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Correct assumptions? (Jan 25)

Shropshire-based producer and award-winning columnist Roger Evans ‘surmises’ about farm assurance and an electric-fence farce.


If ever I’ve employed anyone I’ve never asked them to do anything that I couldn’t or wouldn’t do myself. That’s probably why I’ve never been a big fan of farm assurance. That and the feeling that I’ve never liked people telling me what to do – especially if I wasn’t sure that they could do it themselves. Also I had a bad habit of making jokes about it all, but you didn’t have to dig into the jokes very far to find some sarcasm. That’s why the family used to keep me well out of sight if we had an assurance visit.


I know it’s only surmising but I’ve always thought that if you farmed in the Lake District you’d get a hard time from people who watched what you were doing. Let’s face it, the Lake District is beautiful. So if you could live and work there, why wouldn’t you? What better place to bring up a family?


I can remember watching a TV documentary about farming in the Lake District. It showed a farm-assurance group meeting. The room was full of farmers, and this made me think (surmising again) that if you didn’t go to so many meetings per year you would suffer financial penalties. The atmosphere in the room wasn’t good – ‘sullen’ would be a good word to describe it. Apparently some farmers had been bringing their Herdwick ewes off the fell to lamb in bad weather and keeping them on inbye land using electric fences. Those is charge didn’t want any electric fences, they wanted the farmers to use traditional stone walls. The message was quite clear, if you don’t comply voluntarily we will legislate and make it law.


It’s well worth pausing for a moment to look at those taking the meeting. They’d probably never had to fetch ewes off the fell. They’d never had to make the choice between mending a stone wall and erecting an electric fence. They’d never had cold rain or snow down their necks. They were probably not that keen on winding down the windows of their nice warm cars if it was raining. Then we get to the end of the presentation: ‘any questions?’. No one moves. They ask three times and eventually an old man stands up at the back. “If you buggers had been about hundreds of years ago, you’d have stopped us building the walls.” How true, and how eloquent. Doesn’t it just sum up farm assurance exactly?


Years ago I was invited to speak to a grassland society in Cumbria. I set off in the early afternoon. My next stop was to be Tebay services, and not because I wanted to see the ducks but because that’s as far as l could get before I needed a pee. These days I’m more of a Charnock Richards man, but I sometimes use Chester services – just to be on the safe side. About three miles from home I had to slow down to pass three Herdwick ewes. Like me, they were heading for the fells. Each one sported a large red ‘E’, which said they were mine. But I don’t recall ever seeing them again.



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