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An
exciting new project investigating what it means to be Cumbrian.
Listen
to the programme online »
Look
at many a Cumbrian hillside and you’ll see huddles of bemused
sheep trying to work out where they are and where they’re supposed
to be.
You see fell sheep are ideal case studies for our special BBC 'A
Sense of Place' project because they have a natural sense of place
that they learn from early days when they’re nobbut larl lambs
frolicking around the fells bullying their mums for milk.
It’s called their heft and since last year’s foot and
mouth outbreak and the huge cull of fell sheep, lots of our woolly
pals have new hefts to learn. Or to be more accurate their farmers
have to teach them their new hefts.
And
what a nightmare it can be! Try persuading 50 sheep not to stray
where the grass is greener ... it ain’t easy!
Listen
to Caz with Helen Greenbank from Caldbeck trying
to reheft her sheep
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| Helen
with sons, Thomas and Richard, off to look for sheep |
Sheep
are part of the fabric of Cumbria. Look at the hills, etched with
that patchwork of dry stone walls. Why were the walls built? To keep
the sheep in.
Think of all those old drovers roads, all those pubs called The Shepherd’s
Inn, the towns and villages that built their foundations on the wool
trade.
Sheep are written in bold in the history of Cumbria and there’s
lots of work at the moment to make sure they’ll still be an important
part of the county’s future.
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| Rough
Fell tup near Askham, Penrith |
There’s
Fellbred, a meat selling co-operative in Milnthorpe, making sure that
local lamb gets onto local plates.
There’s The Woolclip, a new co-operative of farming women and
craftswomen who’re singing the praises of Cumbrian wool and making
fabulous wall hangings, gifts and clothes from it. (I want the psychedelic
mohair socks!)
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| David,
Rose and Will Willison with mum and new arrival |
Lambing
time is especially poignant this year after the ravages of foot
and mouth disease in 2001.
Many farms lost all of their sheep to the outbreak, and fields and
fells lay empty.
No daft lambs racing up and down, no bleatings of new life; it was
as if the natural soundtrack of much of Cumbria had been suddenly
switched off.
Hear
the Cinderbarrow lambs!
This year is much better as things get back to normal. David and
Rose Willison farm at Cinderbarrow near Levens with their son Will
and they’ve got a good crop of especially noisy lambs this
year!
More
- Sheepy shenanigans
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