The Shepherd's Life by James Rebanks

This memoir starts with the author's early life and his distain for the educational system. At age twelve the school sorts the children between the grammar or comprehensive groups, those moving into grammar deemed intelligent enough for higher education and eventually professional careers. Those in comprehensive are destined for labor jobs such as bricklayers, hairdressers, farmers.  The teacher tries to inspire the children to reach for more while the boys carry on and ignore her, dismiss her preaching because they are content to work on their family farm.  They fight and vandalize and never read. 

But James Rebanks is different and unwittingly educates himself by picking up books at home from his mother's library and then craving more.  Hemingway, Camus, Salinger and Orwell.  This he does not share with his friends.  

One day in a pub an old Korean war veteran sees Rebanks grab a book off the wall shelf and place it in his jacket.  He didn't want his friends to see but the veteran starts fussing about how he couldn't identify the plane on the book cover. The author does indeed identify it and good deal more, leaving the old man smiling and his friends gobsmacked. Eventually he ends up with an Oxford education in addition to invaluable educational experience he gains from years working with his grandfather and father.  

The focus of the book is mainly that of shepherding, raising the sheep and the workings of the farm in Cumbria.  The book appealed to be because I am the nerdy sort who likes reading about farm life and how they sustain a living with hard work and love of their environment. Also, the setting is Cumbria, an area I've done much research as my gg grandparents and their ancestors lived there until settling in the Philadelphia area.

I learned many things in this book such as much of the mountainous areas of the land in the Lake District were given to the National Trust by wealthy benefactors like Beatrix Potter.   Mrs. Beatrix (Potter) Heelis had a farm called Hill Top and made sure over 4,000 acres and fifteen farms were protected by bequeathing them in her will.  To read about the society click HERE.

This land was given to protect the landscape and its unique way of life, because it was deemed to be in the public interest.  I did not know that before I read this book. (Page 22)

It was interesting to me to read about Herdwick sheep. They're arguably the toughest mountain sheep in Britain, almost indestructible according to the author. Through the worst weather, be it snow, rain, hail or sleet they can live on less than any other sheep in these conditions. Scientific research show Herdwicks are genetically special. They have in them a primitive genome, possibly from Viking stock as their British sheep relatives are from Sweden, Finland and Iceland.

The fell farming way, grazing the sheep in the mountains during certain months, is an ancient way which has disappeared almost everywhere else. The sheep go there on common land with their neighbors stock and get sorted when they are brought down come winter.  Everyone works together.

I will be starting another book by this author titled Pastoral Song soon.

Families like ours roll on beside each other, through the ages. with bonds enduring.  Individuals live and die, but the farms, the flocks and the old families go on. P 65

#memoir #nonfiction #England