Geoff Woods

Geoff Woods worked for many years on a dairy farm and as a shepherd before becoming a self-employed gardener. He is also a scoutmaster, morris dancer and pantomime dame

Childhood and the start of farming

I spent 30 years in farming. I originally started back in 1964, which was when I left school. I’d done part time farm work before I left school, because at the age of 12 I knew all I wanted to do was to work outside and work with animals.

I was born in London, Streatham but moved to Surrey when I was four. I went to the comprehensive school there. Back then I wasn’t as confident and outgoing as I am now. When I was about thirteen or so I was fairly shy, believe it or not. If I could go back I’d say, have the courage of your convictions. If you want to do something then just do it. I’d always just dismiss it or not get round to it.

My father was very dominant and I always did what was expected. My sister went to Grammar School and got good grades so I was always a bit of an underdog. My father never spent that much time with us. On the weekends, he’d go and play cricket. We’d watch and I’d think - this is boring. We never did much as a family. We went for a drive occasionally, but it was always mum who took us swimming or to the cinema. She was great. I’ve always done much more with my children than my father did. I did scouts with my son, we’d go out on the farm together. We always had family holidays. I was much more liberal and open minded with my children than my father was with me and I gave them much more freedom.

In school one of my teachers owned a smallholding where I went to work, and absolutely loved it. I got to work with pigs and cattle and sheep. I left school and went to work on a pig farm for 3 years, then from there I went to agricultural college and did the NCH - national certificate in agriculture. That was a full time course, in residence there, split between 50 percent theory and 50 practical. I must have been about 18. We had a go at milking cows at college - they taught us how to do it. We also learnt about sheep - the whole spectrum, and it actually changed my awareness of farming so that I came out of college wanting to go into dairy.

Dairy farming and beyond

I went down to work in Weston Super Mare, and worked on a large dairy farm milking cows from the herd and doing various jobs around the area. I worked in Warminster doing the same thing, and then I moved again, to be nearer my parents. I drove tractors and did all general sorts of work.

I was in Northhamptonshire when I married in 1973/4, and my daughter was born there. The farm was actually made up of two separate ones – it was a very large estate. I wasn’t working with cows anymore now - I was a shepherd. I looked after 10,000 sheep, and we also had suckling cows. These are beef reared cows, which suckle their calves for six to seven months. After seven months the calves are weaned, the cows taken off to one shed, the calves are taken to another and the calves are reared until they’re about 18 months and then sold for beef. It was an arable farm as well.

My children grew up there. Both children went to the local primary school. It was a lovely little school; it was lovely there; and we stayed for about ten years. I actually like being in one place, so I don’t move around too much. I had to leave because the farm was sold

I left that farm after ten years and went, not too far away, to Barton Worcester, to a place called Woodlands. We had dairy cows and a few beef cattle, and arable. There were just the two of us working on that farm. I milked the cows on his day off, and I just did everything else. I looked after the maintenance of the farm and looked after the young stock again rearing the calves and the heifers - who are the replacements for the dairy cows. We had a cottage there on the farm, a tied house, which is the way farming exists. Under a tied system, the house goes with the job. It’s not a perk, it’s not a bonus, it just happens; and unfortunately they think that it’s a good thing to have this house, and pay you less money.

Difficult years in farming and the birth of self-employment

Anyway, I was there for another ten years - my whole life seems to have gone in cycles of ten years. At the end of those ten years, or within them, after about eight or nine years… my marriage broke down. My daughter was just doing her GCSEs so she must have been about 16. It was obviously a difficult time for us. My wife and my children stayed in the tied house, and I had to live somewhere else. That carried on for a year, and at the end of that year we actually got back together again. It wasn’t the right thing to do, but there we are; that’s the way life goes. It was at the time when foot and mouth broke, and before foot and mouth we had BSE, which did affect the farm in a big way. We lost lots of cows, which had to be slaughtered, and it affected the milk prices. Farming got tighter and there wasn’t much money around.

Foot and mouth affected the industry in a big way because the milk price dropped. Five years previous it had been 25 pence, and now it was down to 17 pence. I know it doesn’t sound very much, but farmers only get 10 pence a litre, and when you think what milk is in the shops, it’s worth three times that amount.

That was the series of events, and the owner decided to sell up. He didn’t sell the farm, just sold the cows, but that meant I was made redundant. I had to look for a job, which was hard after 10 years. But also there was the fact of getting back together again. I looked at various farming jobs, which didn’t come to the fore really; and then a job came up on a farm near Chipping Norton, a place called Cornwell. There was a farmer there who needed somebody just to milk his cows once a fortnight to give his herdsman a day off. There were no wages, but they gave you a house. I thought ‘oh this sounds good, I can do my own thing, I can go self employed’.

