Time

Person Speaking,

text on screen

Dialogue

00:00:43

Tom Hutchinson

He has little things that isn’t right. He isn’t wide enough there.

00:00:46

Tom

His head should be a bit wider, and he has a slight discoloration there which isn’t a good thing. And where his hair is thinned, where it’s just a bit baldy there, that shouldn’t be. It should be full, it should keep it and it should be a bit wider there and it should be a bit shorter hair, and these horns are a bit wide.

00:01:09

Tom

And his hair is just not right on his legs. Some people like them with a lot of color around their eyes and a big bump of white on the noise and other people like them like this one where there’s just a little bit and the colour has weld down and he’s supposed to be nice and round there and full.

00:01:32

Tom

The idea is to make him look like he’s got a longer leg.

00:01:37

Tom

So that when he goes to a sale he looks like he’s gonna grow into a big, a great big stretchy tup that somebody might want to, to have progeny of. It, it, it’s just, it enhances bits so that it looks the best he possibly can. Same as a woman putting make-up on on a morning. She doesn’t do it because she thinks it’s gonna make her look worse, she’s gonna look better, that’s the theory anyway. Some of them are not very successful.

00:02:05

Tom

Same with the tups, sometimes you are very successful at making them look more attractive. They just look worse.

00:02:17

Tom

We were just discussing in the pub the other day that Swaledale Sheep are one of the worst addiction known to man. You just keep coming back and you keep having a go and you keep getting a right kick in the nuts. But then next day you stand up and you have a look at next year’s sheep and you think oh well there’s maybe one next year!

00:02:17

Title on black Card

Addicted to Sheep

00:03:03

Location Title on picture

The Raby Estate, North Pennines, England

00:03:40

Tom

I never wanted to do anything else, really.

00:03:42

Kay Hutchinson

His parents weren’t farmers but his grandfather was a farmer and that’s where he kinda spent most of his holidays and that, our spare time, yeah.

00:03:53

Tom

So it, erm! It became a nasty addiction, a nasty habit.

00:03:59

Kay

Tom

He loves every minute of it really.

Yeah

00:04:03

Kay

He just, he’s a typical grumpy old farmer.

00:04:05

Tom

Yeah. It’s erm, which was an ambition in life obviously, from day 1.

00:04:09

Kay

which he is fulfilling quite well.

00:04:12

Tom

Yeah, yeah, well it was always an ambition to get a gnarly old farmer’s wife.

00:04:16

Kay

You got that

00:04:19

Tom

Yeah, no it’s a vocation. Is that what you call it?

00:04:44

Kay

Thank you Hetty

00:05:46

Tom

Get down, Get down, Get down

00:06:11

Tom

On the bike

00:06:52

Esme Hutchinson

Hetty

00:07:12

Esme

I need to put more

00:07:13

Hetty Hutchinson

What, hold that!

00:07:47

Kay

Can you watch that tap for me, please? Make sure it doesn’t overflow.

00:08:24

Jack Hutchinson

We’re going to Cocklake, a barn of ours, over a few fields and we gonna get some hay, or silage.

00:10:08

Jack

These are our tups and the tups are like boys. They, hmm, they mate the girls and make them have lambs and you keep them to breed your ewes to have some more tups or girls, ewes or some of them you put in the fat for people to eat. You identify your ewes and tups by the tag normally. And sometimes, you, sometimes, you can remember who they are, what they’re from, who sired them and who dammed them by how they look.

00:11:00

Jack

But I can’t. And you’ve got certain ewes that you want to put to a certain tup. So you put them in the same field without another tup in or else the tup that you want to tup some he’ll tup the one that you want to tup, the other tup, the other tup to tup and it’ll make a bad mixture so they’ll have wide horns, something like that or black feet.

00:11:42

My father always, he left the farm and he became a policeman but he always used to buy a young male, a lamb of this type and keep it for a year and then try to sell it on as a profit so we’ve always had that. We’ve always done that so I just kept the enthusiasm there, then when we got a chance we bought 10 ewes and when we got a chance, for a few more ewes, we bought more ewes and just generally kept going.

