Our neighbours.

I would like to introduce you to our neighbours, not out them, of course, just show you around what is left of our community.

The farms in our immediate area or 'parish' in Scotland, are all tenant farmers. The majority of them are third or fourth generation so have been here a long time. The surrounding area is that of stunning beauty and testament to the care and work which has gone in to respecting the land.

We are a remote community, the one that people have never heard of. When you tell people where you live, it is usually followed by "Where's that?"
We rarely see others, rarely socialise as there is always work or looking after our children or some other issue which fills the day and leaves you quite tired in the evening.

Somehow, and I am always convinced it is by osmosis, you hear how others are, you catch murmers of the latest difficulty, the latest hassle by the landowner, how well livestock did at the mart and who has died.

When The Farmer had his heart attack, we had not seen anyone else except the postman for a few weeks.
My son and I carried on with the running of the farm while The Farmer was in hospital, we continued with the children's routine so they were reassured while their Dad was away. It was the first time he had ever been away from the farm on his own.

We still do not have a phone up at the farm and no mobile reception so there was no way of telling people. The Farmer had his heart attack at the temporary accommodation we had for winter.

There was a knock on the door one morning, just two days after my husband had been ill. Our neighbour, an enormous mountain of a man, shyly stood on the doorstep and asked if everything was ok.
I told him what had happened and how the Farmer was in hospital. Our neighbour said he would "Keek in roond the farm and see what he could see". He was going to assess what was what.

Now, I have no idea about cattle and have always been wary of them. My son was a singer in a rock band. We knew to feed and water the cattle but they were all in the process of calving and this filled us full of The Fear.

Our neighbours rallied together and came up every day. They expertly helped calf, settled the cows with new calves, sorted the cows who were in the wrong pen (some cows are very greedy and eat more than their share so deny newly calved cows feed).
Our neighbours tagged the new additions, kept records of the dates of birth and organised the ones which had to be sold.

Our cattle were bought by one of our neighbours and live contentedly only a few miles away. They had realised a very good price.

Somehow, Spring turned into a sort of blur of activity, fields needed ploughed, crops sown, drains sorted.
The neighbouring farmers showed my son what to do and helped him get started. They watched as he ploughed and praised him for making a good job of it.

When my husband returned from hospital, they dropped in to see him, kept him up to date with news, asked what he needed them to do.

Our farming neighbours are the essence of this community. They have lived through harsh winters, bitter disappointments, births, deaths.
They are hardy yet gentle, they do not ask for anything in return for their astonishing support.

Every single one of them has been treated like dirt by their landowner. Every single one has spent a fortune on legal fees, trying to help them keep their farms or asking for sheds where the old ones have fallen down.

Every one of them is angry and upset at the way they have been dealt the bad card, the get on with it and shut up card, the card which says 'complain too much and we will find some discrepancy in your lease', or the card which resumes their hard worked land for sport.

These are our neighbours.

I think they are worth helping.

Doffing the cap

I wish to illustrate some aspects of how the tenant farmer lives. I have permission from my neighbours plus from friends who have been tenants, to write it as it is.

In Scotland, there would appear to be two types of farm.

The first type are large and immaculate, efficient, well maintained, plenty of good livestock and sometimes quite a few workers living in good houses. you can bet your last halfpenny that these farms are owned by the farmer.

The second type of farm is a little different.
They can sometimes look less tidy, run less efficiently due to lack of help, poorly maintained. You can guarantee the livestock will be well looked after but fewer of them than on an owned farm.
Things will be higgledy-piggledy and you will always hear the words "We are a full year behind".

Don't get me wrong. Some tenant farms are nice, new sheds, new machinery. The tenant will have invested an awful lot of his own money to make his farm thus.
Landowners like this sort of tenant. They don't have to invest any of their own money yet will reap a good return with little if any input.
Nicer farm, higher rent, no investment by owner, Bob's your uncle.

