Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2011 | Page 69

COUNTRY LIFE
Fred's parents

He explained: “Shorthorn cattle
are an old-fashioned English breed.
They started off in the18th century,
but went out of fashion in the 1950s
when Friesians became popular. But
the shorthorns are a good dual purpose
animal and we have done very well
with them. I gave up dairy farming in
1984 to go to beef. Shorthorn cattle
can be dairy or beef, and I have been
beef ever since. I bought half a dozen
to start, and built the herd up from
there.”
In between talking cattle Fred told

me how he once lost his mother on a
shopping trip to Newport. He said:
“She went to one shop, I went to
another, and we agreed to meet back
at the car. When I got back she was
nowhere to be seen and I searched an
hour for her. Eventually I went back
to the car park and found her sitting
in another car – same colour and
make as mine, but not mine!”
Then there was the time he was
driving a lorry-load of calves back to
his farm, but didn’t fasten the side
door securely. Every time he went
around a corner the door would open
and a calf would jump out. He said:
“Eventually someone waved me down
and told me what was happening, so I
turned round to find a calf sitting on
the roadside every couple of hundred
yards. Some were a bit dazed, but no
serious injuries, and I managed to
get them all back in the lorry to take
them home.”
Fred’s health scare came six years
ago when he found it difficult even
to walk. He was told he had angina,
and although nothing serious was
found, he was informed by a specialist
‘either drop down dead or stop work’.
He didn’t stop, but did cut back
somewhat, bringing in nephew Colin
and his son Dan to help run the farm,
which they still do.
Meanwhile, he also has five caravans
and a couple more houses, which
he lets out to homeless people. He
laughed: “I do it because I am stupid
– I told you so. But it is another way
of earning money. In life you have to
survive and it costs you money to do

that.”
However, he did have a problem
with one caravan tenant. The tenant
turned up at Fred’s house in the early
hours covered in soot, and explained
he was cold in the night so decided to
light a fire – on the caravan floor. The
caravan exploded, but he escaped!
Despite one or two traumas, Fred
bought three fishing lakes near
Sandown a few years ago. He insists:
“I still believe people have never had it
so good. When I was a kid we had one
present at Christmas, but these days
parents spend hundreds of pounds
buying computers and whatever. And
then you hear about businessmen
having £1million bonuses.
“I had my first cigarette in 1957, and
the packet cost me 1s 9d. I thought
if I saved that money for 30 years I
could own a nice house, and I’ve never
smoked since.”
Not so much the village idiot he likes
to make out then!

Fred and his wife Lesley
in the late 1960s

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