The Farmer's Wife: The Instant Sunday Times Bestseller

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It turns out to be a simple yet beautifully told memoir; the literary equivalent of an open window with the sun shining in and a vase of flowers from the garden on the sill. Different themes are woven together - growing up in a rural area, navigating the highs and lows of love, the anxiety of not wanting to conform, or the anxiety of wanting what you feel judged for wanting (in the author's case, becoming a mother to many children). This beautifully-illustrated memoir, which takes place across one day at the farm, offers a chance to think about where our food comes from and who puts it on the table. Helen's recipes, lists and gentle wisdom helps us to get through our days, whatever they throw at us. We pull up at the barn: a beautiful, unpretentious, south-facing building in grey stone. It has a drystone wall around it, a wide patio surrounded by groups of goldenrod in raised beds. She writes about it in her book. It was originally her husband’s dream to convert the agricultural building on their land but she was not keen at first, because it would be an upheaval having to leave the village house upon which she had lavished so much home-making care. But I can see how understandably pleased she is with it now. Access to good healthy food is, for me, a basic human right. But it isn’t solved by making farming worse in a race to the bottom. When I was growing up, mealtimes anchored the days. With very little experience, Mum had to find her way around managing this big farmhouse and doing all the jobs, mostly by herself. There was no money to pay a maid to live in the attic, like there had been in Grandma’s day.

On our farm we try to farm ‘regeneratively’, which is a fancy way of saying we manage grazing carefully, which in turn improves the soil health, and we restore habitats for nature. We have spent 20 years learning about all this. We believe in being good stewards of the land. It's quite an achievement to shine a light of truth on the often idealised, always understated, role of the farmer's wife.' RAYNOR WINN

Evocative and thought-provoking. . . a beautiful, lyrical read that gives voice to the 'pushes and pulls' of everyday life.' Doch The Farmer's Wife hat ein Happy End: In der Gegenwart bewirtschaftet Helen Rebanks mit ihrem Mann einen Hof und lebt auch dort (die Kombination ist hart erarbeitet, vorher pendelte James zum Hof), jetzt kann sie ihre Vorstellung von 100 Prozent Mutterschaft mit vier Kindern umsetzen und gleichzeitig zum Lebensunterhalt der Familie beitragen. James can remember which tup he put every ewe to, hundreds of them by sight, and has a photographic memory of them. We specialise in selling prime breeding tups in the autumn sales to other shepherds across the Lake District and beyond. Weaving past and present, Helen shares the days that have shaped her. This is the truth of those days: from steering the family through the Beast from the East and the local authority planning committee, to finding the quiet strength to keep going, when supper is yet to be started, another delivery man has assumed he needs to speak to the ‘man of the house’, and she would rather punch a cushion than plump it.

Once I start, my irritation vanishes, and I usually feel better as I cook. I take pride in my work, even if the meal is sometimes basic. I have become good at improvising and making a decent meal from a few simple ingredients. I open the fridge to see what needs using up next. Hats off to her, I think, but fail to ask her how she does it. Her girls, equally, are “incredibly capable working outside on the farm as well as doing their own washing, or cooking something to contribute to the meal”. The younger daughter, Bea, is skilled at lambing and first tried her hand at it aged six. She seems likely to become a farmer herself. If I have one dish just before I drop dead it would be lemon surprise pudding. A Delia recipe originally, I believe. Gently cook the vegetables in the browning pan to soften them. Feel free to substitute the vegetables for whatever you like and have to hand. Turnip, squash or celeriac also work well in this.This is an absolutely beautiful book. It is honest and true, unflinching, powerful, lyrical without being sentimental. Most of all, it is so clear in its call for us to know more about where our food comes from and also for the right of any woman to choose the life she wants to live. I read it in one sitting.’ Kate Mosse The question is – what’s my contribution to the conversation in society about what we’re eating, how we’re living?

