The Shepherd's Life (32 page)

Ours is not such a large, or tough, fell farm as West Head—it is a cabbage patch by comparison—but when I go to the fell I know what he means. Once tasted it would be hard to walk away from.

This is an ancient, hard-earned, local kind of freedom that was stolen from people elsewhere. The kind of freedom that the nineteenth-century peasant poet John Clare wrote about. He lamented the changes in the Northamptonshire landscape he loved because of enclosure. He saw the disconnection that was being created between people like him and the land, something that has only gotten worse with each passing year since then. Across most of England, over the past couple of centuries, common land has been enclosed, until only islands of it have been left, in poor or mountainous places like ours where something older remains. Ours is a rooted and local kind of freedom tied to working common land, the freedom of the commoner, a community-based relationship with land. By remaining in a place, working on it, and paying my dues, I am entitled to a share of its commonwealth.

Working up these mountains is as good as it gets, at least as long as you are not freezing or sodden (though even then you feel alive in ways that I don't in modern life behind glass). There is a thrill in the timelessness up there; I have always liked the feeling of carrying on something bigger than me, something that stretches back through other hands and other eyes into the depths of time. To work there is a humbling thing, the opposite of conquering a mountain if you like; it liberates you from any illusion of self-importance. I am only one of the current graziers on our fell (and one of the smaller and more recently established ones at that), a small link in a very long chain. Perhaps no one will care that I owned the sheep that grazed part of these mountains in a hundred years' time. They won't know my name. But that doesn't matter. If they stand on that fell and do the things we do, they will owe me a tiny unspoken debt for once keeping part of it going, just as I owe all those who came before a debt for getting it this far.

When I leave my flock in the fells for summer and come down home, I leave something of myself up there with them. So several times a day I look away to the skyline where they graze. Sometimes I can't help myself, and go back up the fell just to see that all is well. The skylarks ascend, singing, disturbed by my boots and the sheepdogs.

The sheeps' evident satisfaction to be back where they feel at home means that winter and spring are fast receding behind us. The fell sheep can largely look after themselves in the coming weeks. So I lie down by the beck and cup out a handful of water. I slurp it. There is no water tastes so sweet and pure.

Then I roll over on my back and watch the clouds racing by. Floss lies in the beck cooling off, and Tan nuzzles into my side, because he has never seen me lazing about. He has never seen me stop like this.

He has never seen summer before.

I breathe in the cool mountain air.

And watch a plane chalking a trail across the blue of the sky.

The ewes call to the lambs, following them as they climb up the crags.

This is my life.

I want for no other.

 

Acknowledgements and Thanks

It is humbling to discover when writing your first book how many people work hard to make it happen. The words and photos are mine, but a lot of other people are responsible for the book being in your hands.

Thank you to all of you; I have loved writing this book.

Thanks to my agent, Jim Gill, of United Agents, who sold this book before I had even met him. Jim believed in this book and helped me find the right publisher. With a young family and other commitments, I needed an advance to be able to write this book, and Jim got it for me. I knew nothing about the world of publishing, so Jim guided me through that too.

Thank you.

Thank you to the other editors who tried to buy the rights to this book; your interest and kind words encouraged me and reinforced my sense that it mattered and could work.

Huge thanks to Helen Conford, my brilliant editor at Penguin. Helen was willing to invest in me to write a book that was then still largely in my head. Helen believed in it, and from our first conversation I knew she was brave and respected what I was trying to do. I needed a great editor and I got one.

Thanks also to Casiana Ionita, Stefan McGrath, and the rest of the brilliant team at Penguin.

Thanks to Colin Dickerman, James Melia, Martha Schwartz, and the rest of the team at Flatiron Books.

Thanks to Alexis Madrigal and Robinson Meyers at
Atlantic Monthly
who helped this book to happen by publishing an article in November 2013.

Thanks to Richard Eccles at
Cumbria Life
magazine for printing my monthly column, and giving me the freedom to do things that helped me write this book.

