Readers' Memories: A Farmer's Boy - Craig Gardner reminisces about Dick French
Memories of Dick French submitted by Craig Gardner
Richard French or Dick as he was known to all and sundry was a sheep farmer at Brendon Barton Farm high up on the edge of Exmoor. Married to his loyal and long suffering wife Lorna for over 50 years he was a legendary figure on the Moor.
He knew precisely what the weather was going to do an hour before it happened; he knew exactly where to go to see a stag or a new born deer calf and knew every single one of his 2000 Exmoor Horn and Masham Ewes individually and almost by name, he was also my friend. I was born in inner city Birmingham in 1970 and from the age of 8 I idolised Dick and he became a Father figure to me over the next 20 years before his death. From a very young age I was allowed to spend all of my school holidays on his 365 acre working sheep farm and relished the fresh air, the hard work and above all else the freedom that the smallest but arguably most beautiful of Britain’s National Parks gave me.
Dick taught this inner city tearaway to be a sheep farmer by learning through the school of hard knocks, just as he had as a boy. He taught me how to deliver breech twin lambs, how to shear, how to ride and how to shoot and how to skin a dead lamb and put the skin onto an orphaned lamb thereby convincing the mother to rear the orphan and not waste the valuable colostrum milk. Through Dick’s careful tutelage and robust but loving hand, Exmoor slowly but surely weaved its bewitching and magical spell over me.
Dick’s father liked to drink and had squandered the farm away over the years. Dick and Lorna slowly but surely bought every single acre back through back breaking hard work. Working for the council by day he helped to build all of the roads around the National Park and by night worked in the fields by the light of the harvest moon scything corn and working to build up his flock of pure breed Exmoor Horns. Dick didn’t believe in combine harvesters and used to harvest his corn each year by using an antique binder. The machine used to spend as much time broken down as it did working and used to consume huge quantities of grease but it did its job solidly and well. They say that behind every successful man is a woman rolling her eyes and Lorna surely did do a lot of eye rolling over the years!
Dick gamely resisted technology and was definitely not a fan of television or radio. He did however weaken when he was bought a cordless telephone and used to sit in front of the log burner on winter evenings catching up with friends and making sure his rota of lambing hands was in place and booked up in advance or arranging the next sing song at the Rockford Inn which was one of his favourite local watering holes.
Dick was also a legendary folk singer and regularly entertained all comers with Exmoor classics such as “Three men went a hunting” and “Dewlocks sausage meat machine” which were all famous parts of his repertoire. His favourite song however was “Farmers Boy” which aptly described his own hard and unforgiving childhood and he used to sing the song with huge gusto opening with the line “The sun had sunk behind yon hill, across yon dreary moor, when wet and cold there came a boy, up to a farmer's door”.
Once a decision was made Dick would not be swayed or influenced no matter how compelling the argument. We once had a feed sales rep turn up and try to convince Dick to make a large purchase. After endless cups of teas the salesman despairingly demanded to know how what Dick used to fill his Ewes up with in the Winter, “plenty of Rams “ Dick responded to peals of laughter and the rep left shortly thereafter with his tail firmly between his legs.
Dick tolerated the motor car as a necessary evil but given his age was not very keen on reversing as he had to lift his leg onto the clutch pedal of his old Land Rover. On one instance we met an aggressive American on a narrow country lane who demanded Dick reverse to allow him past. Dick said there was no need for him to reverse as there was a passing place just behind the Americans car. When the visitor asked how he knew that, Dick simply told him that he had built the roads so he was sure it was still there! The visitor still refused to move so Dick simply pulled his cap over his eyes and went to sleep. The visitor reluctantly reversed and we passed on our way with Dick chuckling to himself.
Roast dinners were an everyday feature of life at Brendon Barton farm and Dick was a very firm fan of gravy and always used to say the nearer the bone the sweeter the meat and could regularly be found drinking a mug of hot beef gravy. After a long days farming and on his way to bed he also used to say he was off up those golden stairs.
He taught me to ride by getting me to help him break in wild Exmoor ponies which would then be sold at the Stowe horse fair every October and I used to ride out regularly with the Devon and Somerset Fox and Stag Hounds and ride point to point whenever the occasion arose. Highlights used to be gathering the sheep from the common every year when they were brought in to be dipped and sheared. Even now at the age of 41 I can still recall from memory all of the fields and their unique individual names. Oldfield, Big Scobhill, Mead, Browns Pen, Brimclose, three corner field, West Ground, Dudleys Field etc.
As Dick got older we used to spend companionable hours in front of the log burner with him nodding off and occasionally instructing me to “put another piece of stick on the fire”.
My favourite party trick is Cow calling. Dick used to be able to call cows from 500 metres away with a weird blend of English and what I can only describe as cow speak! Whatever he said the cows knew it was feeding time and used to come running over to him. Dick passed this skill onto me and I occasionally do it to amaze family and friends on walks in rural Herefordshire where we now live. Another of his favourite tricks was testing whether electric fences were turned on by rubbing his bald head against them. He used to say that it made him feel “squiffed up” or drunk!
My friendship with Dick and Lorna developed in this boy from Birmingham a deep and long lasting love affair and affinity with the countryside and a clear understanding and link between the food on our plates and how it gets there. It also gave me a much cherished glimpse into a world that existed long before the plethora of modern technology of broadband and mobile phones and laptop computers when life was slower and more in tune with the seasons and for this I will be eternally grateful. In time my wife Sara joined me to work on the farm and she became a firm favourite with Dick with him telling her she would make a fantastic farmers wife! Dick died after a short illness in December 1999 and Lorna passed away suddenly some 18 months later. They lie together, buried side by side in death, just as they were in life and are interned together at Brendon Church overlooking their fields and the land that they loved so much. I am now the father of two wonderful boys and we visit Exmoor regularly and I show them the farm and tell them lots of stories that they don’t believe as they are so incredulous but are so true. I really wish my children could have met Dick and spent a few hours in his company.
Craig Gardner
12 May 2011
