9 Life Lessons From The Yorkshire Shepherdess

 

Have you heard of Tony the Pony? If you’re a fan of 'Our Yorkshire Farm' on Channel 5, you’ll know what we’re talking about, but you really don’t have to follow the programme to get on board with The Yorkshire Shepherdess, Amanda Owen, and her common sense approach to family, work, life… and of course, sheep!

Amanda came to Guernsey to speak about her latest book at a recent Guernsey Literary Festival event. She joked that she actually came for the free dinner - as the saying goes, you can take the woman out of Yorkshire - and with her natural approach and down to earth style of talking, it actually felt less like a sell-out literary event and more like listening to Amanda chatting with a friend.

She was refreshingly honest about her ‘thrang’ life. (Yes, we had to look it up too - it means ‘very busy’, which would seem to be an understatement!) Here’s what we learnt about her experiences, her values and her general outlook on life.

 

1.  Follow Your Dreams

Amanda grew up in Huddersfield, describing herself as ‘the girl you would forget’ at school. She was a dreamer and spent long hours looking out of the classroom window, longing to be outdoors. With no farmers in her family it would have been easy to accept a 'townie' life but, inspired by James Herriot’s books on rural life in the Yorkshire Dales, she had a longing to escape to the countryside. A book on hill shepherding was the catalyst that saw her leave ‘normal’ life behind to become a contract shepherdess. She saw an opportunity to follow her dreams - certainly not the easy option at the time - but she went for it. The rest, as they say, is history. Now, Amanda encourages everyone to take the path that makes you happy rather than doing what is expected of you. It's something she tells her children too.

 

2.  Live Life Your Way

People will judge you whatever you do, so Amanda’s advice is to do your best and block out the noise from people who find fault. Take parenting for example. With nine children and a film crew capturing their day to day lives, her parenting skills are often up for debate. Many people believe that by raising her kids on a rural farm, she is giving them the best possible start in life, with a lifestyle that many of us long for. But it's a working farm, and Amanda and her co-parent Clive work hard to hand over big responsibilities to the children from a young age. They have chores, they are responsible for animals and they learn about life and death far sooner than many children do. She believes this makes them more resilient and independent, but there are many people out there who criticise her parenting style, seeing danger at every turn for her kids. Amanda’s response? You can’t please everyone, so do things your way. 

 

3.  Do What's Right For You

Life doesn’t always go to plan. We know that from the pandemic. Covid threw us all a curved ball, and it was a lesson in adapting to the circumstances we found ourselves in. For the Owens, living in one of the most remote places in England, they were used to being self reliant. Things like stocking up on food supplies to see them through harsh winter conditions came naturally to them. But when getting a regular supply of fresh milk was a problem due to deliveries and buying restrictions in supermarkets, they decided to become even more self-sufficient and buy a house-cow! She admits it’s not for everyone, but it made sense to her. 

 

4.  Don’t Conform To Stereotypes

‘You don’t look like a shepherd’ is something that Amanda hears often, and she’s not a fan of the phrase. She may not walk around with ‘a crook and a faraway gaze in her eyes’ at all times, but the shepherdess has the skills to do her job well and she has no plans to dress down just to conform to society’s stereotypes of what a farmer should look like. She does carry her dog whistle around with her at all times though. When she’s not herding sheep with it, it comes in handy with the kids, she joked. She encourages her children to embrace their individual style too. If the youngsters want to wear their best dresses when they’re helping out around the farmyard, that’s fine by her. And why not?  

 

5.  Celebrate Success In All Forms

The mum of nine spoke proudly about all of her children. Her eldest daughter Raven was recently awarded a first class degree in biomedical science and has gone on to study for her masters. Her eldest son Reuben, who wasn’t into studying at school, is just as smart and has set up his own contracting company. Neither have chosen farming, but both have gone on to find success in their own individual ways. Amanda believes that giving them independence and responsibilities from a young age helped them to grow into resilient young adults who know their own minds. And she is clear that whilst academic success should be celebrated, practical skills and problem solving abilities should be seen as equally important, and that’s something society needs to get on board with.

 

6.  Let Kids Be Kids

Amanda and her family spend a huge amount of time together on the farm. Some of the time they’re accompanied by a film crew, but Amanda says what you see is what you get, whether there are cameras there or not. And although the kids feature on the programme, their antics are not scripted - they’re simply kids being kids. Whether they’re horse riding in a pink tutu or dealing with the unfortunately inevitable death of a farmyard pet, their reactions are natural and that's what makes Our Yorkshire Farm so enjoyable. They’re all too busy playing and working on the farm to watch much TV or pay attention to the family's celebrity status, and she believes they’re better off for that. As she says, they know what happened in real life, so they're don't need to watch it back! They simply don't take themselves too seriously, and maybe we can all take something from that, famous or not.

 

7.  Get Back To Nature

Amanda is a very practically minded Yorkshire woman who doesnt have a lot of time to give into trends. Sea swimming was popular in Guernsey long before wild swimming became a thing, we walked around barefoot before we knew about the benefits of 'grounding' and we were spending time in parks and woodland areas before it was called 'forest bathing'. The point being, we all know that we feel good immersing ourselves in nature and the past few years have given us a renewed sense of appreciation for spending time outdoors, which Amanda loves. She firmly believes that as a society we should embrace this renewed connection with nature and appreciation for the countryside. And keep it up - long after the trends die down.

 

8.  Do Your Bit For The Environment

Living off the land, Amanda is acutely aware of climate change and the impact it is having right now, especially on farming in the UK. But she’s an optimist, and she is involved in an environmental initiative that uses fleeces from sheep to block drainage channels on the moors. This helps regulate drainage and reduce peat loss, which in turn locks in carbon, and it has the added advantage that it can stop flooding further downstream. Her enthusiasm for the project was plain to see, and it’s a real life example of a small business adapting in an environmentally friendly way, finding a new market for their product and building business practices that help the planet. We can't all get involved in major projects like this, but the lesson here is to adapt where you can, in environmentally friendly ways. If we all do our bit, it can make a difference. And it's so encouraging to learn about new initiatives like the moors project. We love it! 

 

9.  Step Into The Unknown

When the Owen family started to get attention through programmes such as 'The Dales' and 'New Lives in The Wild' with Ben Fogle, Amanda was asked to head down to London for talks with a publisher about writing a book. A busy farmer and mum, with ‘an E in English and 93 Twitter followers’, writing a book was not something she had previously considered. But reading has always been a big part of Amanda’s life and family life on the farm was obviously a subject close to her heart, so when the offer came through to write about it she embraced it. She has now written five bestselling books, and encourages us all to jump right in if the opportunity comes along to try something new.

 

Her core message? Don’t be afraid to step into the unknown, as you never know where it could lead. If you had told a young Amanda that her future self would be a bestselling author with a sell-out event at the Guernsey Literary Festival, it’s not something she would have believed. But she did come to our island. She enjoyed a swim in Moulin Huet bay, bought herself a Guernsey ("Been there, got the jumper!") and earned her ‘free feed’ by reminding us all that we should follow our dreams and grab opportunities with both hands when they come along.

 

We’re inspired. Thank you Amanda!