Thanks to the more than thirty thousand people who follow our farm on Twitter (@herdyshepherd1) and who have been hugely supportive and encouraging. I've learnt loads from you. You might be surprised my name is on the book.… I have clung to being anonymous as long as I could get away with it! I have no interest in personal celebrity; our way of life is much more important than me.

A lot of people have helped me to try to understand the literary and artistic history of the Lake District—I thank them all. Particular thanks are due to the following people:

Professor Angus Winchester, Lancaster University. Angus is a proper historian and has, in person and through his books, taught me a great deal about our landscape and its past. John Hodgson, Lake District National Park Authority, has been endlessly helpful and patient and has tried to help me to understand the evidence of the human history of the Lake District. Linda Lear's excellent biography of Beatrix Potter was an excellent resource that helped me to write about her and her shepherds. I've also learned a great deal from the development of the Lake District's World Heritage nomination process over several years; thanks are due the members of the Technical Advisory Group 2. Even when I sometimes didn't agree with you, I was learning. My debates with Ian Brodie at Lancaster University helped me sharpen my ideas and understand better opposing or different perspectives, like those guiding the creation of Friends of the Lake District or the development of the national park. Thanks to Michael McGregor, Geoff Cowton, and the late Robert Woof at the Wordsworth Trust—who all helped me better understand Wordsworth. My friend Terry McCormick was crucial in helping me understand the writings of Wordsworth about farming and shepherds. Eric Robson was a great support and shared ideas and Wainwright anecdotes with me (he tells me Wainwright was fascinated by the fell shepherds when they met).

Any flaws and inaccuracies that remain are mine and mine alone.

Thanks also to William Humphries, Rose Dowling, Mike Clarke, and Emma Redfern, for reading the final draft and making comments.

Thanks to all the excellent people I have been fortunate to meet around the world at World Heritage sites and through UNESCO, who have helped me to understand why stories and rooted identities matter, and what a “cultural landscape” really means.

Heartfelt thanks go to Mrs. Judith Craig of Morland Primary School who helped me to love books and learning and who encouraged me later on from a distance.

*   *   *

This book tells the story of me, my dad, and my grandfather—but truth be told I can't credit them with the book itself. They weren't book people. Instead the women in our family deserve some credit.…

Thanks for everything, Mum. You helped me to love books. And thanks for listening to me ramble on about books or ideas while we worked on the farm or while you were ironing or cooking, etc. I'm sorry I put you through stuff. I know you are deeply private, so I am sorry if the book embarrasses you. I felt it had to be honest and open or it wouldn't work.

Thank you to my kids, Molly, Bea, and Isaac, just for being you and being there (even when I needed peace and quiet and didn't get it … it still got done). I don't care if you become farmers or not; I just hope this book helps you to understand us and go into the world knowing who we are. Proud. They can't take away the stuff in your head and your heart. Hold on to it.

Thanks to my wife, Helen, for everything. You have always been my best friend. You worked so hard with me on this book, and on everything else we do. It's been mad, a roller-coaster ride. Most people get beaten back by life, but your support helped me stubbornly hold on to the dreams I had. And someone has to pick up the pieces when I'm mentally AWOL. I could barely hold a pen when I met you, and I didn't really understand grammar or the rules, so thank you for being patient and putting up with me.

Thanks to the farming people I grew up amongst and who I am proud to call my friends. There are too many of you to name individually, but thank you one and all. This is my version of the story of my family, but there is nothing exceptional about us—we are just one of hundreds of such families. This is just one story, one perspective, amongst many. I hope the book helps other people to see what we all do, and show it greater respect in the future. I don't want to lose the amazing patchwork of family farms that make this landscape what it is, and I don't think many other people do either. Keep going.

Finally, thank you to my dad for everything.

I hope this book makes clear how much I love and respect you.

Keep fighting.

 

About the Author

JAMES REBANKS
runs a family-owned farm in the Lake District in northern England. A graduate of Oxford University, James works as an expert advisor to UNESCO on sustainable tourism. He uses his popular Twitter feed, @herdyshepherd1, to share updates on the shepherding year. You can sign up for email updates
here
.

 

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