Ag advisers’ funniest tales: Boozy buys, nudity and gaffes

 

From drunken livestock purchases and clothing mishaps to naturist camps and equipment failures, being an agricultural adviser doesn’t get any easier as the years go by.

Once the first farm visit is over, some might be expecting smooth sailing here on in, but there’s always another character to cope with and another animal to placate.

Farmers Weekly asked the experts about their funniest moment, the most memorable person they’ve ever met, and the biggest change they’ve seen during their careers.

See also: Ag adviser tales: Farm characters, criminals and surly stock

Folly the cow

While manning the Savills stand at Lincolnshire Agricultural Show, I accepted an invitation to the Stockmans’ evening barbecue, where I enjoyed a beer or two.

The next day I reported for duty a little dehydrated and with a nagging headache. About lunchtime I was told a man wanted to talk to me.

He asked: “When do you want to pick her up? You need to take her today.”

Curiosity and mild panic setting in, I followed the man to the cattle lines where he pointed at a gorgeous Lincoln Red heifer.

My mind raced back to the early hours of the previous morning and I could suddenly remember asking this man: “Is she for sale? I’d really like her in my field at home. How much is she?”

He reminded me how much I had offered to pay for her and after handing the money over it dawned on that that I needed to break the news to my wife.

I called her Folly and she was a legend in our village. Everybody loved her as she was very gentle and playful. She lived for nine years and had five calves.

Andrew Pearce, director, farms and estates, Savills

Memorable meeting

During my placement year from Harper Adams, I volunteered to make my first solo visit to a long-term client.

In my haste to impress, while ensuring not to run over the farm terrier, or step in the stream of slurry in the yard as I got out of the car and was greeted by a rosy-cheeked client (with dad’s words ringing in my ears: “Nice strong handshake, Lynette, don’t be a girl”) I managed to put two different boots on.

It wasn’t until I had finished the visit and returned to the office for a cuppa that I realised my mistake and wished I had never volunteered in the first place.

Lynette Steel, farm policy adviser, TFA

Mouse prints

Early in my career I visited a farmer on a very remote part of Dartmoor. He lived alone in an old Devon longhouse with an even older cooking range.

The gentleman was very traditional, being dressed in a long canvas mac which stretched from his neck to his toes. After a tour of the farm we were both absolutely soaked and needed to take refuge in his kitchen.

He said: “When we get indoors I’ll cook you one of my special bacon cobs to warm you up.”

I enthusiastically took him up on the offer.

But once inside his incredibly dark and basic kitchen, when my eyes adjusted to this gloom I focused on a very large frying pan sitting on the edge of the range.

To my horror I could see that the frying pan was full of congealed lard and in the lard were the footprints of several mice.

Clearly seeing the horror on my face, he said: “Don’t you worry about those prints, we’ll soon get rid of them.”

He plonked the pan on the heat and threw in a few pieces of the fattiest bacon I had ever seen, and that was when I realised the pan was never washed up between uses.

Andrew Pearce, director, farms and estates, Savills

Nudist camp

As a young land agent we had an instruction from trustees to advise on a house, land and woodland just off the A23 in Sussex.

I had to inspect the house fortnightly and noticed that the track through the woodland was well used by people who were all middle aged and very tanned. 

We realised that there was a naturist/nudist holiday camp in the wood, which was also owned by the trustees.

I admit that I was extremely worried I would only be allowed to undertake the valuation of the nudist holiday camp if unclothed.

Fortunately, it was such a cold day when I did visit that nobody was there apart from the person showing me round, who was clothed. My dignity was preserved!

Patrick Beddows, senior director, Strutt & Parker

Work wars

In preparing an estate in Kent for sale, our client had employed a friend’s twin sons to smarten it up.

Their first job was to wash moss off several hundred yards of fencing along the drive.

Unfortunately, they had just finished their GCSEs and were primarily focused on spending their earnings down the pub.

Indeed, on pulling up to the estate a week into the twins’ employment, I was surprised to see that the ‘great fence wash’ had made it only as far as the first speed bump.

I was told to return the following morning so the client and I could give them a verbal warning.

To my utter astonishment, when I did, the client opened the door wearing a man-sized baby blue onesie with the words ‘jump-in’ written across the seat.

Thinking fast, I politely pointed out that if we wanted to get the message across to the twins, we should probably wear work attire.

He took the point well, quickly changed, and we were able to work as a united front.

Ed Mansel Lewis, director, Strutt & Parker

Camera crash

I had spent all day doing a record of condition on a Highways scheme. The next day I couldn’t find my camera, so I rang the site and was told the digger driver had found it – it had been flattened by the digger and smashed to pieces.

Tracey Jackson, associate director, H&H Land & Estates

Shetland Grand National

When I was a naïve young surveyor, I went to take soil samples on a client’s land, which was sodden and muddy, while dressed in my best cream chinos. The final field contained a group of horses, which spotted me and came to investigate, cantering down at a rate of knots.

They gained momentum as they got closer, increasing my heart rate, but slammed on the brakes at the last minute, leaving me – and my pristine chinos – covered in mud.

I maintain to this day that they were large thoroughbreds, but my team will tell you it was a herd of Shetlands. Ever since, I have made sure my waterproofs are in the car and my cream chinos are strictly reserved for office days.

Hamish Smales, graduate surveyor, GSC Grays

Welly regrets

On a recent viewing I set off on a farm tour with a potential purchaser. Halfway round, we came across an enlarged stream and it dawned on us both that we had forgotten to put on our wellies.

I had to do my best impression of the world’s strongest man and build some stepping stones to cross. Needless to say the makeshift stepping stones were not a great success – I drove home barefoot.

Will Douglas, associate director, Savills

Land lots

When land is sold, solicitors often require a Land Registry compliant plan, which requires the boundaries to be measured on site.

Drawing a straight line on a plan while sat in an office is an easy task. Splitting a parcel of land in two can prove much harder when faced with a small forest of buddleia, brambles or thorn bushes.

This photo of Rob Jones from the Marlborough office of Woolley & Wallis was taken when we had to go out on one such occasion. You can just see a small hammer in his hands which he’s used to knock a peg into the ground, marking out the dividing boundary.

When faced with a wall of brambles, the language can deteriorate and solicitors can be cursed.

The art of being a rural surveyor is to go out and do this work on a sunny day and avoid the wet ones.

Richard Nocton, partner, Woolley & Wallis