueen at London Fashion Week; within months she was living between New York and Paris as one of the industry’s highest-paid models.

It was, she says, ‘an amazing experience’, but there was a sour side. Kidd had entered the fashion arena at the height of the waify, heroin chic era, and critics attributed her slender frame to having an eating disorder – something she vehemently denies. ‘I was just very tall and gangly, and went from riding all day to not doing any exercise and losing all my muscle. The anxiety didn’t help.’

Kidd started having panic attacks, but had no idea what they were. ‘The pressure of doing high-profile shows, constantly being in the spotlight, being chased down the motorway by paparazzi, being followed – this was all really terrifying for an 18-year-old. And it was at a time when it wasn’t talked about or understood, so when I went to the doctor and said “I can’t sleep, my heart is palpitating, I’ve got sweaty palms, I think I’m going to die”, they put me on beta blockers and sleeping pills. It was madness.’

Feeling ‘like I was just a shell’, Kidd quit the catwalk in her early 20s and moved back to the countryside. ‘I wanted to start riding again, because I thought it would help with my anxiety, but the only access to horses I had was my brother’s polo ponies.’ Within a year she was playing for England, helping them win the women’s world championships, ‘and it was fantastic to get my teeth into something and be successful at it.’

She was equally successful when she ‘kind of fell into’ her next career. Kidd had only just got her driving licence when a friend suggested crossing America in the Gumball 3000. Bitten by the motoring bug, she found herself talking cars with Jeremy Clarkson at an event; he invited her onto Top Gear, ‘and I ended up going around the track with The Stig – and he said “Cor, you’re quite good”.’

She was. Kidd topped the show’s celebrity leaderboard, ‘and then the competitive drive kicked in. I went “Right, I’m going to be a racing driver!”,’ she says, laughing. ‘As you do.’

Picked up by Italian motor giant Maserati, Kidd spent nearly four years racing in the Maserati Trofeo, a highly competitive series that took her to tracks around the world. ‘I loved it. I mean it was sometimes quite terrifying, but I’m really proud of what I did, especially for the girls.’

It all came to a dramatic end at Silverstone. Kidd’s mother had come to watch her race from the pit lane, ‘and I make a mistake as I’m coming round the last corner. It had been raining and I went into a spin, and I was literally going at 120 miles an hour sideways down the pit lane, and saw my mum’s horrified face in slow-mo before I smashed into every single wall.

‘Luckily I was OK, but it was enough to change my whole outlook, so I hung my racing shoes and helmet up. But my love of cars was running through my veins and always will. It’s an obsession.’

Kidd went on to co-present Channel 5’s The Classic Car Show, and was hotly tipped to take over from Clarkson and co after the Top Gear punching debacle (‘there were major discussions, but it didn’t work out’). She’s also written the foreword to Drive: The Definitive History of Motoring, a lavish coffee table book charting a century of progress from horseless carriages to driverless cars.

Always up for a challenge, Kidd has taken part in everything from Strictly to The Jump, as well as raising thousands for Help for Heroes by climbing Kilimanjaro and cycling nearly 600 miles. But it was reaching the final of Celebrity MasterChef in 2014 that inadvertently led to her current career, running The Half Moon at Kirdford in West Sussex.

‘I had no dreams about opening a restaurant, but when I heard that developers were going to buy my local and turn it into houses, I didn’t want our village to lose its little heartbeat, so I said “Right, I’ll save it.”

Clubbing together with two friends, Kidd duly bought and refurbished the Grade II-listed building, ‘and I said let’s make the food amazing, but let it still be true to itself, which is a pub. It’s been the most incredible journey and I’m absolutely loving it. It’s hard work, though!’

After two short-lived marriages, Kidd, who has a 7-year-old son, Indio, is now ‘very, very, very happy’ in a relationship, and turns 40 in September. Is she surprised by everything she’s packed into her four decades?

‘I’m like the jack of all trades master of none,’ she says with a laugh. ‘But life is so precious, and you’ve got to make the most of it, so if someone says “We’re going to go and do this,” I’m like “Ooh, can I come?!”

‘I’m always very enthusiastic, and that’s made for a very colourful life.’

An edited version of this feature appeared in Waitrose Weekend in June 2018. (c) Waitrose