00:12:49

Esme

I think he’s skidding. He’s better now.

00:13:05

Esme

Yeah, I like this farm, I like living here. It’s nice when it snows cos you see all the little like snow flakes coming down, really fast, twirling around.

00:13:21

Esme

I might not be a farmer when I’m older. I might just keep, erm, horses and do art work and stuff. Cos I’m into art.

00:14:40

Esme

I sometimes go in the house and play because you kind of get in the way, sometimes, with cows, cos they kick and yeah, so you get in the way a bit. We get in the way a bit but not a lot, we just get shouted at a little bit, but it’s not much.

00:15:45

Hetty

I don’t really want to be a farmer because you have to pay stuff, you have to work on the farm, muck up the sloffy, sloppy pooh, not nice.

00:16:03

Hetty

I think they should, erm, pick it up themselves instead of us.

00:16:39

Kay

It’s horrible. Isn’t it?

00:16:41

Jack

What?

00:16:42

Kay

The weather

00:16:43

Jack

Yeah

00:16:48

Kay

Right, go on then. Mummy will go and have a sledge.

00:16:51

Esme & Jack

Yeah, woo-woo.

00:17:12

Esme

Go

00:17:13

Hetty

Woo-woo (screaming)

00:17:26

Hetty

Daddy!

00:18:16

Kay

Maggy. I’ve been using mine, it was sharper.

00:19:11

Kay

We’ll take the feet off

00:19:42

Hetty

That’s the legs gone.

00:19:43

Kay

Hmmm

00:19:45

Hetty

That’s the legs gone.

00:19:46

Kay

The feet

00:19:48

Hetty

The feet

00:20:08

Kay

We eat most of our own meat. It’s even better when you know what sort of life it’s had. It’s had a very nice life, you know what you fed it, you know everything about it, its history.

00:20:34

Kay

Now you can pull the windpipe and the feed sack up. Ok. All done!

00:20:49

Hetty

It’s Thursday tomorrow?

00:21:31

Kay

Right, let’s see who this one is for? To Hetty, love from ma and papa.

00:21:38

Hetty

Can I open it?

00:21:41

Kay

To Esme, love from ma and papa.

00:21:52

Kay

It’s serious bother.

00:21:54

Esme

You don’t do that in the morning.

00:21:58

Kay

Look Jack, love from Ma and Papa. It’s a guitar set. Oh Esme, that’s gorgeous, isn’t it?

00:22:12

Esme

And look

00:22:14

Tom

Be careful because there’re batteries inside.

00:22:23

Jack

Farming Activity Book

00:22:28

Kay

Lambing techniques off Nana and Granddad.

00:22:30

Tom

That’s a good one. I won’t have to learn.

00:22:43

Kay

Some knickers

00:22:45

Tom

How far do they stretch?

00:22:47

Kay

What?

00:22:51

Kay

You are gonna have to become a professional Artist now Esme.

00:22:56

Kay

Aren’t you?

00:22:57

Tom

No idea

00:22:58

Esme

Just let him open it.

00:22:59

Tom

Oh it’s a file.

00:23:03

Hetty

What is it?

00:23:04

Esme

Hope you like the other one Daddy.

00:23:08

Kay

Oh you are so kind

00:23:10

Tom

It should help doing the tup horns. Are these Maltesers?

00:23:16

Kay & Esme

No!

00:23:17

Kay

Have another guess!

00:23:19

Tom

Chocolate raisins

00:23:19

Kay & Esme

No

00:23:22

Tom

Well, something else then. It’s a bag of midget gems

00:23:28

Kay

You are very naughty.

00:23:30

Jack

Why?

00:23:35

Kay

Come here, I love it. Thank you.

00:23:44

Esme

It’s Daddy you need to be kissing as well. Actually, you shouldn’t kiss him because he said how far do they stretch?

00:24:22

School Kids

Come here

00:24:22

Esme

Hey, get off.

00:24:26

Jack

You stood on my trousers.

