Amanda Owen On Writing, Parenting, Farming (& Repeat)

The sun is beaming when I meet the Yorkshire Shepherdess on Trafalgar Square. ‘The sun makes London seem another country,’ she says in her white skirt and oatmeal knitted sweater, having received reports of rain from her family back up in the Dales. We’re navigating the tourist-choked streets after plans to squirrel ourselves away in The National Gallery’s airy, light-filled Muriel’s Kitchen were scuppered by the northerner’s admittedly massive suitcase – a no-no in museums the world over, of course.

But Amanda is leaving London later today after three nights at Soho House (lacking in natural light, she points out); the suitcase must come. But we don’t haul it far: we land on the atmospheric cafe hidden in St Martin in the Fields’ catacombs. We settle into a corner, hands wrapping around our hot beverages – a mint tea for me, a latte for the shepherdess, whose ever-ringing phone is a hotline for her nine children and various farm hands (or both). On one occasion, one of two sons finds an old cannonball amid her 2,000 acres – something that may need to be reported. When I ask if it’s stressful to step away from her Ravenseat Farm duties, she sighs and says, ‘It’ll all get done – just not the way I would do it.’

It’s one of the first things I notice about Amanda Owen: like many mothers, she’s diligent in her spinning of a thousand plates. Kids, farm, television series, touring – and now kids books. Emphasis on the plural: in June it was revealed Amanda had signed a seven-book deal with Puffin, the first being Christmas Tales from the Farm, a collection of 12 short stories for children aged between eight and 12, all inspired by Ravenseat.

‘I’m never short of material, but in order to keep it coming, you have to keep doing it.’

We meet the day after publication day, which Amanda celebrated with her publishers. ‘They cracked the whip, kicked my bum,’ she says sheepishly, having missed her writing deadlines. ‘I need pressure to get things done. When it comes to the absolute final moment and they are really tearing their hair out, then I’ll do it,’ she admits. ‘I know even if somebody said, “you need to have this in by next Wednesday”, I’d still be doing it in the early hours of Wednesday morning. The pressure holds my mind – it makes me better and happier with what I write. If I wrote it a week before it was due, I’d spend a week tweaking it.’

The timeworn excuse? ‘I always say I’ve been gathering material. In other words, farming,’ she laughs. ‘It’s a bit of a double edged sword: I’m never short of material, but in order to keep it coming, you have to keep doing it.’

But it’s the keeping-doing that has always set Amanda Owen apart. ‘When I set off to be a shepherd, I didn’t just want to be the fair weather kind, always going into the hills. I wanted to be able to get my hands dirty. That was important to me – that it wasn’t posturing, or pretend. It had to be real.’ Her hands are indeed hardworking, boasting both scabs and haphazardly orange painted nails. ‘Everyone in London is so glam,’ Amanda bemoans, pointing out one chipped nail and the fact that her daughter taught her to do her eyeliner. But I’m struck by the opposite: by the shiny tumble of hair piled on her head and topped with a black bow, by her catwalk-like height, and by her richly deep voice meandering thoughtfully through our subterranean conversation.

‘When I set off to be a shepherd, I didn’t just want to be the fair weather kind. I wanted to be able to get my hands dirty.’

But of course amid the books and the TV series, there’s still a real farm to contend with – and this is why she’s perpetually busy. ‘Fences to fix, walls to put up… Oh God, it’s just endless,’ she says. ‘Some things can be achieved in a day, and some things will take weeks. Some things will take a lifetime.’ And then a film crew descends on Ravenseat to capture it all for Channel 4’s hit series Our Farm Next Door – a reboot of sorts after Channel 5’s version, Our Yorkshire Farm, ended in 2022.

The renovation project at the heart of the Channel 4 series ‘feels more of a personal journey,’ Amanda divulges, referencing flicking through found diaries from 200 years ago and realising she does all of the same tasks: ‘Building a bedstead, hanging doors, putting down the cobbles… Things never change. It’s wonderful.’

But is it necessary to spin quite so many plates? It’s all ‘farm diversification,’ as she puts it. ‘This whole thing all began with me making cups of tea for passing walkers and being scouted by a TV producer,’ she reminisces. ‘I am mindful of that. I will never forget that. But people do say, “Why are you doing this?” I guess I’m one of those people who doesn’t sit back. I’ve always got to challenge myself. I don’t know why. Because, believe me, on numerous occasions, I’m like, “Why am I doing this?” But it just appears to be something that’s innate in me.’

Innate in her but something she’s keen to pass down. ‘If I was going to give a life lesson to the children, I would say you have to stick your head above the parapet and have a go at things. I don’t want them to sit back on their laurels. Take a risk! But that’s quite unfashionable at the moment.’

She’s referring to the rise of helicopter parenting wrapping the next generation in cotton wool. ‘There’s a sense of nostalgia – a different way of living,’ Amanda muses on Our Farm Next Door. ‘People watch and say, “I remember my childhood was like that.” Back when your mum would say, “I’ll see you at tea time”.’

‘I don’t want my kids to sit back on their laurels.’

All nine children have been raised at Ravenseat, and they help out with all of the day-to-day running, surrounded by horses, sheep and tractors. Many viewers praise the tech-free childhood it promotes, but Amanda is quick to praise the life-changing impact of the internet. She tells me a recent anecdote about the frogs her endlessly curious brood found while camping in one of Ravenseat’s fields. There is little phone signal on the farm, and ‘who was ever going to start flicking through an encyclopedia to find out what it was?’ she laughs. But a quick trip back into the Wi-Fi zoned house, and ‘within a minute, they knew what it was. They know its lifecycle. They know everything. It’s wonderful.’

One of nine children is homeschooled – something that would have been impossible without the help of online tutors. ‘A tech free childhood wouldn’t set them up for real life,’ Amanda says. ‘But the farm gives them a different sort of resilience. Around animals, from the weather – even with the water issues we have at the moment!’

But there’s no right and wrong. ‘Every parent is trying to do the best job,’ Amanda says. ‘In no way am I saying “this is how you must parent” or “this is how you should live your life”. But I would say it’s more of a mindset thing – being less fearful of going your own way. My children are on the farm, and there are risks every which way you look. They’re probably in a whole lot more danger here. But they know their own path, and I take a huge sense of pride in their independence. They don’t see themselves as unique or special, we’re just getting on with what we do.

‘This is their upbringing, but it’s not about saying “this is where you’re staying”,’ Amanda adds. ‘I hope they will go and have a look out over the hill. But at the foundational level, this is what gives them the ability to do that.’

So will Ravenseat be passed down to the next generation? ‘Who knows which of the children might take up the mantle?’ Amanda laughs, adding how Our Farm Next Door has opened her brood up to a whole host of trades. ‘When you get the right tradespeople on the project, getting the children involved is an absolute giant pleasure. Because at the end of the day, these people want to give. They want to share. They’re proud of what they do. And it would be great if I had an electrician, a plumber, all the trades in the family!’

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