She's been described as something of a superwoman.
It’s not a description that Amanda Owen sees as a true reflection of her life.
She thinks nothing of juggling the daily demands of looking after 1,000 sheep, deadlines from book publishers and the many visitors calling in for a pot of tea at her isolated Yorkshire farm.
Oh, and the fact that the former Newsome woman is pregnant with her ninth child.
READ MORE:
READ MORE:
The baby is due in late July or early August but it’s unlikely to bring any more chaos to the hectic lifestyle that 41-year-old Amanda has with husband Clive and her family at their farm high on the moors above Ravenseat in Swaledale, North Yorkshire.
It seems a long time ago that the former Newsome High School student left Huddersfield because she hankered for a life working in the countryside.
Amanda was inspired by the James Herriot books to leave her town life behind and head to the countryside. After learning her craft as a freelance shepherdess, cow milker and alpaca shearer she eventually settled down as a farmer’s wife with her own flock of sheep at Ravenseat.
Now she wouldn’t change a thing about her hectic but rewarding life.
One thing she does struggle with is meeting deadlines for her books. Publishers Sidgwick & Jackson have just brought out A Year In The Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess and Amanda admits it was hard.
“I have to be in the mood to write and that’s difficult,” she said. “The evenings between October and April were the times when we were quiet but I had to be focussed to sit down and write.
READ MORE:
READ MORE:
“I would be busy working with the sheep or up on the hills and an idea or a memory would pop into my head that I had to scribble down and that’s how it worked best. I kept getting the deadlines altered but it was still hard work.
“I’ve always loved books and reading. I remember growing up in Huddersfield and going into the dusty little bookshop in Lockwood Road and another in Huddersfield and buying a box of books for £1. You never knew what you were going to get.
“Now there’s talk of Hollywood and the first book is in the hands of a screenwriter. I’m not one for the celebrity lifestyle so Hollywood seems a long way away.
“Who would play me in a film? It would have to be an actress with hands like shovels.”
Amanda never forgets her Huddersfield roots and now the better weather is here, she gets constant reminders.
READ MORE:
READ MORE:
She and Clive have a teashop at their farm and visitors walking the Coast to Coast walk pop in for tea and cakes.
“They come in and say they’ve seen me on TV and they come from Birkby or Fartown,” she said.
“I know Huddersfield like the back of my hand because so many pop in for a chat.
“It’s a welcome distraction but there’s still work to be done. The sheep are now all out in the fields but lambing was hard. People think a lamb pops out and that’s it, but many of those lambs get injured or poorly and we have to look after them.”
These past few days have also seen her plugging the new book.
It follows the success of The Yorkshire Shepherdess and traces the age-old cycles of a farming year and the constant challenges the family faces: from being cut off in winter to tending their flock on some of the country’s highest, wildest moors – land so inaccessible that in places it can only be reached on foot.
She shares the story of an epic two-day journey taken by a ewe determined to find her lamb and of Queenie, an ageing and neglected horse who comes to live at the farm.
A Year in the Life of the Yorkshire Shepherdess by Amanda Owen is published by Sidgwick & Jackson Hardback, £16.99, ISBN: 9780283072413. Ebook also available.
