We've all had dreams about what the future holds for us. How many of us have fulfilled those dreams? What, I wonder, were Jeremy's? Supporters have laid it on with a trowel how he loved the farming way of life and wanted nothing more than to follow Nevill. That part, at least when he was very small, as little boys tend to hero worship daddies, may have been true. I don't believe it lasted. So far, no one has actually worked out how much -how LITTLE- time Jeremy actually put into farming from the time he left full time education.
I can see him trailing round the farm with Nevill. I can hear Nevill inculcating him with an obligation to what the future held for him. Having a choice might have helped. Was there never any question in Nevill's mind about whether Jeremy A) wanted to farm B) was farming material? Jeremy may have reasoned that the financial compensations would make farming bearable. It would only be as he got older that he'd have fully realized that farming isn't a 9 to 5, 5 days a week job. This was work that would tie him. This would be his life. But the financial reward remained a big, fat, juicy carrot. At some point it seems that Jeremy had a fantasy in which he could have the rewards and side step the work.
So was his dream -other than- perhaps for a very short time, to be a farmer? Was it to be a nuclear physicist? A train driver? OR was it always about having enough money to live a playboy lifestyle without ever having to work?