00:24:29

Mrs Tarn

Right, straight line. Shoulders. All I want to see is a line of shoulders.

00:24:43

Children singing

There is a green hill far away outside the city walls. Our dear Lord was crucified to die to save a soul.

00:25:06

Teacher

Morning

00:25:07

Kids

Morning

00:25:10

Mrs Tarn

Well, I’m going to ask you a few questions. I think I know the answer to this but put your hands up if your parents are farmers? Right. Good.

00:25:22

Mrs Tarn

How many of you like living where you live and like living on a farm? Right! Tom.

00:25:31

Tom (pupil)

You can like go and like see if any like sheep have staggers or something, just on your quad bike.

00:25:40

Mrs Tarn

Luke

00:25:41

Luke

Nature. Nature is brilliant around here and then you get to have animals for money.

00:25:53

Mrs Tarn

You mean you sell them?

00:25:53

Luke

Yeah

00:25:54

Mrs Tarn

Once you reared them.

00:25:56

Nathan

When I get back from school I always, hm, put, get my wellies and go and check the hens, see how many eggs we got and feed them.

00:26:02

Mrs Tarn

Ah, lovely.

00:26:07

Lauren

Waking up at 7 o’clock to help Dad go around the sheep, erm, go around the sheep on the quad bike and lambing sheep.

00:26:18

Emma

You got a free life, you don’t have any neighbours, where you have to be quiet and you have to annoy them, you can just scream your house down or anything, cos you’re not like next door to them and you can just run about and be a maniac.

00:26:32

Mrs Tarn

And is there anything that you don’t like about living where you live?

00:26:34

Emma

No.

00:26:52

John (Scanner)

Two

00:27:13

John (Scanner)

That’s the one there, the body and another body there and the head there.  Two in there.

00:27:26

Kay

So how is your family? All right?

00:27:29

John

Yeah, fine. I don’t see much of them.

00:27:32

Kay

No

00:27:40

John (Scanner)

 Two

00:27:42

Kay

We didn’t sleep last night John.

00:27:43

John (Scanner)

I don’t want to know Kay.

00:27:45

Kay

No, it’s not like that, worried about today.

00:27:50

John (Scanner)

Three

00:27:51

Kay

Just you. Come on lass.

00:28:05

John (Scanner)

Hey oh. Watch, Watch, Watch

00:28:07

John (Scanner)

It’s hard work, mentally. If you are scanning 2000 sheep everyday. Erm, you need good concentration level. Today, I’m doing 8 jobs I think today. Erm, 7 in Teesdale and one over in Weardale, this afternoon. So, erm, yeah, three quarters of the way through this season now so looking forward to the end and I’ll go back to lamb my (me) own sheep. Main income, yeah.

00:28:07

John (Scanner)

Two.

00:28:44

John (Scanner)

So it means we can do what we want on the farm. Also, to give the kids a good education. And keep the wife in a manner to which she’s become accustomed. Ok?

00:28:45

Kay

Yeah

00:29:07

Tom

It’s done, just purely and simply to give John some money.

00:29:10

John (Scanner)

Two

00:29:12

John (Scanner)

It’s the upland farmers looking after the lowland farmers. Yeah.

00:29:20

John (Scanner)

No. No

00:29:22

Kay

No

00:29:23

John (Scanner)

Who said two? Nobody.

00:29:24

Kay

No

00:29:26

Tom

Kay

00:29:27

Kay

Sorry John.

00:29:32

Kay

You wouldn’t want your percentage to be wrong.

00:29:33

John (Scanner)

No

00:29:35

Kay

Right

00:29:36

Tom

Yeah, that’s the job done.

00:29:38

John (Scanner)

Very good. Thank you.

00:30:11

Kay

I better go and pick up the kids from school.

00:30:20

Kay

I got some very exciting news.

00:30:21

Hetty

What?

00:30:23

Kay

We’ve been scanning today. And your 2 ewes.

00:30:27

Hetty

Yeah

00:30:29

Kay

They are both having twins.

