A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess

by Amanda Owen

  Life on the farm brings a heightened awareness of the passing of the seasons. They, and the jobs that go with them, come and go with worrying frequency. There is no ideal time to have a baby, and I have long since given up on family planning around the farming calendar. In theory I don’t want to be in the late stages of pregnancy in winter, when there’s a chance of being snowed in, and I don’t want to be in the early stages during clipping and haytiming because of the strenuous physical exertion needed. In a perfect world, I don’t want to be at any stage of pregnancy during lambing time . . .

  As with Annas, Clementine was born early, in a hurry to get here, and her early arrival meant that my postnatal exercises were once again done in the sheep shed, clipping. For some inexplicable reason we had also agreed to appear in a TV programme with Ben Fogle. Clive had liaised with the film crew on the telephone and invited them to come and see us before the filming. I overheard Clive’s conversation with the producer on the phone one day:

  ‘I think it would be a good idea for me to come and meet you and your family before we begin to film,’ said Tina, the producer. ‘Then I can also get a feel for the place.’

  ‘A varry good idea,’ said Clive. ‘Yer could come up fra’ London on t’train, stay at t’hotel in Hawes, then go yam the next day.’

  ‘Well, I think I’ll just set off early in the car and go back at teatime,’ said Tina.

  ‘Whhhhhhhat?’ said Clive. ‘Drive? All the way from London to Ravenseat? And back?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Tina.

  ‘Well that’s varry brave o’ yer, Tina,’ he gushed. ‘To drive all that way. That’s ’ellish.’

  I turned round and scowled at him. When he put the phone down, I treated him to a piece of my mind.

  ‘I can’t believe yer think that driving a few ’undred miles in a car is that bloody brave when yer own wife gave birth on her own in t’living room only last week.’

  One of the ideas for the programme was that Clive and I would be clipping sheep in the pens and Ben would come and help and have a go at clipping, catching and turning up the sheep. In theory it all sounded OK, but I had a few worries, chief amongst them: ‘I can’t get mi shearing jeans on,’ I said miserably. ‘I can get mi legs in ’em, but not mi arse.’

  Clive had a few worries too. ‘I need to ’ave mi best sheep in t’pen,’ he said. ‘I can’t ’ave ’im clip owt ’orrible on TV.’

  ‘There’s gonna be a terribly ’andsome TV presenter clipping, and me, in my buxom state spilling out of my vest wi’ my jeans fastened shut wi’ string, so I don’t think there’s gonna be so many folks lookin’ at thi bloody sheep.’

  Then I reconsidered, and we put aside forty of our very best hoggs.

  The string held, thankfully, and the sheep were clipped on camera. I dare say it wasn’t a pretty sight, but that’s reality for you.

  The baler twine saved the day yet again; it’s not called the ‘farmer’s friend’ for nothing. Rummage in the pocket of any shepherd and you’ll find, along with a knife, a length of baler twine. Its uses are innumerable. It can fasten a gate, tie up a sheep, hold up a pair of jeans or act as a belt when my baby bump gets too big for my coat to fasten. During a recent conversation about how invaluable it is, I was told about a farmer who used it instead of luggage straps, always fastening it around his battered suitcase when he went on holiday. It was easily spottable on the carousel at the airport, and nobody ever took his bag by mistake.

  We don’t go on holiday, but we do manage to have occasional days out, and after our family appeared on The Dales television programmes a few years ago we were invited to attend a special lunch at the Great Yorkshire Show. The showground, on the outskirts of Harrogate, is spread over 250 acres and is the biggest agricultural show in England, with over 30,000 visitors over the three days it is on. The Yorkshire Tourist Board invited us and arranged everything, from car parking tickets to members’ badges, and even a whole table reserved for us in a beautifully decorated marquee.

  We only had five (or was it six?) children at the time, but that’s enough to shepherd through the show to the marquee. There were too many distractions.

  ‘Ooooh, look, a pen of donkeys,’ one of them would say, and the rest would trot off to have a look. Then: ‘Sweeties, lots of sweeties,’ and they’d be off again, just as we’d rounded them all up.

