‘Farmers are an emergency service’
The general public, amazingly, has the idea that farmers are one of the emergency services.
We appear on the list just below the police, ambulance, fire brigade and the coast guard – but above the AA.
We don’t get phone calls to summon us, klaxons don’t sound and flares don’t go up, but rather a sheepish wee knock at the door calls us to action. On opening the door we usually find a pathetic soul with a well-rehearsed sentence. “I’ve got my car stuck in a ditch, can you come and pull me out with your tractor, please?”
How is it that the vast majority of the urban population seem to have forgotten that milk comes from cows and that hens squeeze eggs out of their bottoms, but still seem to have it in their DNA to know that a farmer might just pull them out of a ditch with his tractor?
The very wet spell we’ve endured over the past few months has brought on a spate of knocks to my door. We’ve got an especially soft roadside verge near us so, over the years, I’ve pulled dozens of vehicles out, with no charge. A word of thanks is enough.
However, the most recent “shout” that I was out on, to use a nautical term, left me disillusioned and for just a moment I contemplated withdrawing my emergency service in the future.
A motorist arrived in the yard to ask me to come and pull out a small lorry that had got stuck in the roadside ditch at my road-end. I had loads on that day so I wasted no time in getting out to the roadside and hooked my chain onto the front of the lorry. The few moments that it took to fasten the chain was just enough time to gather from the driver the name of the company that he worked for and that he came from Govan, a district of Glasgow.
A good steady pull soon had him back on the road, but as I unfastened the chain I noticed that the lorry had pulled a pile of muck and sods out of the ditch and onto the road. I shouted to the driver above the noise of the tractor: “Draw forward and I’ll push the muck off the road with my loader.”
How is it that the vast majority of the urban population seem to have forgotten that milk comes from cows and that hens squeeze eggs out of their bottoms, but still seem to have it in their DNA to know that a farmer might just pull them out of a ditch with his tractor?
We’ll he did draw forward all right; in fact he drew forward all the way to Govan! He didn’t even honk his horn, flash his hazards or even throw me a parting wave as he sped off into the distance. I was crushed.
I don’t want to turn all “Thought for the Day” with you here, but I very soon calmed down and put the sorry affair behind me.
I eventually decided that I wouldn’t judge the entire population on the thoughtlessness of one man from Govan, who obviously has no sense of cosmic balance.
A few years ago, I stopped to offer help to a smartly dressed stranger who was standing at the side of the road looking under the bonnet of a very distinctive purple Citroen. He thanked me, but said someone was already coming to his rescue. Three weeks later, while I sat trembling at my kitchen table waiting for the VAT inspector to call, I was pleasantly surprised to see the same purple Citroen pull into my yard. I answered the knock on the door and the man said: “Hello, I’m here to do your VAT inspection. Aren’t you that nice man who stopped to help me the other day?”
Hallelujah, I only hope they have tax men in Govan!
Neale McQuistin is an upland sheep and beef farmer in south-west Scotland. He farms 365ha in partnership with his wife, much of which is under stewardship for wildlife.
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