00:30:30

Hetty

Oh

00:30:30

Kay

So you are gonna have 4 lambs this year. Yeah.

00:30:33

Hetty

Well, we’ve already got 2.

00:30:36

Kay

2 Gimme lambs, haven’t you?

00:30:38

Hetty

What?

00:30:40

Kay

And 2 ewes.

00:30:42

Kay

Tenancy was the only way really that Tom and I could get into farming. Erm, obviously we can’t afford to buy our own farm so tenancy erm, is the only way we could go into it so you get your farm for a certain length of time, and for that length of time you invest and make the best job that you can do.

00:31:05

Tom

From a day to day point of view it really is the same as owning the farm. You do things which you think is gonna work the best for your own farm. We are on a very good Estate who do leave you alone to a greater or lesser extent and don’t stipulate too many things. As long as you are paying your rent they are sort of happy to leave you do it as far as we know.

00:31:50

Kay

Scott, Scott. Scott, lie down, come-bye, come-bye, get up, get up, oh hay, get up, come-bye, come-bye, lie down, come-bye lie down, this ewe won’t open up. No, I’ll go and get Tom.

00:34:42

Kay

What?

00:34:45

Kay

Just water. Did you want to get fairy liquid? I sent Hetty to get it.

00:34:53

Kay

Hetty, come on.

00:35:07

Kay

Stand back now

00:35:19

Kay

Do you want it down?

00:35:20

Tom

Yeah

00:35:55

Tom

That was too much struggle for him.

00:36:10

Esme

Are we gonna get another lamb?

00:36:14

Tom

Mummy is just gone for a pet lamb.

00:36:21

Esme

The other one is dead and we’ve got pet lambs and then they can be, they can be with another mum and dad. If one sheep has a baby but he doesn’t survive the journey, ermmm, so they get a pet lamb and they can put it to the mother. You can cover the babies with all the gooey stuff and the baby’s body, what’s dead onto the other one so it doesn’t smell like a different one. It smells like hers, her one.

00:37:15

Tom

Just one will do.

00:37:19

Esme

It’s just a new way they can get started again.

00:37:32

Tom

Stand back Jack.

00:38:38

Tom

Unfortunately I think the ewe has a strong possibility of dying as well. She’s just had too much of a pull there.  We’ll see in the next hour or two.

00:39:03

Kay

Come on breakfast time, kiddie winkles.

00:39:05

Jack

We haven’t had it.

00:39:06

Hetty

Kiddie winkles!!!

00:39:41

School Children

The mouse was asleep

00:39:43

Mrs Tarn

How are you going to start the story? Once upon a time, I love that start of the story. Go on then, once upon a time.

00:39:53

Joe (Pupil)

How do you do once?

00:39:53

Teacher

You do, o

00:39:54

Teacher

What could you think is not so good about being on a farm?

00:39:59

Josh

Winter

00:40:00

Teacher

Winter. What’s wrong with the winter here?

00:40:03

Josh

It freezes up all your pipes and everything and it makes the road slippery. So you can’t get any feed up.

00:40:13

Mrs Tarn

Luke

00:40:14

Luke

Erm. Diesel and petrol. What we have to spend for quad bikes and tractors, that’s a bit of a waste of money.

00:40:20

Mrs Tarn

Oh you mean the fuel is expensive?

00:40:23

Emma

You don’t get out and see many people I think.

00:40:25

Teacher

It can be lonely, isn’t it?

00:40:26

Emma

Yeah. And you say you are going somewhere and then something goes completely wrong on your farm. You are like I thought we were going to Grand ma and Granddad’s.

00:40:35

Ryan

We have a pet calf and fed it at night and it was drinking away, happily, nought nought wrong with it when I went outside in the morning, laid down dead.

00:40:50

Mrs Tarn

That’s horrifying, isn’t it?

00:40:51

Ryan

Like,

00:40:51

Mrs Tarn

Worst thing

00:40:54

Ryan

Legs stiff, you can’t move it.

00:40:57

Josh

I don’t like when you have your own ewe and she dies or her lamb dies, that isn’t very good.