  Every so often we did a head count. Yes, all present and correct. The only one I couldn’t actually misplace was the one that I was carrying on my front, hidden beneath my jacket. The lunch was very good, but not relaxing. There was much arranging of napkins in case of spillage and we missed Chalky and Pippen, who enthusiastically clean up the floor at home when the children have eaten.

  The meal ticket was not completely free. I had to give an interview to the local radio station, mingle with some of the great and good, and have my picture taken. After the last spoonful of dessert had been downed and the last glass of cordial supped, it was time for me to leave the family for a while.

  ‘I’ve got to ga an’ do mi stuff now, you’re in charge for an hour or so,’ I said to Clive.

  He decided that he wasn’t going anywhere: if he just stayed put in the marquee then the ladies from the tourist board would look after him, plying him with cups of tea and entertaining the children into the bargain.

  I was soon back, and decided it was time for some retail therapy. Clive wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of trailing behind me down the aisles of the huge show, but reluctantly took charge of my wonky three-wheeled running pushchair – the sort used by exercise-fanatic parents. Among other things, I used it when I went mole-catching around the fields at home. The traps went in the bottom underneath the seat, meaning the baby inside was not showered with soil, as they would be if I carried them in the front papoose. It wasn’t ideal for sightseeing at the Yorkshire Show, having splashes of mud on the canvas and splodges of chicken poo on the sun visor from the hens roosting above it in the barn, but it was marginally better than having to carry a tired toddler.

  As we were about to set off we did another head count. Only four. One missing. It was Edith, who was four at the time. I didn’t panic, assuming that she’d be playing in or around the marquee and the ladies from the tourist board would know where she was. They didn’t. Everyone had seen her, but nobody knew where she had gone. I looked at the crowds of visitors to the show milling past, and groaned. Where should we even start searching?

  ‘You stay ’ere wi’t’ children, afore we end up wi’ everyone lost,’ said Clive, setting off into the melee. He was back within minutes.

  ‘We’ll nivver find ’er amongst all these folks,’ he said. I could see he was starting to panic, but trying not to show it for fear of worrying the other children.

  At that moment an announcement was made over the tannoy, reporting that ‘Edith of t’Dales TV programme’ was missing, and if anybody saw her could they please escort her to the lost children’s tent.

  I was obviously pleased that everyone would be on the lookout for her, but also mortified that my fecklessness was now being broadcast to the masses.

  Soon afterwards the walkie-talkie of one of the staff crackled into life, reporting that Edith had been found. We were all loaded into a show-ground buggy, usually reserved for royalty and other VIPs, and driven to the lost children tent. I was so relieved, and imagined her running headlong into my arms, so happy to be reunited with us. Instead, she was smiling at everyone, and couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about.

  After that, we decided to call it a day and go home while we still had them all in tow.

  A few days later we were talking to one of our farming neighbours when he mentioned being at the Yorkshire Show.

  ‘We nivver saw thi,’ Clive said.

  ‘Naw, but I saw your Edith,’ he said. ‘I spotted ’er in t’handicraft tent, she were lookin’ around t’stalls. I took ’er to t’lost property tent.’

  ‘Was she crying? Did she look unhappy?’ I said.

/>   ‘Nay, she were as ’appy as Larry,’ he said. ‘In ’er own little world.’

  We thanked him profusely.

  I’ve always been proud that the children are independent and don’t hang from my apron strings, enjoying the freedom that life at Ravenseat gives them. But there’s a time and a place for being independent, and the Yorkshire Show isn’t it.

  This incident reminded me of getting lost as a child, only in my case it was in a department store in Leeds. I’d gone up the escalator with my mother, then gone up another escalator and another and, lo and behold, found myself alone on the top floor. I can’t remember if I cried but I remember a store assistant ushering me into a small room with a mechanical typewriter, giving me a tube of fruit pastilles and telling me that I could play with the typewriter until they found my mother. A little time passed, and I was thoroughly enjoying myself busily plinking away on the typewriter when the door opened and the store assistant came in with my mother.

