Our great life in Yorkshire (Chapter 5)
Rock stars need not apply. It turns out that real farming is not a job suited to wealthy hobbyists or faded celebrities looking for ways to occupy their time before retirement.
Jeremy Clarkson’s show on Amazon Prime Video has fostered the notion that all you need to work the land is a Lamborghini tractor and some help from famous friends.
It’s a bit of fun, with lots of antics and antics as you chase piglets and fall backwards into a blackberry bush.
And it all takes place on a bucolic estate with a suitably evocative name, like Wobbly Bottom or Futtock’s Grange.
Today’s media nobility and pop millionaires may get all the publicity, but the real rural work is done by people like Stephen Short, steeped in four generations of farming tradition.
Today’s media nobility and pop millionaires may get all the publicity, but the real rural work is done by people like Stephen Short, steeped in four generations of farming tradition.
Clarkson always insists on the importance of farming to the national economy, but for Britain’s small farmers it is more personal than that.
Stephen is a sheep farmer in the hills outside Halifax and, aged just 25, has taken the champion rosette at the Great Yorkshire Show two years in a row.
He shared his experience on Our Great Yorkshire Life, on the farm his family has run for over 100 years.
“I’ve never considered doing anything other than farming,” he said. “It’s what I was born to do.”
That means, of course, that you can’t afford to have a bad year: no album royalties or dinner chats to bolster your business account.
Stephen’s experience and knowledge are his only means of paying the bills.
Clarkson always insists on how important farming is to the national economy, but for Britain’s small farmers it is more personal than that.
In addition to his award-winning pedigree Hampshire Down sheep, Stephen raises Charollais lambs to sell.
Over the course of three weeks, a male lamb “cups” all the ewes, and to keep track of their tireless progress, the ram wears a harness called a raddle.
He leaves a yellow stain on the back of every woman he cares for.
Perhaps if certain English footballers were made to use a raddle, they would behave better.
The cameras also followed Stephen to the auction, where he carefully looked at a series of calves before choosing the ones he wanted with an imperceptible gesture to the auctioneer.
Actor Dean Andrews’ voiceover attempted to keep track of how Stephen made his decisions, but this kind of knowledge is so deep that it’s more like instinct.
“You just learn it naturally as you grow,” he shrugged, “keep your eyes focused and see what you can see.”
Jeremy Clarkson’s show on Amazon Prime Video has fostered the notion that all you need to work the land is a Lamborghini tractor and some help from famous friends.
Across the county, veterinarian Peter Wright was inspecting a pair of rescued donkeys at a sanctuary before leaving for a new home.
Peter was tickled to learn that their names were Alf and Donald, the names of his employers when he first started learning the job.
Alf Wight and Donald Sinclair, as all Creatures Great and Small fans will know, were the real names of James Herriot and Siegfried Farnon.
There is more evidence that you can’t beat tradition.
