A Day on the Farm: Reflections from Country Trust Finance Team

5 November 2024

A brilliant sun beating down, a gentle breeze rustling through the line of windbreaker trees, air that is free of its usual parasitic riders, delicious ripe berries in neat raised rows, a smiling ruddy-faced farmer, akin to the male version of Demeter, explaining the finer points of fruit farming - could this be heaven? It certainly feels like it. It is the twenty-seventh of June and everything glows in the mellow morning light.   

I trudged out of my home office at 7:30 am with my usual air of lethargy, changed two trains and a bus to get to Lathcoats Farm in Chelmsford which is the venue of a farm visit from Larkrise Primary School starting at 9:30 am. A gaggle of pink-cheeked four and five-year-olds look uncertain as they partake of the welcome fare;  zingy apple juice made fresh on the farm and some creamy cake. I blink in the freshness of this world made of soil, plants, and love. I feel my eyes sigh in appreciation, and they would thank me if they could for showing them something other than a blinking screen, rows of numbers on Excel, reconciliations, profit and loss statements and balance sheets on a weekday.  

The excited children are ushered into a large barn where the star Coordinator on duty, Sandra, demonstrates the various phases of fruit formation through hand gestures, with enough zeal to generate her own energy source. The buds of spring lead on to dormant, mouse ear, green cluster, pink bud, full bloom, petal fall and finally munch -the stage where you get to eat the fruit! The children sitting cross-legged on the floor mimic her hand movements as if learning an ancient agricultural secret. 

Wading through the ankle-length grass along with me, and beaming is my usual partner in crime and fellow accountant Gemma holding a digital camera in her hand. Gemma tiptoes around children who cannot be photographed and tries to click candid moments along the way. Although it may seem so, we aren’t skiving off work. We are on a legitimate assignment from our CEO, Jill, who in a moment of epiphany suggested we use our latent talents to write about and photograph a school farm visit and farm market. A refreshing change from what we normally do. My hunchback of Notre Dame posture improves with the brisk walk. I see my enthusiasm reflected in Gemma’s eyes as we inhale the riot of foliage and run our eyes over its verdant rolling splendour as far as our sight allows. The cough that has bugged me for days is magically gone. My bunged-up nose has cleared. My attention turns to the preschoolers dawdling ahead of us, led by Sandra and Farmer Philip as they introduce botanical wonders along the way.  

Eighteen children trek along, seven of them with SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) needs, but with identical beatific smiles, learning the correct way to pick a strawberry by pinching it from the stalk-like playing a new game. They run their hand over the velvety grass with the reverence of a worshipper. Skyla decided on the spot she wished to be a farmer when she grows up. I munch on a nearby hanging strawberry. It tastes better than any store-bought ones I’ve had so far. Maybe there is something to consuming food at the source that enhances its flavour.  

Crouching down under boughs, little heads bob in and out of the shrubbery holding up their hazelnut discoveries like precious gems. Rio gets scratched by a stingy nettle and bursts into tears. Sandra crouches down, tearing some plantain weeds to rub on the little hand. The juices of the crushed weeds calm the stinging, and the crying magically abates. We learn nature has a remedy close at hand for every cruelty it inadvertently imparts. A little distance ahead we come across sticky weeds and children turn into sparse scarecrows as they stick dry grass on their clothes. 

Scared by bumble bees busy in the world’s most important job, little arms wave in frantic self-preservation, and some flee to another row of raspberry bushes. Sandra swoops in like a Fairy Godmother again, imparting the valuable life lesson that bees will never attack you unless they fear being killed because attacking you is the last thing they’ll ever do. The children’s eyes widen at this newfound wisdom and they relax around their former enemies. And I add silently, that this is true of every creature in the world, even humans, or even those humans considered dangerous by some other humans.   

Earlier in the week, Gemma and I were at the Ghyllgrove Primary School, in Basildon, standing in front of a Year 3 class of sixteen students. From 11 am in the morning to 4 pm in the afternoon, seven and eight-year-olds get a crash course on how to become the next contenders for the Dragon’s Den. Sandra transforms the class into future business leaders by helping them create, package, brand, market and sell their own products. The children learn what a market is and how to explain this to an alien. They also learn the concept of profit and show uncanny adeptness at mental math. I nudge Gemma on a subject we’ve mastered, but as Sandra’s class unfolds it has us wishing we were businesswomen at the helm of exciting new profit-yielding ventures. We brainstorm some possible avenues before giving up, the sweltering heat of mid-summer crowding in the small classroom and making us somnolent. We gaze on in silent envy at the energetic children bouncing off their seats in excitement despite the heat, pitching in ideas, rebutting, questioning, and tackling their assigned tasks with devout passion. 

The session has a demanding agenda and pupils are split into groups. One group creates price labels for potato bags, bread bags, soup bags, tomato plants and popcorn bags. Another group starts decorating bunting for their market stalls. All children get a chance to use their hands to create the products on sale. They roll and knead dough balls which are later baked, shovel popcorn and soup vegetables into bags, smell mint leaves, and squeeze lemons into the lemonade pitcher. Later, they will set up stalls for their parents and ask them to buy their market wares. The teacher Mr Collins looks on proudly and helps Sandra when he can. He has a unique way of bringing order to the room and recentre wandering minds -hands on the ankles, knees, shoulders, chest and head. Later in the afternoon, the stalls are set up, funfair like jubilance hangs in the air, albeit fleeting, parents beam and purchase the result of their children’s hard work. It’s a successful market day.  

To quote Einstein, ‘Look deep into nature, and you will understand everything better.’  Be it gardening, or farming, it is understanding the soil’s mysteries that brings us unadulterated joy. Rumi effuses thus, ‘Beauty surrounds us, but usually we need to be walking in a garden to know it.’ And Rembrandt urges us to ‘Choose only one master - nature.’  

As the week comes to an end, and I walk down to the station, I bring home some valuable lessons I’ve lost in the process of growing older. Nature is always in the background, waiting patiently to recentre you and guide you back to your purpose in life. By reconnecting with it, you’re making the vital connection back to your soul, health and happiness. Children may instinctively feel its joy, but as adults we must keep reminding ourselves to cherish and cultivate the wealth we still have on this planet and not take its kindness for granted. Each one of us, no matter our profession or passion, are responsible for our part in it. The great balance sheet of human life depends on it. 

Written by Salmah Ahmed - Finance Manager
Photographs by Gemma Cox - Bookkeeper