  ‘Is this your mum?’ asked the assistant.

  I furtively typed away and, glancing up, said, ‘No, it isn’t.’

  I was enjoying myself too much to think about the long-term implications of denying my parentage. The matter was soon cleared up and I dare say that my mother would have had something to say to me, but I don’t remember any of that bit.

  Nowadays I avoid department stores and prefer to shop locally, ordering some things online. But during the school summer holidays, there comes a day when I must load up the children and head for town in search of the dreaded school shoes.

  This is bad on so many levels. The children live in wellies, as we do. They are comfortable, easy to get on and off, and can, I’ve found, be worn with any outfit. Once upon a time wellies came in only green or black, and were worn only with waterproofs, but nowadays it’s quite acceptable and, dare I say it, chic to wear them with shorts and maxi dresses. Who’d have thought that we would find ourselves at the forefront of fashion? But for us, wellies are a necessity: even the footwell of the Land Rover is no place for sandals or trainers. Just getting from the front door of the farmhouse to the vehicle can mean negotiating a myriad of obstacles, including muck, mud and puddles.

  In our family wellies are worn on the right feet sometimes, wrong feet more often than not, and are frequently mismatched. People often point out to me that my children are wearing odd wellies; but if one welly has a hole in, you needn’t throw the pair away. There will usually be another odd one in the right size to team it with. All the children have gone through a stage of refusing to take their wellies off before bed. At the moment it’s Annas’s wellies that I prise off from under the duvet when she dozes off.

  So we set off to town, in wellies, the older children gawping at shop windows, the younger ones walking into other shoppers, as they have not grasped the etiquette of pavements. They don’t understand that you cannot stop dead, lie down and peer down a drain. You can’t smile and say hello to everyone coming the opposite way. Sometimes I think that I should bring a sheepdog, Kate or Bill, to shepherd them in the right direction and steer them into the first shoe shop we see. On our last shoe-buying expedition we went into a sports shop to buy trainers for the boys’ PE classes. We’d hardly got into the shop when Sidney began to shriek, rooted to the spot. He was looking down, fixated on the highly polished black floor tiles, as he could see his own reflection below him.

  ‘C’mon, Sidney,’ I said. Other shoppers were now staring.

  The screams got louder, then he got down on his hands and knees, but still the little red-haired, freckled doppelgänger was staring back. I had to pick him up and carry him across to the seats where customers tried on trainers, and leave him there until we’d found what we wanted. He lay flat on the seats, occasionally peeping over the edge into the shiny black abyss below.

  When it gets to actually trying on shoes, I hope and pray that the socks inside the wellies are half decent. We get through numerous pairs of socks and, in the same way that we don’t throw away a pair of wellies if one is holed, I don’t get rid of two socks if one is still wearable. Finding a matching pair is nigh on impossible, and the children often wear any combination of long ones, short ones, thermal socks, trainer socks in a range of different colours.

  I watched with bated breath when Miles prised his wellies off for the shoe-shop assistant, who had found a pair of new shoes in the right size. There are usually socks, that’s for sure; with luck, there will be two. On one occasion I pulled out a scrunched-up sock jammed in the front toe of his welly that he didn’t even know was there. Stuck to the socks there will probably be straw, hay seeds and soil, which ends up on the shop floor.

  When eventually we found footwear for all of them I haggled, to see if I could get a discount for bulk buying.

  ‘What if they’re not the right size?’ the assistant said, when I asked for the same style in a size one, three and five. ‘Do you want to try them all on?’

  ‘Nay, they’ll fit someone at some point, that’s for sure.’

  The summer holidays are a glorious time: it can’t be true but we seem to have week after week of sunshine, with evenings spent down by the river, the children paddling and the dogs patrolling the riverbank. Water holds no fascination for them. It is there to be paddled in sometimes, but for the most part it is an annoyance that washes their discarded scooters downstream, or prevents the school taxi from getting across the ford.

  Just below the farmhouse, on the banks of the meandering river, there is a sandbank. Coarse sand, eroded from the sandstone boulders and rocks further upstream, is deposited there on the inner bend of the river. Many happy hours are spent here at what we call the beach, playing with spades, buckets and toy tractors. It is just outside shouting range, so this is the first place I look if anyone is missing at mealtimes.

