The lasting impact of a week on the farm
We know that the week children spend with us at one of our farms has a lasting impact, we hear it from teachers, we see it in return trips, but the impact is truly felt when we also see a golden thread run through or perhaps even affect someone’s path into adulthood.
Never was that truer than with alumni Sally Shepherd. Sally came to Nethercott with her school in the early ‘00s. From a west London primary, Sally says she always felt disconnected from city life. Like many, she struggled at school with fitting in, had a love of animals and was good at sport but sometimes found it hard to make friends.
Discovering purpose
When she was 11, she went on a week’s trip to Nethercott House in Devon, and she recalls how it changed her life and gave her a clear understanding, even at that age, of what she wanted to do.
When you speak to Sally and she recalls her time on the mid-Devon farm, her face lights up. She talks with animated passion about mucking out, rambling across the fields or jumping over the “ha-ha” and if a child didn’t make the leap everyone would cheer “HAHA” although she is quick to concede that maybe that core memory has been lost to health and safety.
“I knew I wanted to work with animals, but you never really know at that age what you want to do. But I knew from the first day at Nethercott that I wanted to shovel poo and run around after sheep. Like, that was the dream. I wanted to be a shepherdess, and I didn’t stop until I got to where I wanted to be, basically. I did anything and everything . If I failed, I did it again”
Holding tight to a dream
The week-long trip stayed with Sally far longer than the time at the farm. Secondary school came and went and still with a deep feeling that working with animals and wanting to be a farmer – which didn’t get the reception she hoped for at school. She recalls her final parents’ evening:
“I told them I wanted to be a farmer, and they were like, what? If you don’t carry on with your athletics, Sally, and your sport, you’re going to ruin your life.”
So, with a fire in her belly, Sally went and studied animal management for two years at Guildford College. Realising that that wasn’t really for her, because it was about caring for small animals and not livestock, she went back to the drawing board, found an agricultural college in Kent and was finally on the path she decided at 11 years old.
“After college I was considering doing a degree, but I didn’t need a degree to shovel sheep poo.”
Building a life in farming and education
From that point Sally has had a successful career, taking her across the country as a shepherdess, she likes to blend commercial knowledge and farming with education and giving children first-hand opportunities to learn about and get close to livestock – much like her time with Farms for City Children.
She worked at Aldenham country park, teaching school children and the public about sheep and lambing, shearing and milking goats and life on a farm. From there Sally went to Hatfield house, and whilst open to the public there wasn’t an educational element. Next followed a few years back as a shepherdess, working in Cumbria, Wales and Shropshire – but commercial farming is hard on your body and Sally missed sharing her skills and knowledge, so in 2023 she took up a role at Miller’s Ark Animals in Hampshire.
Sally is thriving, working as part of a committed team to enable visitors – who come at the weekend or holidays – to interact with animals. As Sally puts it “It’s not a petting farm – it’s a real farm and we have guided open-days. They aren’t buying a bit of feed and putting it down a chute or stroking a goat through a fence – they are meeting the animals like I did at Nethercott, as that’s how you learn.”
The legacy of a being a farmer for a week
Sally quite clearly has two passions, her role as a shepherdess and farmer and her role as an educator – all that from the shy girl from west London who found her purpose on a farm in mid-Devon.
“And now I’m hugely passionate about teaching kids that carrots don’t grow in a supermarket and bread doesn’t appear sliced on a shelf!”
When asked what she might say to Michael and Clare some 25 years on from her visit, and in the 50th year she lights up again: “I can’t say thank you enough to them. I can’t. There isn’t enough thank yous in this world. Who knows what I’d be doing? Like, it may well be with animals, but it wouldn’t be doing this. And this is what I’m happy doing. This is where I am happy.”
And with that Sally is off, overalls on, to take five goats to a film set – and there is no one who can wrangle goats quite as well as Sally Shepherd.
We can only grow the knowledge, confidence and curiosity of the young people who visit our farms with your support. Visit our Support Us page to find out how you can help us ensure that thousands more children can thrive on our farms for the next fifty years and beyond.