I’d always been afraid to go self-employed before. Whenever I’d talked to anyone about it they’d said that’s too risky a thing to do; but I did it. This job was offered to me - I had an interview and they rang me up and said look, the job’s yours if you want. The only downside was that the house wasn’t very good, so I had to spend a lot of time doing it up. Then I thought, I can get plenty of relief milking jobs, because in the area at the time there weren’t many people doing relief milking. When I was being made redundant I put feelers out amongst the agricultural community, and had two jobs offered me within a week, doing relief milking for various people. I took the job at Cornwell and moved into the cottage.

It was a lovely little cottage in this village, which was a private estate. All the roads into the village were privately owned, so it was like living in a time gone by. I started working there, and got plenty of work. I got more work than I could cope with at times – lots of milking work – and then I started doing a few garden jobs. People I knew said “oh, you’re self employed, if you’ve got any spare time, would you like to mow my lawn?”. Once a few of these started it was like a snowball - it started rolling. People got to hear of me doing gardening, and it took off. Now I do it full time.

I actually lived at Cornwall for just under a year and my marriage broke down. Eventually my wife and I, we separated. I’ve been in Oxford ever since.

Gardening blossoms

I love gardening, I love the peace and tranquillity - I only wish I’d gone into it earlier. This area’s brilliant for gardening jobs and I’ve got lots of customers. I’ve worked on jobs this morning, and gone out to look at three more potential ones. All my customers are nice people, and I don’t have to work for them if they’re not. I turn down more jobs than I do, and the financial security is there that wasn’t there in farming. I’ve never hated my work though; never had Monday morning blues. When I came back from holiday when I was working as a shepherd, the first thing I’d do is go out walking with the dog to see how it was getting on.

When people ask me what I’m going to work on, I say “I’ll have a look round first”, and then I can say, well that needs doing, and that there needs seeing to. There’s always something different and always some change.

I’m never afraid to say if I don’t know the name of something, because life’s all about learning. I do carry books with me, on what time of year to sow and things like that and I’ve been on courses as well. I don’t use any chemicals when I’m gardening, unless the customer requests it. We do too much to the earth. I believe in conservation and in recycling, all sorts. We recycle everything here – bottles, cans, paper, compost.

I do loads of different gardens, from little courtyards to really big ones. There are huge gardens up in North Oxford. I work for academics and business people - some who want the garden to look nice but don’t have the time; old people who can’t manage it anymore; academics and people who don’t know what to do themselves. I start work at seven in the morning, and I’m supposed to only work an eight hour day, but I usually come home at six or seven. Then I work Saturdays, but I try not to work past lunchtime. I never work Sundays, I don’t even answer my phone. Sunday’s my day off.

Jenny

I don’t see myself retiring at sixty-five. I’ll take less work on when I’m in my seventies, but I find it hard to even see myself doing that. I’ve never worried about getting old -never worried in my forties or fifties. I’m, what, fifty-three now, but I don’t feel my age. I don’t know what drives me, or where I get my energy. I always want to do my best and show myself off to the best of my abilities. I just love life. I want to do everything and go everywhere.

Jenny and I we both dance for the same Morris side in Botley, and that’s how we got together. It was just love at first sight. I mean, she walked into the hall and that was it, you know, that was the person I wanted to be with for the rest of my life and that’s all that mattered.

Anyway, I’ve got my morris dancing; we do morris dancing together. We dance from September to May, and practice once a week at the WI hall in Botley. From May onwards we dance out at pubs and carnivals and fetes. We get up at about 4 or 5 in the morning, go out to a place called “The Hurst”, light a fire and do some dancing. Each side sings a song, or recites a poem. Then later in the day we go out dancing in the town, in shopping centres.

I suppose a sense of community is important to me. I do like to feel that I’m giving something back to the community I’m living in. When I got involved with the local Church, I helped raised funds to get the roof and the bells redone, and I learnt to bellring. I got involved in the scouts as well. I was a scoutmaster for many years, where my son used to go. Then I also joined a drama society. The first year in the pantomime I had about 3 lines, and the next year I was playing the dame. I’ve played the dame every year now, apart from one year when we did “Wind in the Willows” and I played Toad, which was great fun. I got involved in the guides’ production - which was me on stage surrounded by a load of kids -and I loved it. It’s strange because when we recite the poems or sing in Morris dancing, which isn’t in front of that many people, I think “Oh, I don’t know if I fancy doing this”. But on a stage in front of hundreds of people, I’m fine. Jenny says she doesn’t know where I get it from. There’s no one else in my family really like it. I am an extrovert on the stage.

New doors are always opening for me. I’m gardening now, I travel; and being with Jenny I’ve got two new grown up sons and a teenage daughter. So I’m going back over that teenage stage again. But even though I’ve done it before, it’s totally different because she’s a different person. I’m very proud of all my children.

Jenny and I have been on three holidays already this year. One to Majorca; walking in the mountains - it’s beautiful there, we ought to go back; one to France, walking in the Pyrenees; and to Cornwall. I went abroad for the first time recently and now I’m hooked. I love travelling and I love flying.

There’s so many places Jenny and I have got to go and see. I hope we’ll get round to it all. I love the walking in the mountains and the clean air and being in Nature, because it does us both so much good.