Our Great Yorkshire Life (Ch5)
Rock stars need not apply. Real farming, it turns out, is not a suitable job for wealthy amateurs or faded celebs looking for ways to fill 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 mates.
It’s a bit of a laugh, with plenty of knockabout and slapstick as you chase the piglets and fall backwards into a blackberry bush.
And it all takes place on a bucolic estate with a suitably suggestive name, like Wobbly Bottom or Futtock’s Grange.
Modern-day media gentry and pop millionaires might get all the publicity, but the real rural work is done by people like Stephen Short, steeped in four generations of farming tradition.
Modern-day media gentry and pop millionaires might get all the publicity, but the real rural work is done by people like Stephen Short, steeped in four generations of farming tradition
Clarkson is always banging on about how important agriculture is to the national economy, but for Britain’s small farmers, it’s more personal than that
Stephen is a sheep farmer on the hills outside Halifax and, at just 25, has taken the champion’s rosette at the Great Yorkshire Show two years running.
He shared his expertise on Our Great Yorkshire Life, at the farm his family has run for more than 100 years.
‘I’ve never considered doing anything but farming,’ he said. ‘It’s what I was born to do.’
That means, of course, that he can’t afford to have a bad year — there are no album royalties or after-dinner speaking to bolster his business account.
Stephen’s experience and knowledge are his only means of paying the bills.
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Clarkson is always banging on about how important agriculture is to the national economy, but for Britain’s small farmers, it’s more personal than that.
As well as his award-winning pedigree Hampshire Down sheep, Stephen breeds Charollais lambs to sell.
Over the course of three weeks, one male sheep ‘tups’ all the ewes, and to keep track of his indefatigable progress, the ram wears a harness called a raddle.
It leaves a yellow smear on the back of every female he services.
Perhaps if certain England footballers were made to wear a raddle, they’d be better behaved.
The cameras also followed Stephen to auction, where he cast a sharp eye over a series of calves before picking out the ones he wanted with an imperceptible nod to the auctioneer.
Actor Dean Andrews’s voiceover tried to keep track of how Stephen made his choices, but this kind of knowledge is so deep, it’s more like instinct.
‘You just sort of pick it up naturally as you grow up,’ he shrugged, ‘keep your eye on 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 mates
At the other side of the county, vet Peter Wright was inspecting a couple of rescued donkeys at a sanctuary, before they left for a new home.
Peter was tickled to learn their names were Alf and Donald — the names of his employers when he was first learning the job.
Alf Wight and Donald Sinclair, as any fans of All Creatures Great And Small will know, were the real names of James Herriot and Siegfried Farnon.
There’s more proof that you can’t beat tradition.