Some tenants, however, are usually paying a hefty fee to an agricultural lawyer, often for years because oooh, some of these lawyers are slow.
These tenants may have tried to diversify in a non agricultural way. They may run a farmhouse B&B or may have invested a lot of their own money in doing up an old farm building to let out for holiday accommodation.

The landowner receives a percentage of this income but does not have to invest anything in it.
Tenant uses his/her own money, does all the hard work, owner gets a slice of pie.

Almost every aspect of the tenant farm, apart from spreading dung, needs permission from the owner.

"Dear Sir,

May we ask your holy permission to go and spend an absolute fortune on replacing a roof which has fallen down because it is 150 years old and really your responsibility but we know our place and know we will have a struggle taking you to court because you are rich but in the meantime, we are more concerned that our cows are getting wet, their bedding is getting wet, their hooves are going all funny and the vet had to come in and help; heavens knows how much the vet will charge but he is now miffed as he had to lie in wet too.

Anyhoo, would it be ok? Would it, Sir?

Sorry if I have been asking you the same question for 29 years now and the barn walls have now collapsed due to lack of roof but I now receive a Christmas card from my lawyers so that is a sign that they know me quite well these days.

I don't want to upset you by asking and hope that we won't have visits just as we are sitting in the combine in the middle of the harvest.

The people you send seem to have a funny attitude. It is almost as if they speak down to you. Maybe it is just me.
It is strange but when I received my degree from university, oh yes, I was there, can read and write and everything, I was treated as an equal. Is it my wellies? Your people seem to converse with my wellies.

Can I take this opportunity to ask if you can shift your pheasant pens away from my private water supply? I would hate for them to catch anything from it, especially from the dribbly green bit on the tank. The tank has a wee crack in it but I'm sure the neighbour's sheep will enjoy a bit of water while they go to the tank for shelter when they lamb just beside it. I have even seen sheep on the tank! Fancy. I hope it did not poo too much. I have to give our bairn a bath tonight and he is a wee devil for putting the bathwater in his mouth.
Bairns! It is almost as if they are too young to know not to drink the water!

Well, I'll not hold you back any longer. I know you are too busy to reply to the likes of me but look forward to seeing you in the middle of my standing crop during the shooting season. The fields that you took from us but forgot to compensate us for.
Sorry if my cows and calves got in the way during the big shoot. If I had known that a shoot was going to take place beside our humble abode, I would have shifted the livestock and my bairns.
It nearly gave me a heart attack, all those guns going off beside the house!

I'll write again soon and look forward to seeing you send men in to do the roofs. Please put off raising the rent for a while because the crop has been rejected again this year as it was too wet. If you need oats, we have a big heap of them but they are a little mouldy because the rain came in through the grain shed.

Tug of forelock

Shuffle out backwards on knees wearing hair shirt

Doff of cap

Tenant Farmer

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Give us the Absolute Right to buy our own farms. Give us this right now so our children never have to write letters like this.

End the control and humiliation, the handing over of farm income to lawyers and freeloaders.

Open up the thousands of empty houses and disused land. Perhaps some of Scotland's 22,000 children who are registered as coming from a homeless home may thrive in the fresh country air with the security a home could give them. Some of them may become farmers?

Not tenant farmers, though.

Best clothes and proper water.

This blog is a little bit hurried today.

It is such a funny feeling to have to rush when normally we move along at a much slower pace than I see in towns.

We are grounded by the farm, grounded in a good way. It keeps you down to earth in the truest sense of the words.

This morning, we have to check our stock, feed the children, chickens and ducks, cat, the dogs. Sometimes we remember to include ourselves in the list if everything else is ok.

We are going to speak with a man today and must get ready, all spruced up.

The Farmer has gone to buy some proper water so we can offer the man a cup of tea without e coli in it. No amount of Abernethy biscuits can disguise the fact that you may have inadvertently caused illness to people not used to our water.

I am feeling a bit nervous as we may no longer be the people who live at the farm at the back of beyond, the people who live 100 years out of date, the people who still live in a feudal system.