00:41:04

Mrs Tarn

Yeah

00:41:05

Josh

Cos that’s like the start of your flock.

00:41:15

Kay

This is the ewe that had the bad lambing yesterday morning. Erm, we tried to mother that lamb on but because she’d had so much stress, we decided it wasn’t fair that, erm, on her or the lamb. She is still alive at the minute, she’s drinking and she’s eating, still not sure about her. If she does survive, erm, we’ll just fit her up and she’ll go into the fat. She won’t stay on this farm. Erm, there is no point keeping her, she’s had a bad lambing, she was galled last year, erm, so we just cut our losses and she goes in the fat. Hopefully, if she lives.

00:42:02

Tom

It’s a battle to succeed, that, being any sort of farmer because you’re farming livestock, you got this horrible thing that’s called dead stock when things die for no apparent reason and you get the ones that die for a reason. And you get the ones that die because you’ve put them down, because they’ve been ill, but every now and again, you come across ones that just lie down and die and you can’t think why. Erm, I mean most sheep farmers will tell you that the main ambition of a sheep, virtually from day one, is to die as soon.

00:42:38

Kay

It’s to lie down and put all four legs up

00:42:40

Tom

Yeah. The quicker it does it, the happier it seems to be, and you can throw money at creatures and still have no success at all. So being a success at it is as much down to luck as anything else, but you do need to have a little bit of skill and idea about things.

00:44:06

Tom’s Dad

If they were running wild, this one would have died. The horns would have grown into its face and it would have killed it. They’d have died of starvation or the maggots would have got into it and then the flies. But it’s because people have been breeding them for years and looking after them that they allowed this to develop.

00:44:35

Tom

It’s a bit of moss, it’s just to soak the blood up so it congeals actually in place on the horn. If we were at home, we’d gather up some cobwebs and stick that on. It sort of does the same thing.

00:45:10

Tom

One of the kids’ gimmer hogs is in here

00:45:14

Jack

Is that the one with the wide horns?

00:45:16

Tom

No, it’s looking at you there.

00:45:17

Jack

That one?

00:45:18

Tom

No, you wish. That one.

00:45:21

Jack

That one there?

00:45:21

Tom

No, no, this one, there.

00:45:24

Jack

There

00:45:21

Tom

Yeah

00:45:37

Tom

That was the ewe we bought at Kirby. That must have been me

00:45:41

Jack

£300, hmmm,

00:45:44

Tom

Yeah.

00:45:45

Tom

So Jack picked up the ewe when he bought it himself at Kirkby Stephen

00:45:49

Tom’s Dad

3 years ago.

00:45:51

Tom

Yeah, it’ll be 3 years ago and he had tup shearling last year at Hawes, worth £300.

00:46:33

Mrs Tarn

Got a new classroom today.

00:46:38

Kay

Ohh, right, see you tomorrow night.

00:46:38

Hetty

Mummy

00:46:38

Kay

Ahhh

00:46:42

Hetty

Mummmyyyyy.

00:46:47

Hetty

There’s 6 eggs in there.

00:46:47

Kay

Where?

00:46:50

Hetty

In there.

00:46:50

Kay

Oh, lovely

00:46:52

Hetty

Not for you though.

00:46:52

Esme

6 rotten eggs.

00:46:54

Hetty

No, they are not, no.

00:46:58

Kay

Ooo, is it chocolate?

00:46:58

Hetty

Yes, caramel.

00:47:02

Kay

For Mummy

00:47:02

Hetty

Yeah, for all of us.

00:47:06

Kay

You are just, you are just a thoughtful child.

00:47:11

Jack

Cheater

00:48:39

Tom

We’ve just castrated that one because he is not good enough to keep as a breeding lamb and his brother is gonna get castrated as well because his mother is not really good enough to tup off.

00:48:51

Tom

Yellow, brown, 1203. Lie down. Lie down. We swap. It’s a nice lamb cos where its legs are marked. Having white down the front and black down the back is ideal for the Swale.

