Simon Ashton - Shepherd
simon Ashton
What do you do?
I’m a contract shepherd. Farmers around the South Hams pay me to look after their sheep, that involves shearing them and making sure lambs are born safely every spring. I also have my own sheep on land I rent at Kingswear.
How can you be in so many places at once during the lambing season?
We try and stagger it so one farm starts the mating process then the next etc so I know roughly when each farm will need me to help with births. It usually works. Then I have to come back and sort out my own ewes!
How many sheep do you have on your land?
400, over 100 acres of land. Other farmers let me spread my sheep onto their fields when their cattle go into barns so my ewes can get fresh grass. They go as far as Agatha Christie’s estate at Greenway.
What made you start a farming life?
My mum was a farmer’s daughter, but she never took up farming. She moved away from the family farm in Wiltshire and we lived in Bristol when I was young. But I loved visiting my grandparent’s farm and went as often as I could. I would stay for weeks on end during the summer and then every other weekend - they could have left me there, I wouldn’t have minded!
What is your earliest farming memory?
Milking a cow when I was about eight.
When do you get a spare minute to rest?
Hardly at all! Plus I have two boys, a two-year-old and a four-year-old so there’s school runs and after school clubs to throw in too.
What do they think of the farming life?
They love it. They really enjoy going out on the land. They see life and death from an early age, which I think is good for them. They enjoy being out with me on my quad bike. I sometimes take my oldest to football practice on it, and our border collie comes along for the ride too!
What are the best and worst bits about farming?
The weather is both. Some of my fields are right by the coast and on a fine day it’s beautiful looking out over the water. We get the best views for the Red Arrows and the fireworks during regatta. But you are open to the elements up here. When the wind gusts across from the sea and the rain is vertical it can be one of the hardest jobs around. You can’t just give up and go indoors when you’re a farmer. It’s a way of life, not a job. I tend to my sheep every single day; there isn’t a day off - even at Christmas.
If you can possibly imagine any other career what would it be?
It would still have to be something to do with farming! Maybe an auctioneer at the market selling livestock!
What is on your bucket list?
Going to see extreme farming around the world, trying to do the job in 40-degree temperatures on massive farms in New Zealand for example.
What would you take to a desert island?
Anyone who knows me will know I like telling a joke! So it would have to be a joke book, my border collie and my pick up truck - it might come in useful!
What is your favourite Christmas film?
Love Actually – I’ll blame my wife for that one!
What are your favourite Christmas snacks?
Pigs in blankets and cheese and biscuits.
What will you be doing during the Queens speech?
Eating our dinner and probably watching what the Queen has to say.
First published in By The Dart Magazine December 2017
