Written for Cumbria Life.

MARIA:

Our home is suddenly quiet. For the last few months we’ve had student vets and friends staying with us and now finally we have the house to ourselves. We’ve gone from home cooked meals round the table and intense conversations about sheep and mental health and then more about sheep, to John and I retreating to separate rooms to eat a bowls of cereal in front of a screen. Just for a few days though. We’re back to meals together at the table but lambing and socialising can take a lot out of you and we both felt completely knackered and completely out of words. Our home seems to have become a bit of a refuge for many people. Friends and friends of friends, ask to come and stay, in need of some nature and in most cases, some nurture too. John, for all his ‘angry farmer’ banter, really has in innate desire to care for people. I’m not a naturally nurturing type but I do love cooking for people and honest conversations round the table. I’m glad people are reaching out and asking for support and I’m glad they see us, and our home as a place for restorative care. I remember a conversation with my business mentor where we were talking about business growth. I had been nominated for a business award and in the interview process, a lot of the questions from the panel of judges had been about business growth and how I dealt with competition. I said that competition wasn’t a problem because the markets are big enough to share and don’t see competition as a threat. We all do things differently and so we will attract customers for our particular USP. And in terms of growth, I said I was happy with our ‘cottage industry’ scale and content to let our businesses grow slowly. Anyway, I didn’t win and I guess in part it was because the judges didn’t see my way of running my business as a good business model. But when I spoke to my mentor, she said, “If we think of businesses like trees, all have their own growth rate and final height. They don’t grow exponentially. Once they reach their optimum height for their type and circumstances, they stop growing. But they still function and are useful for other plants and animals, providing shelter, food, shade etc”. I thought that was great. Nothing in nature keeps growing so it’s unnatural to expect businesses to do the same. Why I’m thinking of this now though, has more to do with where myself and John are at our stage in life. We’ve built a life together, and we’re now in a position to provide support for those that need it, and more and more, the farm is taking on this role. 

John:

As Maria mentions, on the quiet I am a bit of a counsellor and mentor. I like to listen to people and this often leads to them opening up about relationship issues, traumas or self-doubt, hopes and ambitions. I guess being a livestock farmer, older brother and father, I’ve spent most of my life nurturing one thing or another. I’m never happier than when I’m helping both people and animals fulfil their potential. Maria sometimes rolls her eyes when I rush off to help someone in need and asks if I’ve put my cape and glitter wellies on. Over the years I’ve taken lots of young people under my wing especially when I worked for the National Trust. I guess it’s giving folk a bit of support when they are groping around looking for their place in the world. I keep in touch with many of those fresh-faced youngsters and some even pop into the farm for a catch up and a brew.

Many have gone on to achieve their goals whether that’s building drystone walls all over the world or reaching a managerial position having started at the bottom. Some have set up their own business and frighteningly, the odd one has retired (early).

Recently there was seven of us sat down to lunch, a collection of misfits in our way, none of us quite fitting in with the normal stereotype of our cohorts or families. Often we can be overcome by the pressures put on us to conform to what others think we should be. This seems even more of a problem now as social media as well as, television, films and magazines all push this message of the ideal. In fact non-conformists are often great thinkers and initiators. Just because you are different, doesn’t mean you are worthless. It’s the same with livestock: the push for confirmatory almost saw the end of many of our wonderful British breeds. The manufacturers want a uniform product, each one exactly the same to fit the machines, packaging or shelf space. To me it leads to a bland dull world. Monoculture in any form destroys diversity, whether that’s in crops, animals or people, the world needs diversity in all forms: misfits, broken biscuits, rare breeds and all.

Written for Cumbria Life

Maria:

We’re more than half way through lambing and that means we’re tired and grumpy with each other. However, an invitation from HM Lord-Lieutenant of Cumbria, Claire Hensman to meet with HRH The Prince of Wales at Hutton-in-the-Forest with Lord Inglewood, brightened our spirits no end. We scrubbed the iodine from our hands, washed straw and lamb goo out of our hair and put on our best rags. The Prince of Wales was keen to meet farmers who were diversifying to make their businesses more resilient. I knew I’d only have a few minutes to talk and knowing my mouth tends to go like the clappers when I get to talking about our businesses, I limited myself to talking about Lake District Tweed and presenting Prince Charles with one of our Shepherd’s Bags made with Herdwick tweed from James Rebanks’ flock. For someone who must receive thousands of weird and wonderful gifts, he was graciously interested in what we do with our wool and the wool of our farmer friends. It really was an honour to meet someone who is so passionately on the side of small-scale farmers like ourselves. 

I was also delighted to meet Peter Hullah from the Worshipful Company of Woolmen, someone to whom I could off-load all my enthusiasm for working with British wool, as he was probably an even bigger enthusiast. I noticed he too was wearing a wool jacket and he opened it out to show me the brand that sports a big Union Jack next to its name. But later, when I looked up this historic British brand, digging a little deeper into the composition of their Shetland blankets, I noted, ’100% Shetland Quality Pure New Wool’. The term ‘Shetland Quality’ is Merino seconds from New Zealand. This company uses no British wool. None. And it gives a false impression in my opinion in using the word Shetland in naming a product when it has absolutely nothing to do with Shetland sheep or the island. But here we are. It feels like wool is some way behind the food industry in calling out greenwashing and other marketing tactics used to present a brand in a better light. All those smoke and mirror tactics when that same energy could be directed towards finding ways to use and celebrate British wool. The more consumers challenge brands, however, the more they’ll be forced to change. 

John:

Although we’re always busy, it has been an especially hectic time with lambing but we did have with an amazing day out thanks to Claire Hensmen. We will forever be grateful for Claire’s support and unbounded enthusiasm for all things Cumbrian. 

We are now half way through lambing and feeling the strain of long days of toil and little sleep but we’ve had some wonderful vet students from the Royal Veterinary College in London helping us, which in turn helps us keep some level of sanity. We’ve been taking students from RVC for a few years now and tend to pick overseas students as it gives them an opportunity to see how great Cumbria is and we get to learn about people from other cultural backgrounds. For us, we see taking students as a win-win as we get the help of some enthusiastic professionals and they get to learn from my forty odd years of experience. Whether it’s the intricacies of working out if you have a lamb’s back or front leg inside a ewe or how to best rugby tackle a seventy kilo ewe in an open field, it all adds to the wealth of knowledge they will require to become a vet. Our first two placements this year were from Hong Kong. Amy and Chloe were a bit worried they wouldn’t be much help at first coming from a country with no sheep and very little grass; they had no experience of sheep at all. They need not have worried; they soon got into the swing of things and proved a great help. With my hands being the size of shovels it makes such a difference having someone with dainty hands when it comes to the more challenging assisted lambing. Chloe and Amy have now left and have been replaced by Maddie and Melanie, both are from the USA and by the time you read this they will be back at college, tired no doubt but hopefully much wiser that when they arrived and we will be into the spring field work and enjoying the longer days and shorter nights.