00:49:32

Kay

Nice black there.

00:49:34

Tom

And the black underneath is ideal and the type of hair it’s got. It’s got quite a short wiry hair. There is no horrible mucky mark, black marks in its body. I just go and take it back to its mum.

00:49:55

Tom

We try to breed the best stock we can and so when we come to sell our stock it’s maybe of a slightly higher quality, or a slightly better type so that people want to buy off us. Ermm. That’s the hope. We are not trying to compete with the industrial fast finishes and things, just because we know we couldn’t. You know, we have small numbers, we try to add value to everything that we sell.

00:50:30

Tom

Lie down. Come-bye. Lie down. Lie down. Lie down. Lie down.

00:50:57

School Teacher

Right, quick as we can now. Are you ready? And we’ll have them all back again. Really quick. See if you can do them all.

00:51:10

Joe (Pupil)

B, b, b, b

D, d, d, d

W, we, we, we

T, t, t, t

U, u, u

00:51:27

School Teacher

That’s the first time you remembered that one. Well done.

00:51:37

Mrs Tarn

So would you recommend to other children anywhere that they could have a good life up here or would you say it’s not for everybody. What would you say to that? Luke?

00:51:51

Luke

It’s not for everybody because people don’t have as much experience as us and erm, let’s say they’d go to the fell now and they wouldn’t know where anything is.

00:52:07

Emma

Sometimes, it’s not for everyone but someone might find that, like their potential to be a farmer when they don’t know. Like when I went to rugby I didn’t know anything and then Toddy said that I’ve got potential so there might be a towny child and they might come up here and they might have really good potential to be a farmer.

00:52:31

Josh

And Mrs Tan, can I just tell you two little things. The sheep know where they have to go on the fell cos they got little bits and they don’t wander very far away from our

00:52:45

Mrs Tarn

heft

00:52:46

Josh

Yeah. And my dad says that the only way to learn is that you watch.

00:52:51

Mrs Tarn

Yes

00:54:07

Tom

Don’t be stupid.

00:55:01

Tom

We’ll round them up into the pen and we’ll take them up onto the skyline and then we’ll be letting them out into the wilderness to see if we’ve got any wolves living around here, leopards or jaguars, to make sure everything is getting killed properly. Yeah

00:56:16

Tom

We’ll come back in beginning of July. They’ll all get gathered up and will get clipped, get shorn and then they’ll be up here until November, for some of the ewes. So no that’ll be. it Yes, that should be it hopefully.

00:56:38

Tom

When we came to the farm, one of the main things that really attracted us was the sheep on the fell. The fact that there was proper Swaledale sheep that were surviving up there and hopefully, we’ll get them nicely improved. When somebody came and said, look we want to reduce the sheep in the fields, you’ve got to take a third off because it’s overgrazed and frankly they came with very little information and very little proof of what they were saying and we just had to take their word for it. It means that these fields get a lot harder grazed and have to work a lot harder. So it just adds to the work load and they just presume that you are gonna do it for very little money which they wouldn’t. If you told them how much money we didn’t make on here, and ask them to live on the same, that they just wouldn’t do it. They would be in tears on Tele, somewhere, begging for money.

00:58:46

Esme

You’ve got all the purple and different kinds of green and there is like a lightish colour, there is a pinky and there is dark and then you have the houses which are white and they have different coloured roofs and then you have the church which has red windows.

00:59:18

Esme

I think I’m gonna have my own like gallery, cos I think I might have a bit of time off, when I’m not on the farm.

00:59:43

Esme

Get out!

00:59:53

Kay

What’s the date today? Is it the 24^th?

00:59:55

Hetty and Esme

Ermmm

00:59:57

Kay

Would Esme go and look for me please. I can’t think what date it is.

01:00:04

Esme

It was the 22^nd yesterday. Wasn’t it?

01:00:09

Kay

I don’t know, I really can’t think what, even what day of the week it is, never mind what date it is.

