Moo-ving insight into bovine life set to be Christmas bestseller
A book by farmer Rosamund Young has become a publishing phenomenon thanks to its touching tales of how her cows play games, nurse grudges and even kiss
MELANIE TYRRELL, a sales rep for top London publisher Faber & Faber, was in a bookshop when she overheard a customer asking for a paperback called The Secret Life Of Cows only to be told it was out of print.
Shortly afterwards she was reading a copy of the playwright Alan Bennett’s diaries and spotted a line which read: “I am reading The Secret Life Of Cows by Rosamund Young, a delightful book… it alters the way one looks at the world.”
As Laura Hassan, Faber’s editorial director, says: “It was too odd a coincidence to pass up. I got hold of a second-hand copy and fell in love with the glorious storytelling and Young’s gentle, warm voice.
“At Kite’s Nest Farm the cows roam free and are known by name rather than number – Horatio to Desdemona, Mrs Ogmore and Mrs Pritchard, Straw Béret and the orphan calf Jane Eyre – and they have personalities as diverse as our own.
“She shows us how cows make friends, play games, nurse grudges, babysit for each other, grieve and form life-long friendships. Drawn from over 40 years of farming, it’s a little gem of animal sentience.”
Faber duly bought the rights and published a new version of Young’s “little gem” with a laudatory foreword by Bennett.
It immediately became one of the surprise hits of the autumn. Since its publication last month Young’s pean to cow sense and sensitivity has sold more than 16,000 copies and is currently No 6 on the general hardback chart for the second week in a row. It is even outselling Robbie William’s biography, which was released with a massive marketing push at about the same time and is tipped to be a Christmas bestseller.
And it is not just Brits who appreciate Young’s beguiling insights into her 113-strong herd. The international rights were sold at “extraordinary speed” and the book is now on sale in 21 countries, including the US, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Finland, Denmark, Norway, Holland and Sweden.
No one is more surprised by this reaction than Young who was simply acting on the urging of a visiting author when she started to collect her soothing observations back in 1995.
“He suggested I should write down a story I had just recounted to him about a cow because he found it interesting and expressed the hope that I would write down any others,” she says. “Once he had gone home I decided to do so and found I enjoyed remembering such incidents.”
And a great many incidents there were. The author was just 12 days old in 1953 when her parents began farming Kite’s Nest, a 390acre farm in the Cotswolds, which became a pioneer of organic methods 20 years later.
Today, she continues the family tradition of treating its herd of cattle there as individuals with varied personalities and tastes, rather than as identical units of livestock.
Jake, a prize bull, is addicted to sniffing carbon monoxide fumes from Land Rover exhaust pipes. Others are picky about food. Some are vain or reluctant to go to bed with muddy ankles.
“A field of cows is just a field of cows unless you know them,” says Young. “Some are easier to like than others but I admire those who are not friendly as much as I like the ones who are.”
She has never held a full passport and rarely leaves the farm, which she manages in partnership with her partner Gareth and older brother Richard. “I certainly wouldn’t want to unless I knew I could leave someone really kind and competent in charge,” she says. “I am 64 and possibly realised my ‘destiny’ as soon as I could think. I certainly never seriously considered doing anything else.” Her central thesis is that cows (and sheep and chickens) are far more complex than people realise – although some can be stupid and stubborn.
“Cows are as varied as people,” she argues. “They can be highly intelligent or slow to understand; friendly, considerate, aggressive, docile, inventive, dull, proud or shy. All of these characteristics are present in a large herd.”
It turns out that cows object to perfume but they love to be soothed by having their flanks stroked. They enjoy conversations with one another, are “besotted” by their newborns, and form devoted friendships with their peers – with whom they “discuss” the weather and calf-rearing strategies. What’s more, they go for walks, play hideand-seek, hold running races – as well as grudges – and even kiss.
Young has also noted that a cow grieves for a dead calf far longer than for its mother and recommends that grieving cows be given the opportunity to “talk to” other members of their immediate family. “Good food, grooming and sometimes the distraction of a change of surroundings may help to speed the process of forgetting,” she explains.
Cows moo for different reasons including “fear, disbelief, anger, hunger or distress”. And beware a cow who is shaking its head at you – it means it is feeling very cross indeed.
“I don’t really consider I am studying them,” Young says. “I’m just getting on with the day-to-day business of farming while enjoying the individual characteristics of the animals here.”
ALL but a handful of the cows on her farm are descended from her parents’ herd and while every cow at Kite’s Farm is named at birth (and cheerfully nicknamed thereafter) this doesn’t stop Young getting on with the business for which they were bred. “I personally find it easier to stay healthy by including meat in my diet,” she explains.
“If there were no livestock farmers there would be no animal manure to fertilise crops. It is also critically important to maintain grassland as it stores carbon, which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere”.
But she is passionate about ethically produced food. “If you choose to buy meat you should know where it came from, who produced it and how it was reared and cared for.”
And Young very much hopes people are buying the book because of an increasing awareness of cows’ sentient natures.
After reading her book it is difficult not to agree with Alan Bennett’s foreword. “It’s a book that alters the way one sees things,” he writes, “And passing a field of cows nowadays I find myself wondering about their friendships and their outlook, notions that before reading Young’s book I would have thought fanciful, even daft. Not any more.”
To order The Secret Life Of Cows by Rosamund Young, published by Faber and Faber in hardback at £9.99, please call the Express Bookshop with your card details on 01872 562310. Or send a cheque or postal order made payable to The Express Bookshop to: Cows Offer, PO Box 200, Falmouth, TR11 4WJ or visit expressbookshop.com UK delivery is free.