I wasn’t born into a farming life. I’m a townie, brought up in Huddersfield. As a child my only contact with farming was reading James Herriot’s brilliant books about farming life. I loved the life that was portrayed, but ‘shepherdess‘was not on the list of career options at my comprehensive school.
Amanda Owen by Ian Forsyth
I drifted into college, as a rebellious Goth, dressed head to toe in black with no clear idea of my future, but studied A level Biology because I loved animals. When we visited a dairy farm, I realized that farming could be a way to work with animals. So I literally got on my bike and cycled round the countryside around Huddersfield to look for work with a farm.
Now there’s one thing a farmer like’s more than cheap labour, and that’s free labour! I was soon working seven days a week, arriving home reeking of silage all in the hope of getting my foot on the farming ladder. I’m sure my mum, a fashionable woman who had worked as a model, longed for me to take a sensible job in an office or shop, but my mind was made up and eventually I got my first job as a freelance Shepherdess.
More: The Yorkshire Shepherdess by Amanda Owen
My school friends were all following conventional paths: jobs in banks, going to university, getting engaged and married. I wasn’t envious: I loved my new life in the countryside, clipping and dipping sheep, repairing dry stone walls, I did anything to make a living. I didn’t even consider the idea of marriage and babies, because I wasn’t looking for a man in my life, I was more set on getting a Sheepdog. Then one evening the farmer I was working for sent me with his pickup and a rickety trailer on an errand, to the farm of a friend, to collect a tup. Arriving in the dark, I had my first glimpse of Ravenseat and my future husband, but I had no idea at the time that this was to be a turning-point in my life.
The farmer Clive was divorced, surviving on shop-bought pies and cornflakes, totally focused on looking after his flock of Swaledale sheep. Ravenseat his beautiful stone-built farmhouse was neglected, with one living room used for feedbins, damp climbing the walls, yellowing paint everywhere. When I eventually moved in after a slow burn romance I felt strongly that this bleak and beautiful place, which has been farmed since Viking times, needed some life breathing back into it. Back in the day it was full of people: farmworkers, men from the local quarry and the coal mine passing through, with lots going on but when I arrived it felt very empty. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to fill this beautiful place with the life and laughter of children. Making it the busy, thriving place it should be.
If I’d said to Clive in those early days that we were going to have nine children, he’d have run a mile. We never discussed it, and I wasn’t hankering after a large brood. But as every baby has come along, they have slotted in without any fuss. One more child is never a burden.
I could never have had so many if I still lived in the town. If I had an office job I wouldn’t be able to cope with them all, or afford childcare. But at Ravenseat they have space and freedom. Instead of a childminder, the little ones who are too young for school spend the day on the farm with me, the babies are strapped to me until they’re old enough to walk I think I’ve had a child on my back for since my first was born 13 years ago. They don’t get expensive toys: the girls love riding the horses, the boys like dismantling farm machinery and looking after the animals. It’s the best place in the world to raise children and animals in a natural way. We’re not highly mechanized, we don’t rear animals intensively, and we believe in children growing up in an outdoor, free, healthy way.
Will there be any more? It’s the question everyone asks. I was only 41 last year when my most recent, Nancy was born, so I’m not ruling it out. After all, there are ten seats in the Land Rover. People assume that having a large family limits our life, but we don’t mind missing out on meals out or going on holiday because we love it here, and we love bringing up our children with the freedom and space to grow. The way it has been done at Ravenseat for centuries.
A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess by Amanda Owen is out on 26th Jan (£7.99 Macmillan)