Will’s World: Tears, tributes and a little music therapy
© Lee Boswell Photography It’s nice to be back after a week off. It’s an unusual thing, writing a weekly column for the nation’s favourite farming publication, and people often ask me how I come up with ideas to fill this page.
In all honesty, my head’s so full of noise and nonsense at any given time that I don’t find it difficult at all, and it’s probably something to do with getting into a regular rhythm.
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About the author
That being said, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to write anything last week, and I’m grateful to FW for their support and understanding.
The truth is that, on the morning of Saturday 14 March, I received a phone call with the devastating news that a childhood friend had been killed in a horrific farm accident.
Pete was liked by everyone who met him. He was a loving family man and a great farmer, and as I’m writing these lines it still hasn’t fully sunk in that I won’t see him again.
Fast friends
I can’t remember what we talked about the last time, but we probably groused about those two perennial thorns in farmers’ sides: the weather and the government.
My old man and his were best friends in primary school and remain so now they’re in their seventies.
Getting married and having children around the same time in their lives resulted in Pete and me spending a lot of time together growing up.
I have happy memories of playing football with him and his brother, Stuart, in the garden at their place on many a golden 1980s evening.
Now our own children are in school together, with one of my numerous daughters in the same form as Pete’s son.
Such is often the way with multi-generational farming families from the same area, I suppose, and it’s one of the things that makes our community so strong.
I’d regularly bump into Pete at parent’s evenings and the like, catching each other’s eyes across the room and giving a quick and knowing glance skywards – probably because he didn’t feel old enough to have children in secondary school any more than I do.
Almost certainly contributing to our wry amusement was the fact that neither of us had wanted to be there the first time round.
Words can’t adequately express how sad and sorry I am that this unspeakable tragedy occurred.
I’m sure that everyone in the locality, as well as the wider farming community, sends their deepest sympathies to Pete’s family and friends.
In tune
You’ll have realised by now that I’m an emotional man, and I’ve shed several tears this week.
Grief’s an odd thing, and it keeps catching me unaware. I was cutting grass last week on a beautiful sunny day, and suddenly thought how much Pete would have been looking forward to the arrival of spring and turning the cows out, and I was off again.
Very unexpectedly, it even happened while watching Britain’s Got Talent with my girls, when the Hawkstone farming choir came on stage.
I was a blubbering mess from the start when choir leader Katrina introduced them to the judges and talked about how lonely and isolating farming can be.
It got even worse when she talked about how the choir has brought them all so close together.
When the golden buzzer was hit, sending them spectacularly through to the semi-finals, I was so overcome that I couldn’t speak.
What a wonderfully inspiring group of people and, through the best and worst of times, what a wonderful community and industry this is.
