How a clapped-out tractor helped me find true love
MY SISTER swept in on a breeze of glamour and scent. Caroline is a blonde bombshell, sophisticated and tastefully dressed, but hardy as they come. She can lamb a sheep as well as anyone. She’s not a farmer (she has more sense) but had been a godsend to me in the weeks after I had broken my back when my parents’ quad bike overturned while I was herding sheep for them.
Caroline and my other sister, Elizabeth – respectively three and seven years younger than me – are my greatest friends. Growing up on the family farm, we were always full of mischief.We also fought like cat and dog; to this day, I still bear the scars of some of the vicious battles we got ourselves into.
“Are you living on cereal?” Caroline had stepped through the front door and into the kitchen, where she was confronted with all the bowls in the sink. “And have you got all the dogs in the house?” She sniffed at the distinct aroma of work dogs. It was true, I had let things slip since my accident.
‘Are you living on cereal? And have you got the dogs in the house? It was true, I had let things slip’
Following a series of setbacks, a new farming project, a handsome Scottish fireman and an embarrassing mechanical failure combine to bring the change of luck Emma richly deserves in our final extract from her memoir
I HAD left hospital on a sunny June day wearing a corset brace from my neck to my hips. I stayed at my parents’ farm while I healed and got used to the brace, and one of the first jobs I did on my arrival was ring up and cancel all my forthcoming contractual work shepherding. I hated doing it. I felt guilty and unreliable.
Even worse, it meant I had zero income until I was able to work again. I was used to getting by on very little, but this was supposed to be one of my most profitable times of the year. I had my lambing money, of course, but I’d been planning to invest it in things for the farm rather than fritter it away just existing.
AFTER a few weeks I was at last allowed back to Fallowlees, the National Trust farm in Northumberland where I’d taken the tenancy two years earlier aged 23, becoming Britain’s youngest solo shepherdess. I was delighted to be home. Restricted by my brace, I couldn’t bend down or pick anything up but I was mobile. This lack of structure gave me a lot of time for contemplation about where I was going and what I wanted. My dreams seemed so outrageously big, so unreachable.
As well as giving up contract work, I wanted to be better at competing with dogs at trials, I wanted to improve the appearance of Fallowlees – to get rid of junk, to keep it tidy – and, finally, I really wanted someone to share it all with. I thought of how the year had panned out up until now – breaking up with Dan, my dog Bill’s death, the attack on my sheep, and now this.
Perhaps I wasn’t cut out for this life after all? Now Caroline told me: “You really should try dating again. There are loads of options these days. Have you heard of Tinder? It’s a new dating app. Now you have mobile reception up here it’ll be so much easier. It doesn’t take a minute.”
Until recently, reception at Fallowlees had been so poor I had to rely on a temperamental satellite, which only worked on nice days and when the swallows weren’t perched on top of it. The arrival of 3G had revolutionised my life.Well, it had made me feel less isolated. I downloaded the app. It couldn’t do any harm, I reasoned. I didn’t have to do anything about it if I didn’t want to.
By that afternoon, it had already produced results: “Look, I’ve matched with this guy, a firefighter from Galashiels.” Caroline took the phone from me. “Mmmm, looks nice. But you know, being in the fire service is the most lied-about occupation on Tinder.”
With his blue and white face paint and Scotland rugby top, I was reminded of Mel Gibson in the film Braveheart. “Ping a message,” Caroline said. I had nothing to lose.
NOVEMBER 5, Guy Fawkes Night, was chilly and mizzly – a typical autumnal Northumberland day. Some of the leaves remained on the trees, but they would all be gone in the next big storm. It’s this time of year when the farming calendar really begins for me. Sheep mated on Bonfire Night start lambing on April Fools’ Day, the traditional start for upland farms. “In with a bang, out like a fool,” the old saying goes.
After a long text flirtation, I was finally going to meet the firefighter I had met on Tinder. Ewan Irvine had volunteered to give me a hand moving my flock to a new farm. So today, rather weirdly, was going to be our first date. I had entered into a farming partnership with John and Rosalind Murray. The farm was called Healey Mill and was a 25-minute drive away, near the village of Netherwitton.
I would, effectively, be in charge of it with 240 acres of ground at my disposal, rentfree, in return for looking after 200 ewes. I would need to stay on at Fallowlees but that suited me. My heart was jumping as I saw the new place laid out in front of me. I had my own steading, a cattle shed and some sheep pens set firmly in concrete.
But the land was the real jewel in the crown. The terrain consisted mostly of rolling hills, with some rougher land. Some of the fields were edged by trees, others were almost arable. It was, in short, the perfect land for schooling sheepdogs. I knew I could really turn my dogs into something here.
Ewan would meet me at Healey Mill, where he would hopefully be wowed by my new tractor-trailer combo as well as my amazing organisational skills.Then he would help me with a job that was hard on my own
– to colour (or raddle) the tups (rams). Ewan assured me he would be happy to help; it would be an experience if nothing else.
In truth, I would rather have met him on neutral ground, but with my work and his shift pattern, we both realised it might be the only way we’d manage a date.
In some ways, I felt I already knew Ewan. He was divorced and had two young children who lived with their mother, and whom he saw regularly. He seemed confident but also self-effacing, always a good sign, and I often found myself smiling when reading his texts.
I saw the best of him when my yellow goddess broke down en-route to Healey Mill and I couldn’t unlink the trailer. Ewan came to rescue me. He donned a pair of overalls from the boot of his car (how organised) and gave the tractor tow a hefty bang with a hammer from his toolkit (also in the back of his car). This was my kind of man! The tractor (which had turned out to be not quite as impressive as I’d hoped) released her grip and we left the sheep and trailer with a bewildered farmer as Ewan ran me across to Healey Mill to borrow another tractor. So much for the capable, organised farmer he had been supposed to meet. As I installed myself in the passenger seat, I realised what a mess I must look. My face felt flushed from the exertion, my hands were covered in grease, my nicely blowdried hair was now in a mangled ponytail.
“I’m so sorry. And thank you! But honest, this is my life all over,” I sighed. But at the end of the afternoon, the job completed, I realised I hadn’t laughed so much in ages. My stomach was hurting. As well as joining in my laughter often at his own expense – Ewan asked lots of questions about my work. He seemed genuinely interested. Dare I hope that there might be a future for us?
BY THE time Ewan asked me to marry him, there was only one answer. Yes! We were married in the registry office in Kelso, close to my parents’ house, and had a big party back at Fallowlees. Ewan looked very fetching in his kilt.
It was wonderful to have all our nearest and dearest together in the place that had been my mainstay. I had grown up here. I had arrived as a naive 23-year-old and I was now 32.
Little did our friends know, but I had been drinking orange juice all night. Ewan and I had only told our families about the baby, given I was just a few weeks’ pregnant. I was induced on the evening of April 9, 2019, and our son Len was born, my biggest challenge yet. Everyone – myself included – assumed that as I was so maternal with animals, I would be a natural mother. But after a difficult birth I didn’t get that lightning bolt of overwhelming love. That took longer. A sheep in the same situation would have rejected her offspring outright.
I had imagined going straight back to work, lambing with baby in tow. What an idiot I was. Gradually, with Ewan’s help, I kicked the baby blues. Spring turned into summer and life was sweet again.
Today I can’t imagine life without my little helper.
‘We married in Kelso, with all our families together. Ewan looked very fetching in his kilt’
●●Copyright © Emma Gray 2021. Extracted from My Farming Life by Emma Gray, published on Thursday by Sphere at £16.99. For free UK delivery, call Express Bookshop on 01872 562310 or order via www. expressbookshop.co.uk