Reviewed on Richard and Judy on 1 February 2006. If you have any feeling for the land this will touch you. I was immensely impressed. Richard was brought up on a Yorkshire farm and escaped to become a journalist in London. He returned to help with the sale that was forced upon his family. This charts that, the aftermath and the sadness. It’s a personal portrait of the changes in agriculture, as he reflects on his isolated childhood, spotted with humour, wonderful characters, incidents and drama. It is extraordinarily hard-hitting. You can read it as a charming country tale or as the tragedy that it is. As a farmer’s daughter I was enormously affected.
'It was like being the village idiot with O-levels. I jack-knifed trailers, got outwitted by even the dimmest animals and was dragged through a hedge backwards on a tractor . . .'
Richard Benson was never cut out for the family farm, but he returned from London when his dad had to sell up - and found that their shared loss was part of a profound change in rural life.
'In the house after the sale, dad gave a heavy raspy sigh and sank against my mum. Everything seemed to freeze for a moment as the clock kept ticking . . .'