We are the people who you never hear about and we are merely a drop in the ocean. We are many.
Others will hopefully learn about our way of life and the culture we contribute to.
I hope that it can provide other tenant farmers a platform to stand on and voice how they feel, how they live and how they are treated.

I don't want people to feel scared. Not in 21st Century Scotland.

I want to hold my hand out to them and say "It's ok, you are not alone. Others care deeply for you even although you cannot see them. Take my hand because I am not scared'.

The Farmer lends me his reassuring strength, he is not talkative but when he does speak, his words are calming and wise. I gather my strength from him and our family, his source is from the very earth that he works.

It feels like an electric shock when I see references to our situation on Twitter, Mumsnet, facebook, it brings us back to modern times yet we realise that finally, someone has listened.

Somebody listened and did something about it.

I feel like the burden which we have been carrying has lessened, it no longer breaks your back or reduces you to tears of frustration.

I'd better go and prepare.

It is going to be a big day.

Your support

We are completely astonished and delighted by the incredible support given to us by many people who are outraged to hear of our situation and the plight of other tenant farmers.

It is a scary process, going public yet so many tenants cannot do this as the fear is real.

We have had enough.

We feel that every element of our rights as humans have been stripped bare and we have nothing to hide. We do not want the next generation having to tolerate what we have had to tolerate and fight.
It would not cross our minds to treat our animals the way we have been treated. They deserve better.
People living in sub standard housing, living in fear of recrimination deserve better.

All we ask for is our farmhouse to be wind and water tight plus some heat. We would like clean water too. It is not a lot to ask for.

Tonight, an invisible army walks beside us as we check the livestock, lock the gate then settle for the night. The warmth and protection is palpable and gives us hope.

On behalf of The Farmer, our children, every tenant farmer and myself, we thank you very much.

Awful news

We are doing all we can to keep our farmhouse.

We live quietly, work constantly on the land, never default on the rent; not once in 120 years, regardless of good or bad years.

My husband's family have always maintained the house and buildings but there comes a point when a rotten timber will no longer take a nail or falls apart when painted. The material is deemed finished 'through fair wear and tear' then it is the owner's responsibility to replace.

The farmhouse roof has crumbled 'through fair wear and tear'. It has covered and protected the house since circa 1800, before that it was thatched. I think it is safe to say that the roof has lasted well.

We have asked that the roof be repaired, to no avail. We have asked for years.

Yesterday, a chap from the council came up to look and informed us that a demolition order be served.
There is nothing we can do as it is the landowner's responsibility.

I asked what would happen if we moved in 'in protest' and the answer was chilling.

Once the demolition noticed was served, we would have 28 days to get out. After the 28 days, we would be put into a B&B, probably in Perth.
The children may be removed to 'a place of safety', if we were to inhabit our farmhouse. Our farmhouse which we pay rent and full council tax for.
Our farmhouse with the polluted water supply which we cannot purify due to the landowner demand that our electricity supply be disconnected.
Our farmhouse and our home.

The Farmer and I are utterly stunned.

We have done nothing wrong but due to an unscrupulous landowner, we must take the brunt of a very unfair system. A very unfair system.

This is the 21st Century Clearances which happen by stealth.

Now is the time to insist that tenant farmers like us are given the chance to buy our homes and cease being vessels which feed these parasitic tics of landowners who cannot or will not fulfil their legal obligation.

Please support the tenant farmer.

New additions

The shepherd next door is leaving.

It is sad as he has only recently arrived in the area, the sixth in two years... says a lot about the employer rather than the shepherds.

Next door is a few miles away.

We rarely see our neighbours and besides, the shepherds tend to work long hours up on the hills. We had to ask the shepherd for some advice and after a few attempts, finally got him in.

He and his wife were lovely. I felt sad that they were leaving as I felt a real sense of warmth and friendship in the little while that we chatted with them.
They were very tactful and diplomatic about their reasons for going but I believe that what was left unsaid spoke volumes.

Anyway, we asked if they needed help and they asked if we would care for their ducks and also if we were needing another sheepdog.

