Western Daily Press (Saturday)
Rich’s close shave keeps ‘godsend’ charity flying
ADAIRY farmer from South Gloucestershire has smashed his charity fundraising target ten-fold after shaving off his lockdown beard.
Rich Cornock aka ‘ The Funky Farmer’, who lives in Tytherington, shaved off his beard, hair and eyebrows to raise money for the Great Western Air Ambulance Charity (GWAAC).
Mr Cornock initially set out to raise £500, but has since gone on to raise more than £5,000 with more money still due to come in.
The Great Western Air Ambulance serves more than two million people across Bristol, South Gloucestershire, Gloucestershire, North Somerset and Bath and North East Somerset.
Mr Cornock is the custodian of land which has been in his family since 1822. He is well-known within the farming community, particularly for his successful YouTube channel, The Funky Farmer, which has 123,000 subscribers and receives thousands of views every month.
He has also featured regularly on BBC Radio Bristol, BBC Radio Gloucestershire and Radio 4’s Farming Today programme.
He described the work of the Great Western Air Ambulance as a “godsend” and said it means a lot to him and the rest of the farming community.
He said: “Farmers often work alone and in inaccessible places where ‘normal’ help can’t get to in times of a medical emergency so the air ambulance is a godsend and their work is appreciated by us all. Very few people realise that the charity receives no day-to-day government funding and is only kept going by donations like this.”
Mr Cornock started growing his beard at the start of lockdown as a bit of fun and says he had never grown a beard before.
He said: “I decided it would be a good time as I knew I couldn’t see anyone apart from my family, so it didn’t really matter what I looked like!
“Over the ensuing weeks, it grew to the point where people who saw photos said I looked like Tom Hanks from Castaway.”
Anna Perry, CEO of the charity, said: “Rich has raised an incredible amount of money; we’ve been blown away by the support his fundraiser has achieved. The money raised so far will cover the cost of over two potentially lifesaving missions.
“I know I speak for everyone here in the GWAAC team when I say a huge thank you. It’s hard to put into words what this means to families who we help across the region, and we can only do this with the special help of people like Richard within our community.”
A donation of £4,000 is enough to fund two potentially life-saving missions while £6,300 would fund the critical care team (critical care doctors and specialist paramedics) for seven days.
When lockdown restrictions are further lifted, Mr Cornock will be given a tour of GWAAC’s airbase near Bristol and will be shown how his fundraiser has helped.
As another way of showing his appreciation, Mr Cornock made a giant heart out of hay for the Great Western Air Ambulance to observe during a fly by.
He explained: “The air ambulance said they would fly over the area and the farm, so I thought I would make a massive heart out of hay which they could see from up above. I thought let’s give them a bit of love because these guys work really hard.
“They deal with very traumatic incidents and you can’t just leave that at home or switch the computer off. Anyway they sent me a picture looking down and I took one from the ground.”
Mr Cornock and his brother Tom manage 145 acres of countryside and make a living milking a herd of around 80 British Friesian cows.
He published a book in 2010 called A Year on a Dairy Farm which featured more than 200 colour photographs showing life on the farm through the seasons.
Mr Cornock said: “Off the back of that I thought I would try and do a DVD, then I realised I had so much footage it was silly so I started a YouTube channel in 2012.
“I was one of the first agricultural vloggers at the time but over the last few years it has exploded. Back then there wasn’t the term ‘vlogger’.
“I only started putting videos up because I thought the children might be interested in what their dad does for work but now I’ve got a huge audience with viewers from all over the world.”
Mr Cornock has carried on posting his videos of life at the farm on his YouTube channel throughout lockdown.
He said: “I cover every aspect of life on the farm. Last week there was a video of me helping to calve a cow, one week it might be a bit of muck spreading or haymaking, there’s a bit of everything really.
“I am very honest about what I do. When lockdown came we were told we had to cut milk production back by three per cent, so we vlogged about that and how it affected us. I got a bit emotional in that video.”
Mr Cornock added: “I have had some lovely messages from people. Some have been finding lockdown very difficult mentally and have even said I have helped them through lockdown by making videos for them to watch.
“You don’t realise the impact that you can have on someone. I just talk to the camera like I’m talking to someone in person.”