Farmer Focus: Losing my uncle leads to thoughts of succession

When I was a kid at school, that bell used to take forever to ring.

School holidays were spent wrestling four-inch augers and looking for fit fields of wheat to get a bit more harvesting done before school got in the way again. 

Here we are at the end of August, nearly 40 years later, with the wheat all harvested, beans ready and only a bit of spring corn left before the combine heads back into hibernation. 

Time flies, seemingly faster with every passing year, but longevity unfortunately doesn’t seem to be a family trait.

See also: Harvest 2023: Quality woes with milling wheat downgrades 

About the author

Andrew Wilson

Arable Farmer Focus writer Andrew Wilson is a fourth-generation tenant of Castle Howard Estate in North Yorkshire. The farm supports crops of wheat, barley, oats, beans, sugar beet, potatoes, and grass for hay across 250ha. Other enterprises include bed and breakfast pigs, environmental stewardship, rooftop solar and contracting work.  

Contact:

Email: wilsonbrickyard@gmail.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SpudSlingsby

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We lost dad in 2018 at 66, and very recently his brother at 69, both to the same ailment. 

My uncle was a stalwart of many of the local livestock markets for more than 50 years – many of which paid their respects a few weeks ago with a minute’s silence at the start of the day’s proceedings.   

They were different men doing different things, but in many respects also very similar. I was privileged to give a eulogy for each of them, and I think we gave them both decent agricultural send-offs. 

It is always humbling how the farming community steps up and pulls together on such occasions. Stuff just happens, for which I shall be ever grateful.  

There hasn’t been a Wilson man in the past 100 years who has got much past 70. As a tenant farmer of 46, it makes you think. Now (or never) is the time to crack on.  

Muck or nettles, 50 is a threshold to many, as far as building sheds or laying concrete in someone else’s yard is concerned. 

Who knows if either of my daughters will become the fifth generation of our family to farm on the Castle Howard Estate.

At the moment they are not encouraged by the meagre returns, big hours and increasing bureaucracy that they see me wrestle with on an almost daily basis.

This is a situation that I am sure is familiar to many. 

For now, on we go. There’s wheat to dry, straw to bale, beans to harvest, hay to make, pigs to muck out and cover crops to drill – and a day off for the bank holiday.