Young Farmers – iPhone or phone box?

Farmers Weekly columnist Matthew Naylor has suggested that Young Farmers might be…dare we say it…uncool.

In a post on his blog, Matthew says:

“Excellent to see a new area of the site devoted to Young Farmers.

(This is genuine by the way, I have not been instructed to write this by my superiors at FWi)

It brought back a few memories for me. I was involved with the Young Farmers for nearly a decade from the age of 16. I enjoyed that time of my life and I am still close to a lot of the friends that I made through it.

Looking back at the photos we all look completely naff, of course. It was so provincial and wholesome – which is surely the polar opposite of being cool. In fact there isn’t a court in the land that would find me guilty of a crime if I said that Young Farmers is deeply uncool (OK probably a court in Somerset would find me guilty of a crime and put me in the stocks or something).

I can remember going to Young Farmers Balls (and indeed organising Young Farmers Balls) where it was deemed the height of sophistication to dance to Summer of 69 with someone on your shoulders. I used to hate that sort of stuff and (since this was in the early ’90s) I had to keep very quiet about liking the Stone Roses, the Soup Dragons or Blur. Such is peer pressure.

There were no indie Young Farmers so I had to live a lie and agree that Katrina and the Waves were great instead.

Maybe it has all changed a lot since my day. Do Young farmers still wear rugby shirts with the collars turned up? I was speaking at Cirencester last year and saw one of the students wearing a full-length Driza-Bone coat while they ate their breakfast. That was a typically uncool and Young Farmerish thing to do….

Visit The Longer View to read the rest of his post and to add your own comments.