Rosie is brilliant at catching escapee poultry and soon we had a car full of ducks, silently hissing and bobbing their necks as a warning, Muscovys all, companions for Bobduck.

I had this little bundle on my lap.

We have named her Grace and she is settling in very well. PieDog was a little miffed at first but he was given lots of reassurance and extra fuss. They are both tumbling around on the grass as I write, chewing one of The Farmer's socks. Brave dogs.

I am surprised that such a little dog can jump up and open a door but she can.

We are back to stair gates and all the safety measures we had when our son was little. I can never remember the day that these things were removed but possibly when he started climbing trees and unlatching safety gates.

We are all back to wearing one slipper or odd socks, a familiar pile of them 'rounded up' and chewed by Grace.

The ducks are overjoyed with the permapuddle and the grain store. Fat little ducks.

We are just waiting for the rough weather to pass and hopefully we will get started on the harvest soon. Sheds are being scrubbed out, combine worked on, paperwork ready.

All would be fairly straightforward if BT had not put a new phone pole at the end of the road. They never told us, just put the thing up (although we still have no phone) - we cannot get past with the combine.

Some of the new farm additions are very welcome.

Others however.....

The shearing

It was very late this year but we finally got the shearing done.

PieDog was thrilled to do the job he was born to do, namely rounding the sheep up and getting them into their pen. He was a joy to work with but we need to do a bit more training on the part when he is supposed to come out of the pen. He sat gleefully, waiting for the sheep to join him and studiously ignored my windmill arm actions and cries of "GET OUT OF THE PEN, PIE, OUT NOW".

It is always a faff rounding up the sheep but we got there. Eventually.

The shearer turned up fairly late at night. He has been busy shearing all over Scotland but it was worth the wait as he is a superb shearer and very couthy with the sheep.

We set up at the side of the field; a wooden board for the shearer to stand on, the shearing gubbins and big battery for power, wool handler to wrap the fleece, The Farmer on standby incase of emergency.

My sheep are enormous. Wensleydale are long legged, long necked, bulky sheep. They are not easy to clip as their skin is soft and papery plus they have masses of wool everywhere. (some breeds of sheep have no wool on their legs or heads and are easier to clip).

The shearer clipped the wool from the first two sheep but the third, a massive hogget, deftly kicked the man quite firmly on the ankle.
"Oh, there was no need to do that" he said quietly.
So the hogget kicked him again and brought the poor man down.

The Farmer switched the shearing machine off immediately as the blade snaked wildly over sheep and shearer. We helped the shearer to his feet and he steadied the big hogget. I noticed that the backside of his trousers had been ripped during the fall.
"That was very uncouth" the shearer said to the hogget.
The hogget eyed the shearer with the look of a teenager who was having his first shave.

'Uncouth' finished me off.

I nipped round the side of the sheep trailer and had a silent weep of laughing, made worse as it would have been impolite to laugh. I tried to look solemn when I came back to roll the fleece.

"Why are you laughing, Mum?" asked Rosie, undiplomatically. She was standing on the other side of the gate with her little brother and my friend, Pandora; a wool spinner extrordinaire. I had promised Pandora the best fleece as she creates the most amazing yarns.

"I had a midge in my eye", I lied. Well, sort of lied as the midges were out in force and we were all being bitten.

The rest of the shearing went without incident apart from having to take the tractor round for lighting. We were all a bit miffed when it became noticably dark around half past nine. Mutters about the impending winter were bandied about and we all tried not to think about the change in the season.

We finished up, loaded the shearers equipment into his truck, carefully stored the newly shorn and still warm fleeces into a safe place and returned the sheep to their field. They looked completely different and it was hard to tell them apart.

The entire shearing had been done very quietly. The shearer's clippers almost silent, unlike our outmoded and outdated ones which sound like an angry swarm of hornets. The sheep were silent and the very evening itself held its breath. Everything was still apart from the clippers and shearer's muscly arm.
We had all been able to converse normally during this shearing.

Not uncouth at all.