  Recently the children have widened their territory, roaming as far as the abandoned quarry or even to the High Force waterfall, returning with tales of yellow-bottomed frogs and complaining about Chalky eating their picnics while they were making woven sailing ships from the seaves. Wherever they go, there’s a terrier following, always hopeful of a discarded sausage roll or unguarded KitKat. According to the experts, chocolate can kill dogs, but Chalky hasn’t suffered any ill effects so far.

  The problem with these excursions into the wild places of Ravenseat is that items of clothing are often abandoned, then not found for days, weeks, months – sometimes never. I imagine archaeologists of the future having fun up here, what with Reuben’s mechanical creations buried in various nettle beds, and discarded hats, sweaters and anoraks pickled in bogs.

  It is great to see the children setting out on an adventure, their pockets and satchels filled with food, sometimes hand in hand, other times mounted on ponies, with the dogs at their side. If either Clive or I go with them then the trip usually turns into a job, as we spot things that need doing. Perhaps it is a gap in the wall or a water rail washed out, or a tup limping, maybe a yow without her lamb. Then we end up returning to the house for a sheepdog to round up the tup or the lamb. It’s no good taking the sheepdogs with you for the walk, as working sheepdogs are equally bad at switching off and relaxing; their minds are constantly on sheep. One minute Kate or Bill will be heeling you, the next moment you’ll see sheep running on the far horizon and realize that the dog is no longer at your side.

  Even our retired sheepdogs have difficulty switching off. It would be nice to let them have a free run around the farm, wandering as they please, but unfortunately this is rarely possible. For a sheepdog, rounding up sheep is what life is all about, and if there are no sheep available then they find the next best thing – which may be chickens, cows, horses or children. It takes a tolerant horse to put up with a dog nipping at its heels, or even swinging from its tail, as Fan does. Rounding up chickens usually ends with the dog getting a chicken dinner – not good for the morale of the rest of the hens. Violet once had her legs taken right out from under her when Kate found herself with nothing to c
hase and decided that Violet, who was skipping across the field, needed to be stopped in her tracks. Kate put in her best outrun and came in just a bit too close, fully expecting Violet to turn and run in the opposite direction, which is what a sheep would have done. She collided with Violet’s legs, and Violet went down in a heap on the grass.

  Sometimes we have walkers pass through with a dog on the end of a leash that looks to have the potential to make a good sheepdog. It will be eyeing up the sheep, watching their movements intently. I can’t help thinking it must be difficult to keep a dog like this amused. I make no claims to being a champion dog runner, but I know from experience that a headcase of a dog, one that wants to chase aeroplanes, leaves and bike wheels, will make an excellent sheepdog, because you can channel that instinct. A dog that has no innate instinct to chase anything will never be a sheepdog.

  The relationship between shepherd and dog is demonstrated both in working at great distance out on the open moors, and during closer in-bye (field) work. Sheepdog trialling is about displaying a range of those skills within the confines of a field: the gather, lift, fetch, drive, shed and pen. These are all skills used on a daily basis by a shepherd.

  Just as there are legendary tups in the sheep world, there are legendary dogs in the dog running world. Among the famous names are Wiston’s Cap, Dryden Joe and Hutton’s Nip, the last a great favourite of Clive’s because he was once lucky enough to see him in action. As a teenager Clive went along to sheepdog trials with his mentor Ebby, who was one of the top sheepdog handlers at that time. Clive remembers being in a large marquee after an international dog trialling competition when George Hutton was celebrating a win with a few beers. The tent was full of folk, and while George leaned against the bar talking he would without warning take his cap from his head and fling it into the crowd. Nip would set off into the sea of people, weaving in and out between their legs until he found the cap, returning with it in his teeth to George for him to throw again. It was not done to impress: this was his way of keeping Nip entertained while he got a few drinks in. Every so often George would growl: ‘Worry tha’ bugger,’ at which Nip would bite and shake the cap.