Once a Farmer, always a farmer so they say!

Well our dear resident Cynthia Hobbs was born into farming, she then married a farmer and settled in the Alkham Valley where she lived and raised 4 children. Cynthia told us it would be her dream to visit a farm again, and together with her love for children we arranged with teacher Robyn Fuller to visit Brockhill School, where she met 2 delightful students, Betty Ludlow and Georgia Monkhouse. Who are both are studying Health and Social Care and Betty is a Young Farmer at the school.

The girls took Cynthia on a tour of the school farm. We were told that Brockhill delivers rural based topics from ages 11-18 as well as running a young farmers club. Young Farmers allows students to work in teams getting to know all types of animals and the husbandry involved with caring for them. Brockhill has a working farm and the students are active in striving to achieve awards for their animals at shows in order to raise the price of their products. Students are given an animal to pair up with and work with during the preparation for shows which allows them to create special bonds. The students understand the full process of taking animals to market and the abattoir. The students may not otherwise get the opportunity to work with animals some of which may have never been close up to a cow before.

The visit to Brockhill brought back many memories of Cynthia’s farming days, as well as the many, many times she had collected her son from the very same school during the years he attended Brockhill.

Having spent her life dedicated to farming the morning was a great success and on getting back into the taxi to take her home, in her own words "Crikey, I didn't expect a lovely morning like that when you said come out with me today!"

Quote: There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise. Robert Green Ingersoll (American writer and orator)