Max Cotton

Journalist

Max Cotton is a retired BBC journalist who lives on a 5 acre smallholding near Glastonbury in Somerset UK. Since 2001 he has experimented in food self sufficiency and in 2022 lived only and exclusively on food that he could grow on his tiny farm. The project was made into a BBC radio series and YouTube film. As a political journalist Max worked across TV and Radio in and out of Westminster for twenty years where his proudest claim to fame was being hit by Margret Thatcher with her handbag after asking what she considered to be a frivolous question. Max is married to the BBC producer Maxine Cotton and together they have more children than can comfortably be counted at one sitting.

Related Episodes

Rewilding Midlife: Self-Sufficiency, Soil, and a Life That Makes Sense - Max Cotton

The Midlife Rebel PodcastNovember 20, 2025

01:05:5445.29 MB

Rewilding Midlife: Self-Sufficiency, Soil, and a Life That Makes Sense - Max Cotton

A midlife plot twist doesn’t have to look like a crisis. It can look like soil under your nails, bread you milled yourself, and a dinner you can trace back to land you actually know. In this episode, I sit down with BBC journalist Max Cotton, who spent an entire year eating and drinking only what he...

Rewilding Midlife: Self-Sufficiency, Soil, and a Life That Makes Sense

Rewilding Midlife reframes midlife as a return to real food, real land, and a rhythm that finally makes sense. BBC journalist Max Cotton spent a year eating only what he grew, raised, or made on his small farm in Southwest England, using the experiment to explore self-sufficiency, agency, and the va...

November 20, 2025

A Midlife Return to Real Food: What Max Cotton Taught Me About Belonging

Midlife is reframed as an invitation to reconnect with soil, seasons, and real food, as Max Cotton’s year of eating only what he grows or ra...