Down at the sheep pens I get the box out and start sorting a few coloured ear tags. The field across the road has 10 ewes and lambs in it; they are nearly a month old and are fit and strong. These recipes are from Helen's book, all of which are from memories of her childhood or easy to make family meals that she herself cooks at home. A gorgeous portrait of Helen Rebanks's Lake District life. As dawn breaks on the farm, Helen Rebanks makes a mug of tea, relishing the few minutes of quiet before the house stirs. It is an honest autobiography. It is not dishonest or narcissistic. It is plain. There is no hidden agenda, just a genuine sharing of her life. Good. I didn’t say it aloud, but I felt embarrassed serving such horrible cakes. He agreed to give it a try, and thankfully didn’t ask too many details about my tiny kitchen. I told him that I had an up-to-date food hygiene certificate (from a course I went on to keep Mum company), and we agreed some prices.Ein bekanntes Muster dieser Kultur: Frau wünscht sich als Lebensziel Kinder, Ehemann, Haus, erwartet aber, dass dieser Ehemann für die Kosten aufkommt ("Ich bekomme doch nicht Kinder, damit jemand anders sie aufzieht." taucht wörtlich mehrfach im Buch auf - das habe ich nicht nur von einer Frau auch in Echt gehört und mich jedesmal gefragt: "Aber der Vater schon?"). In diesem Fall umfasst das vom Ehemann zu finanzierende Lebensziel auch innerhalb weniger Jahre immer wieder neue Häuser samt komplettem Umbau und teurer Einrichtung. Rebanks berichtet von regelmäßigem Streit mit ihrem Mann ums Geld. The question is – what’s my contribution to the conversation in society about what we’re eating, how we’re living? That’s what the book is about. But I’m not trying to preach. I’m storytelling.” Weaving past and present, Helen shares the days that have shaped her. This is the truth of those days: from steering the family through the Beast from the East and the local authority planning committee, to finding the quiet strength to keep going, when supper is yet to be started, another delivery man has assumed he needs to speak to the 'man of the house', and she would rather punch a cushion than plump it. In the middle of Matterdale there is a busy working family farm; at the centre of that farm is the farmhouse, and at the very heart of that farmhouse is the kitchen – the pulse and focal point around which everything revolves. It’s where farming decisions are made, where the business is run from, where family-life is lived – and most of all it’s where Helen Rebanks cooks the food that fuels the entire operation.

I have to be careful I don’t suggest I make too much food, or Helen will divorce me. But I’m not incapable of cooking meat steaks with two or three veg options. Any male lambs that don’t make the grade for breeding as they grow are castrated and sold for fattening in the autumn. I bend the white-coloured plastic ear tag into the handheld tagger and pass it to James. REBANKS: Life is about love. The whole book for me, creating this, has been about love. And we want our loved ones around us. We do little simple things every day for each other, and the book very much is about all of those little things. It’s fair to say this book has become something of a memoir, both specific to Rebanks and universal to thousands of farming families across the UK. It has tales about women and the ‘glue’ that they still represent in many farms across Britain. But also discusses deeper issues around our capitalist culture of sustainability, as well as celebrating the strength of individuals, families and communities. A few years later, Grandma only came on Fridays, when she came to get her hair done by Mum. As Grandma leaned over the kitchen sink with a towel around her shoulders, Mum would pour jugs of water over her head from a basin and rub shampoo into her grey curly hair.

SIMON: Helen Rebanks, you know, I don't believe I have ever asked this question of a philosopher or a poet, but I'm going to try it on you. You see a lot of life on the farm. What's life all about? Spending evenings in rural Britain as a teen in the 1990s, especially if you had a mate old enough to have a licence, meant you drove round and around town, did doughnuts in car parks, sat in vehicles next to each other, then went to the chippy or kebab shop before they closed. I got bored with that scene, so I stayed in and turned my brain – because dad controlled the TV – to the books on my mother’s shelves. Hemingway, Camus… Suddenly my mind was on fire.