Taking Home the Bacon No Longer! (The Farm - Richard Benson)

Member Name: skidd

Product:	The Farm - Richard Benson
Date:	22/08/07 (186 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An engaging true story, moving, funny and quite educational

Disadvantages: Subject matter may not appeal to all

If anybody had told me I would enjoy reading a book about the effect of changing consumer demands and habits, the growth of large supermarket chains and the effects of these factors on British farmers and the countryside, I would have been very sceptical. But, whilst Richard Benson’s book delivers a very clear message on these themes, it is very different because it is his own personal and very moving account of the fate of his farming family, told in a very engaging manner with great humour and brilliant observation.

Benson’s family worked on the land in the West Yorkshire for generations but he never took to farming being clumsy when it came to farm machinery and unable to even “ shoo a pig along without falling over”. Fifteen years after he left for London and established himself as a journalist, he received news that his father and brother were giving up the struggle to run the pig and arable farm where he had grown up. With the farm facing mounting debts, the bank had forced upon them the decision to sell all the assets so that they could, at least, hold on to the house.

During his frequent home visits to assist his mother father and brother in the arrangements for the sale and support them through their subsequent period of readjustment, Benson started to write the notes and observations on which this book is based. He describes the history of his close, loving but undemonstrative family and his upbringing in a house where it was considered normal to find sick piglets tumbling out of their warming place in the oven and equally commonplace to return from school to find their mother butchering a pig’s carcase at the kitchen table. Juxtaposed with such reminiscences is the story of the last days of the Benson farm together with thoughts on the widespread demise of such farms and the consequent changes in the rural economy and landscape.

There are some poignant moments most noticeably the description of the evening after the farm sale when his father, who has handled the whole affair with dignity and without bitterness, sits quietly in the farmhouse kitchen. His wife wraps her arms around him and he finally succumbs to his grief. “Then there were only sobs, and tiny pats of his tears falling on the muddly carpet at his feet.” Yet whilst the author’s involvement is obvious, his narrative remains detached and never plunges the depths of self indulgence or resorts to the maudlin. Despite a period of mild depression his father maintains his strength and the family, who never seem to lose their optimism, find other ways to make a living. Even when the farm buildings are transformed and Benson’s father takes a clandestine tour of the mock rustic dwellings, with chalk exposed walls, designed for migrating city slickers and not for locals, he demonstrates little sentimentality merely declaring, “I know it’s fashionable but it’s mucky!”

In keeping with the perceived Benson family spirit of pragmatism, optimism and humour, the narrative, although at times deeply moving, is mostly upbeat, amusing and always entertaining. The pages burst with Yorkshire flavour as the author relates little incidents and anecdotes and introduces characters and dialogues seemingly typical of the terseness and bluntness associated with the region (if such exists!). "Just because you talked about your feelings all the time didn't mean you were any more sensitive, or that you cared more."

Throughout Benson gives little insights into the changing patterns of demand which, for the most part, are not consumer led but manipulated by the supermarket giants and which are the root cause of much of the rural change many of us deplore today. He does not labour the point. Just one short “history” chapter and some final statistics in the epilogue draw attention to this wider perspective but he illustrates it throughout by references to family conversations about practices and incidents which seem contrary to common sense.

He tells of a local farmer forced to dump tons of potatoes because there wasn’t a sufficient quantity for supermarket buyers and the smaller concerns had mostly closed. His Mum, after a trip to Scarborough, reports, “(I) saw a boat in the harbour with 400 tons of potatoes all for McCain’s. And what is wrong with our own spuds?”

His father observes, “Nobody wants pigs at all. Nobody’ll even come and fetch them.” Mum explains, “ They buy pigs from Poland and process them at Winterswick bacon factory and then put on t’ label that it’s British cured. You buy York ham at t’supermarket and it’s never been anywhere near York!”

Brother Guy observes the paradox that, “Everyone goes on about fresh food and free-range pork . . . but if they can get it f***ing cheaper . . .”

His father sums up the drive for uniformity of size and shape in our groceries, "I reckon folks today think if summat's natural it's perfect, but it in't. Nature's imperfect. Natural's all shapes, like taties.”

However, as the book draws to a close, the author realises that, unlike himself, his family have become quite resigned to such “progress”. He describes to Guy a bright yellow sign on a grass verge with ‘words in type meant to look like chummy handwriting – “Grown for Asda – Bursting with Freshness”’. He is expecting an indignant response but Guy thinks such signs are good. “People don’t know what’s in fields. It’s got to be good if they realise what they eat comes out of t’ground and not a packet.” His own regrets are eventually put into perspective as the realisation dawns that he hasn’t been grieving for the changing face of Yorkshire but for the things he felt he had personally lost and writes, “ In the end I was just another city person imposing a set of ideas on the countryside which the countryside had never claimed for itself”

I read the book when it was first published in 2005. On reading it again, I couldn’t stop thinking of the ever growing demand for farmers’ markets, the increasing ranges of organic food we now see on sale and the new supermarket advertising war, each claiming that it sells more locally produced food than the others.

Maybe consumers are learning and becoming more vocal in their demands for locally produced quality products? But, if they are, it’s too late to save the majority of small farmers. In 1939, there were 5,000,000 farms in Britain. The majority were small mixed units of less than 50 acres and one and a half million families made their living directly from agriculture. In 2005 only 191,000 farms remained and, of those, just 19,000 accounted for more than 50% of national output. It is estimated that three out of four jobs in British agriculture have been lost since 1945. Fifty years ago, farmers received 50p of every £1 spent on food in Britain; in 2005 it was just 7.5p.

I was brought in a village and many of my friends lived on farms where we played. Admittedly this was in the South-East and not in Yorkshire but much of the appeal of the book for me was in that I could identify with the scenes described and the idiosyncrasies of rural life. This made it difficult to make a personal judgement on how wide an audience this book would attract. However it has been highly acclaimed, quickly becoming a best seller, short-listed for The Guardian First Book Award 2005 and nominated for the Richard and Judy Best Read of the Year 2006. Overall I would recommend it as a “ must read” for everybody who shares the growing concern about the decline in our rural areas and those who belong to the expanding ranks of consumers demanding to know the exact nature of the foods supplied on our supermarket shelves. Although it is a personal story of one family, it’s an eminently readable educational piece for all!

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Richard Benson is a former editor of “The Face” and has written for many newspapers and magazines in the UK. “The Farm” is his first book

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The paperback version of “The Farm” was published by Penguin in 2006 ( ISBN 978-0141012940) r r p £8.99 but currently available on Amazon for £ 6.29

In Memory of Betty

Summary: A highly acclaimed work which lives up to its reputation.