Waking to a new world.

I'm becoming an addict. Waking up to the radio alarm at the weekend brings a plethora of mental sounds and sights as the BBC spins it's creative mind to bring and expose us to the nooks and crannies of life on these islands.
Today it was life on the farm, tracing the years of a family who are tenant farmers in Dorset.

The interviewer knew her job as she conversed rather than interviewed and teased the stories out of a father and two grown up sons with the reassurance of their wives, feet on the ground providing the solid sounding board to what ever plans they had in the past or for the future.
The cockerel crowing provided the early morning farming background, the cattle plaintively complaining as they were held in a pen whilst the Vet examined them for TB, a little dog clearly worried by the interruption in the normal day to day events was yapping it's frustration as we in our beds were given privy to this real "living" event. No sound of traffic, no horns, only the sound of an industry that has gone on in various forms since the early farming started in the Tigris-Euphrates valley 5000 BC.
The impact of the program as with all these outside broadcast programs is the human touch and the way the extended family had coped with the vicissitudes of life down on the farm.
Making do, coping with the unforeseen, doing without to have the cash to feed the business with its seed corn, new calves , a piece of machinery that couldn't be afforded but equally couldn't be avoided.
Back in 2001 "Foot and Mouth" turned the fathers dream into a nightmare as he was forced to release his sons into other occupations, economics demanded the harsh reality but it also released the boys into creating their own path. One went into flying whilst the other went into growing flowers.
The interview caught them at a time when the wheel had turned full circle.
The eldest, apart from growing flowers had become the World Darts Champion for 2014 and with winnings had bought his Dad the beginnings of a new herd and it was these cattle who were being tested.
The family were solidly at one with each other, they were a team brought up, not on a diet of fast food and night long TV but a love for what they were doing and the reliance they understood they had for each other. It's this last piece of life's curriculum which we learn or fail to learn at our peril. We are better as a collective than as a soloist, the reflective support we get, the unencumbered option of having a history with someone which can be called upon to give meaning to everything !!!