HE’S best known as a jet-setting rock star who, as a member of the band Blur, dominated the pop charts and spent £1m on Champagne.

But it was a very different Alex James who yesterday joined local primary school children for a day of planting potatoes at his Kingham farm.

The musician invited pupils from Kingham and Bledington primary schools to his 200-acre farm, near Chipping Norton, to give them a taste of agriculture – from field to fork.

Zoe Lamb, nine, said: “I liked covering up the potatoes with my hands and sometimes with a spade.”

They were joined by experts from the Potato Council and Royal Agricultural University, at Cirencester, to plant the spuds on an organic festival Potato Patch as part of preparations for the star’s Big Feastival, which takes place on the farm in August.

Alex said: “It was a fantastic afternoon. One of the reasons we chose potatoes is because they are so versatile.”