WISE FARMING SAGE

Westcombe Dairy had VIP visitors yesterday: retired dairy farmers Stuart (pictured) & Linda  (not pictured) Hodges. 

Having moved from Cambridgeshire to Buckinghamshire aged nine, I became best friends with their son, Edward; the family dairy farm, Briar Hill, was our weekend and school holidays playground. Edward and I would make Airfix models into the wee small hours and then trundle off to the milking parlour with Stuart in the morning, our stomachs filled with a heady dose of Weetabix and raw milk.

Having not hailed from a farming family, it was the Hodges who got me hooked on dairying, but not coming from a farming family meant a farming life seemed an impossibility for me to pursue, so I went off to muddle about with musicians and old road dogs for a while. 

Then, about 10 years ago I broke the news to Stuart - by then retired, the farm sold - that I was off to study agriculture at university. After the blood drained from his face and he looked at me with profound pity, he said: “Right, we had better get you some proper work” and so began the real farming apprenticeship, with Stuart and a dairying friend of his called Tim. If it hadn’t been for the patience of Stuart putting up with the boy Nicholas scrabbling around at his heels, eternally getting in the way, I wouldn’t be doing what I am doing today (which is: make my Mother cry). 

I’ve come across one or two people who claim to be “cow whisperers”; well the only true cow whisperer I ever met was Stuart, who is a picture of calm and patience with animals. He walks into a field of cows and they all deferentially bow their heads: their Aslan returned; I walk into a field and they either ignore me or suck on me like I am some cheap boiled sweet (like Plodkin the Younger is doing to me in the photograph). Without a doubt, the best stockman I ever did meet. I was most fortunate to have him as the first of the many Wise Farming Sages who have enlightened and continue to enlighten me over the years.