My old grandad had a farm...and agricultural methods of the past
Canada to New Zealand prize the superb flavour and melting texture of Galloway beef.
“I burned with pride to hear Galloway beef being celebrated across the world. Maybe I couldn’t make conservation pay the bills, but there was clearly cash to be found in fine farm produce.”
From buying his first heifer seven years ago, Patrick’s herd has grown to 12 breeding cows and a bull, and he sees the farm as a lifetime’s work he can leave to his baby son, Finn.
“I’ve taken huge value from knowing where I’m from and from having a sense of place. Even if Finn goes off to live in Las Vegas, I know I’ll have given him a grounding in this place.”
Patrick has seen other farmers’ attitudes to his methods change and would like to see more farms go back to the old ways.
“They can see the point of what I’m doing and are more open-minded,” he said. “Farming is in a precarious state and they are looking with interest at what I’m doing.
“I hope in a small way that this kind of farming helps save our vanishing landscape.”
Sam Glass, who was locked up longer than anyone else in the country, left the sum, which he accrued in benefits during his 51 years in the State Hospital and a secure clinic.
He decreed his estate should go to Renfrewshire- based social care group Quarriers but the charity refused the cash.
Glass spent 49 years at the State Hospital at Carstairs after he indecently assaulted, stabbed and strangled a five-year-old girl in a disused railway tunnel in 1967.
He was transferred to the mediumsecurity Rowanbank Clinic, next to Glasgow’s Stobhill Hospital, for his final few years. It cost more than £ 10 million at today’s prices to detain him.
He received benefits throughout his life as he was classified as a patient. Documents benefits and spent little from week to week so the money added up.”
For mer Detective Super i ntendent Joe Jackson, who worked in Glasgow at the time Glass was detained, said: “Decent people pay for these patients to be cared for and then they’re paid benefits on top of it for doing nothing. It’s quite ludicrous really.”
Glass molested, stabbed and strangled five-year-old Jean Hamilton near her home in the city’s Bridgeton. She was found in a disused rail tunnel between Dalmarnock and Bridgeton Cross. Glass, then 20, was ordered to be detained at Carstairs without limit of time.
While prisoners do not re c e i v e benefits, restricted patients, including those who killed or committed serious sexual offences, are eligible for Employment and Support Allowance of more than £ 200 per fortnight, on top of the costs of their care and detention.
The Department for Work and Pensions said: “Where a judge or court, using all available evidence, decides a prison sentence is not appropriate but instead refers a person to a hospital or institution, the law requires us to treat them in the same way as any other hospital in-patient. “Although unwell, such patients have no opportunity to work due to their detention and have all living costs paid or by the state.”