Outstanding in someone else's field

I was a Young Farmer in name only.

Strange really because I had no connection to things rural apart from a distant relative of my father who had a some sort of a farm in Somerset and the fact that our back garden, on the very edge of town, was onto an agricutural field and lots of green things eventually turning golden brown were grown there.

It was just another form of youth club and as most of my friends at the time were sons of the soil I sort of just wandered into it by default. Our local club met weekly at the old coaching inn in the centre of town to discuss activities for charitable fund raising, competing in the various inter-club competitions, listening to guest speakers on subjects ranging from wild field flowers to artificial insemination, treatment of blight in wheat to avoiding nasty work related accidents such as loss of a limb in a baling machine and buying alcohol under age. Drinking was a big feature of membership. This ranged from sneaking a half of cider up to the meeting in the ballroom of the inn through one of the gullible older members, breaking open one of those Double Diamond party kegs at a social function brought about on the flimsiness of excuses such as first blossom on the potato crop, adequate rain in June or start of the shooting season. Disgracefully I got very tipsy and disorientated one Christmas Eve when, after a blurry few hours carol singing around the local farms, I found myself hiding my remaining cans of beer in the porch at the Parish Church before taking up a last remaining seat opposite my bemused family at Midnight Mass. I was told that I sang well, although a bit loud and enthusiastically, by the Vicar.

It was a very active local club and I willingly volunteered for many of the competitions including public speaking and, my favourite, quizzes. I seem to remember, again, in a bit of a blur, that we won a few of these against other clubs in the region. Fortunately, the main subjects were mostly general knowledge and my complete ignorance of things farming was never exposed or put to the test.

The highlight of the year was the County Rally when all the regional clubs came together over a couple of days to partake in more competition. This was usually on a large farming estate and the challenges did include such stalwarts as ploughing a straight furrow, rigging up a tractor with different types of equipment against the clock and animal husbandry. This did tend to highlight how many club members were non farmers but we were catered for, albeit in a rather patronising way, in such competing categories as speed wiring an electrical plug, decorative egg painting and best dressed urban scarecrow.

I like to think us non rural types did add a bit of variety and street-knowledge to the proceedings and were therefore accepted and tolerated even if we were a bit idealistic and naive about what really went on in that industrial sector. I was constantly surprised by the regular disappearance of a field until recently full of nice cows and plump sheep not really thinking that they had been despatched to the abattoir.

I did benefit greatly from my time as a Young Farmer and my children, when growing up, expressed great amazement at my diverse knowledge of rural things and they have remembered, even now in their late teens and early twenties that a green coloured tractor is infinitley better than a blue one, but the red ones are easily the best.