01:00:14

Esme

It’s Saturday

01:00:16

Kay

Oh thanks. We are quite lucky in the fact that we’ve got a fifteen year farm business tenancy which gives up a bit of a secure future. At the minute, I mean we are comfortable, that’s, and really that’s all that we ask for as long as we can feed the kids and that sort of thing and reinvest in the farm. I mean we are certainly not saving for our retirement or anything like that. I don’t know how we’ll get off later in life, because at the minute there isn’t the resources there to kind of secure our future or our retirement. Erm, it’s nice when Tom is about and he is there to give us a hand and that sort of thing but on the other hand it’s also nice to just work on your own and get on by yourself and have that freedom of you only being the one out in the fields and just take in the scenery and that sort of thing. No, it’s nice to work together but there is also time to have by yourself as well.

01:01:55

Tom

I was never going to clip sheep. When I was working for other people, I always said I was never going to do it because it was hard work. You don’t earn enough money on the farm to be able to pay the bills so if you can do specific jobs, ermmm, for other people, who don’t want to do it. It provides us with an extra income so that we don’t starve to death.

01:02:31

John Reay (Shearer)

I have been clipping with Tom for 11 years, 11 seasons. I did have a full head of hair before he started clipping with us but it’s all gone now. He laughs.

01:03:08

Children on bus - Lauren

that’s quite heavy, isn’t it?

01:04:43

Jack

Dad, I got some bad news for you.

01:05:16

Tom

She hasn’t been very well. She was on the fell and she wasn’t very well so we kept her in when we clipped her beginning of July, just so that she could die at home rather than outside and cost us £17 to get rid off her. It was a bit expected. She’s about. She’ll be a 4-crop ewe. That means she’s had 4 lots of lambs. For living on the fell, it is sort of getting old enough but because she was born and bred up there, I thought she would survive quite happily with the lambs up there, but she obviously decided she didn’t want to. She succeeded in her ambitions of dying.

01:07:10

Tom

We started shearing the first week in June and half of July we’ve clipped and the other half it was spent in the house cos it’s been wet. Hmmm, we’ve clipped about, nearly 14,000 sheep between the 2 of us. That’s with our own sheep as well included. Got sick now. We were ready to finish about 3 weeks ago.

01:07:52

John Reay (Shearer)

I only have 450 sheep on my (me) own, just a small farm, it’s 220 acres, erm, me dad actually bought it, so I’m very privileged that way that I’m not a tenant farmer.

01:08:08

Tom

He isn’t scraping around looking for the rent every month. Peasant farmer.

01:08:21

John Reay (Shearer)

It’s just because me dad didn’t believe in paying rent. He wanted to own something out right.

01:08:27

Tom

I don’t believe in paying rent.

01:08:28

John Reay (Shearer)

Oh yeah, but it was different then. You could actually manage to buy a farm on an overdraft.

01:08:49

John

There is no other jobs in agriculture, that pays us like this for the same length of time and day. It’ s hard work but the money is quite good.

Tom: In the recent years, prices have gone up quite a lot because there is a lot less people doing it. People have realised that you are doing more damage to your body than it’s worth so it’s become a lot more expensive.

01:09:16

Tom

£1.15 a sheep with tups double. These sheep here probably won’t pay for the clipping. It’s just something that has to be done.

01:09:55

Tom

Very funny

01:10:40

Tom

Everything that we do is for ourselves, everything that we improve is for our own and it improves ourselves and whereas if you work for somebody else, everything that you do unless you’ve got a very very very good boss, everything you do is theirs. At the end of the day, if you upset the boss, it’s theirs and you’ve got to move on and you ended up, you work very hard and improve things for nothing cos somebody else gets to come in and take over. Thankfully, Raby Estate still offer some small farms like this. A lot of other Estates, specially more nowadays, including the councils would have amalgamated into other farms and maybe got more money for renting the house out as a holiday cottage. The local landlord Lord Barnard wants to keep The Dale alive with people and keep some of the amenities, like the school and things so that when it comes to let farms, he looks favourably on young people.

