3May 2009 CUMBRIA FARMER FarmingLife
`I'm about to enter what I can
only describe as an emergency
maternity ward in a war zone'
I
t's not the usual way I spend
Tuesday morning. Most
weeks, I get up at eight,
have a leisurely breakfast,
am in work by 9.30 for a long
meeting, then check my 50
emails before starting the day's
work.
But here on a farm in wildest
Cumbria, my alarm goes off at
5.30am. It doesn't matter, I've been
awake since four anyway � I don't
want to miss a minute.
I'm about to enter what I can
only describe as an emergency
maternity ward in a war zone.
Only it's baby lambs that are
being born, and at the rate of 10 to
20 a day.
Perched precariously behind
Mike on a quad bike, we roam the
fields in the early dawn, on the
lookout for newborns. Mike chats
away in words I only half-guess
the meaning of � yows, hoggs,
cake, gutters. The only use I am is
to jump off the bike and open the
gates for him � which isn't as easy
as it looks.
There seem to be so many
ways to secure a gate: they have
clips, hooks, bars � there are
idiosyncratic ones you have to
stand on to get them shut, and
novelty ones where blue string
has to be looped over a post. I
take rather a long time to work
each of these out, but Mike is
very patient.
The day begins quietly, but as
time wears on, the emergencies
come thick and fast: a sheep has
to have its lamb pulled out;
there's one who was `in the dead
position' who it turns out is alive
but can't stand on his hind legs
and won't survive; and around
lunch-time, the other farmer,
Richard, brings in a lamb in his
arms like the shepherd finding
the lost sheep.
I'm dispatched to the Aga to put
the lamb in the bottom oven and I
watch him shiver for 45 minutes
wondering if every breath is his
last. But after he wets himself in
the oven, I decide there's life in
him yet.
No matter that he's dripping
down my Berghaus jacket, I take
him back to his mum. Once he's
had an injection of mother's milk
down his throat, he stands up
shakily on his legs for the first
time. It's a great and deeply sat-
isfying feeling.
Although I understand that his
final end is inevitably coming,
that's still a long, hot summer
away � and better than dying on
your first day.
But the fact remains that the
lambs are destined to be slaugh-
tered, and their mothers too, one
day.
And it's hard work. I did it for
just one day, but Mike does it
every day for at least six weeks. At
10.30 in the morning, I sat down
with a cup of tea and nearly dozed
off in the chair. In my usual job,
I'd only just be gearing up to
make my first phone call.
When I finally took my boots off
at 7.15 that night, I wanted food
and bed and nothing else.
But I also found my day's lamb-
ing oddly relaxing. Yes, it was
physically exhausting, but also
mentally refreshing � like going
on a retreat.
At work in the city, I have a
hundred decisions to make an
hour. Here I just had to figure out
how to open the gate.
Family's proud history of showing
A RECENT look at a picture hang-
ing on Edward and Valerie Erring-
ton's wall at Beckhouse Farm,
Embleton, revealed the family had
been trading with Penrith auction
mart for a century.
The picture shows Edward's grand-
father William, of Sockbridge Hall,
winning the spring dairy show in
1909 with one of his shorthorn cows.
Farmers travelled from all over
the north of England to buy the best
shorthorn cows in Penrith in time
for the summer show season.
Edward Errington said: "Even
when I was a child, I remember the
spring show and sale being a great
event with tremendous rivalry
between local breeders.
"For generations we have always
enjoyed showing and selling cattle."
The picture was given to the
Erringtons after being found in a
house in Bothel.
Today, a fourth generation of the
Erringtons, Alan, who farms at
Sockbridge Hall, is showing and
selling cattle at the mart, now
known as Penrith and District
Farmers Mart.
Last month, Sara Conkey, a BBC Radio 4 producer based in Birmingham, deserted her desk and
did a 36-hour shift on Anthorn Farm at the peak of the lambing season. This is her lambing tale
Exhausted: Sara, right, at the lambing sheds in Anthorn with Hannah Wiles, baby Mickey and Bel the dog
The day job: Sara at her desk in the
BBC radio studios in Birmingham
100 years ago: William Errington wins the spring dairy show at Penrith in 1909

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