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Rock & Roll Farming


Jul 21, 2017

Tonight I'm delighted to be heading up to the Lincolnshire Wolds to talk to the international man of mystery known as @FarmingHaiku. 

Firstly we find out how his twitter handle came about, and how he's now moved on from haiku to high quality animal artwork, before hearing about his family's farm and what they do there, including breeding traditional Lincoln Red Cattle.

We hear about the change of path FH took at 16, due to a mixture of hard times in farming and family issues, that led to him studying International Business & French in places such as Bordeaux and Paris, and in turn to working for DHL handling shipments of frozen fish during nightshifts. Apparently, permanently stinking of Haddock juice did very little for his chances with the Ladies in the bright lights of 90's Nottingham..

We talk about his next move into a huge American IT company, and the travel, responsibility, and pressure involved in that. One year, he spent over 220 nights away from home. It was then that things started to go wrong. 

FH tells us in detail about this time in his life; how he felt the weight of responsibility of an extremely high pressure job, and juggling this with the needs of a new family. In a powerful few words he talks about hearing his family downstairs whilst he'd be sitting upstairs in tears feeling unable to cope with everything bearing down on him. 

We talk about how these things led him to return to his family's farm and how he thought that would help, but ultimately how it was a temporary fix, and not a permanent one. FH tells us how he eventually came to admit to himself that he had a problem, how this was a huge step, and what happened from there. 

We discuss how this relates to all farmers and people involved in agriculture, and what people can do if they're feeling similar stress and pressure, and what he's learned and taken away from that time in his life.

FH wasn't 100% sure about doing this, but he wanted to talk about it to keep the farming mental health conversation going and to help anyone out there suffering in silence by showing them that they're far from on their own. We all want to help. He's one of the nicest and funniest guys you could ever meet, and it was an absolute pleasure to talk to him tonight about this very important issue. 

Check it out folks..