01:11:49

Mrs Tarn

Right, would you like to go back to your seat. Emma. Yes. Your desk. Can you pull it down please? And Ryan, take the lids down. And Luke. Would anyone of you like to be a farmer? And you don’t have to be a farmer you know. There are other things to do. You might consider it but be aware there are other things to do.

01:12:19

Luke

I definitely wanna be a farmer because it’s a good experience.

01:12:24

Mrs Tarn

You mean you want to be one at the moment?

01:12:24

Luke

Yeah. I think I will when I’m older as well.

01:12:29

Josh

Having a Suffolk sheep farm, but not in Suffolk.

01:12:35

Mrs Tarn

Right

01:12:35

Josh

Erm, cos I like Suffolks and I think they are very nice.

01:12:39

Mrs Tarn

What attracts you to the Suffolk sheep then?

01:12:41

Josh

I don’t know, just my dad has them and I like their ears and they are quiet.

01:12:48

Emma

I might wanna be a rare breed farmer like I I’ve got all rare breed sheep and cows and that.

01:12:55

Mrs Tarn

What else might you like to do? What else might you consider?

01:12:58

Luke

Auctioneer

01:13:00

Mrs Tarn

Why would you want to be an auctioneer?

01:13:05

Luke

I’ve had lots of generations being auctioneers so I’m hopefully gonna be another one.

01:13:11

Mrs Tarn

I can see you doing that.

01:13:57

Michael Bell

We finished our own, finished this for Tom and we have one more bail to bail, a field to bail tomorrow and then that’s it finished.

01:15:21

Kay

No, I love sale days. You get to meet folks and have a bit of chat. No, it’s good. Skiving it’s called really.

01:16:22

Tom

Three’s and Four Crop. Three and Four crop.

01:17:02

Tom

Hold on, you are pinching a bit low Stuart; there will be dearer shearlings than that.

01:17:06

Auctioneer

£145

01:17:13

Tom

Thank you Stuart

01:17:13

Auctioneer

Merci

01:17:15

Kay

We are very happy with that. Yes we are smiling. It doesn’t happen very often. No it’s good.

01:19:45

Show Organiser

Right ladies and gentlemen, we gonna start presenting the cups.

For the hay, which is a very strong class, the Trevor Hutchinson Hayshield A M Walton.

01:19:54

Show Organiser

Three stems of any flower, the very annual flower Michael Hedley.

01:20:01

Show Organiser

Local classes H Tup The Farmers Finance Tanker donated via J.S Thompson TW Hutchinson

01:20:09

Show Organiser

Local Gimmer Shearling The Rothary Group donated by Mark and Melly Hill, TW Hutchinson

01:20:19

Show Organiser

Local Gimmer Lamb, the IR Scott and Sons cup TW Hutchinson

Local pair of tup lambs, rural cup donated by D Horden TW Hutchinson

01:20:33

Show Organiser

The Western Cup for TW Hutchinson

01:20:37

Show Organiser

Local Champion Female, Middleton Auction Mart Female Cup, TW Hutchinson

01:20:43

Show Organiser

Local Champion Sheep T W Hutchinson

01:20:52

Tom

We brought 14 sheep, we got 10 trophies.

01:21:01

Tom

The ewe was Reserve Supreme Champion and she was district champion as well. We won the tup lambs, the old tups, gimmer shearlings, gimmer lambs. Our little few sheep have done very very well. Just being involved you know, competing, we don’t expect to win anything and its’ all very nice when you do win something. We’re just in desperate, desperate need of a lot of money and that would solve a lot of problems. We might be able to sort all sorts of things out if we were just millionaires but.

01:21:39

Kay

That’s so we can buy a nice Swaledale tup. Nothing else.

01:21:47

Auctioneer

80 pence, 90, £1, £1.10, £1.20, £1.30, £1.40, bid, yes, bid at £1.50, 1.50. bid at £1.50. All done, away at 1.50.

01:24:18

Text on Black

Our special thanks to the Hutchinson Family and all the other participants who made this film possible.

01:24:26

Text on Black

In memory of Michael Bell 1957-2013