Farming Breeds: Simon – the Agric
Join us for a funny, irreverent look at some of the characters that make the British countryside what it is. Our tongue-in-cheek guide puts characters such as the retired Major, the “perfect” next-door farmer and the young tearaway under the microscope. Here we meet Simon the Agric, a second-year agricultural student with a penchant for rugby, getting drunk and Cheryl Cole…
Simon’s in the second year of an agricultural degree at a rural campus. He gets drunk in the union bar and shows people his bottom. Then he ambles back to the damp, mouse-infested cottage he shares with three friends. “The squat”, as they call it.
His wardrobe is full of rugby tops and T-shirts that say “I’m the bull to make you full” or “I’m a top tup” on the back.
He smells of silage for weeks on end in the vacations – but scrubs up well, occasionally donning a black tie for 21st birthday parties. He usually finds something unexpected in the pocket when he puts the jacket on – a bottle opener; a partially-decomposed item of food; and once, a bra.
Simon goes lambing at Easter, harvesting in the summer. He works 100-hour weeks because he needs the cash. During the vacation he lives in a caravan with six other students from other colleges. They share clothes and kick each other out of bed in the mornings and pretend to be asleep when one of them brings back a girl.
Simon’s stocky and puts on weight easily. The girls think him bawdy – but quite like him. “How many acres has she got?” is what he always wants to know.
When the weather halts harvest, they go and get drunk in the local pub and show the regulars their bottoms. It’s uncomfortable and unhygienic in the caravan but the smell of each of them is neutralised by the smell of the others. “The mobile squat”, as they call it.
He enjoys looking under tractor bonnets and, alongside his favourite Cheryl Cole poster on his bedroom wall, there’s a picture of a monster tractor. He took the photo on his year out, travelling New Zealand and Australia with his best mate from Young Farmers.
Simon’s stocky and puts on weight easily. The girls think him bawdy – but quite like him. “How many acres has she got?” is what he always wants to know.
His girlfriend Katie – one of only four girls on the course – can’t help thinking she gets the short end of the stick sometimes. Like when Simon rolls up at three in the morning and eats the contents of her fridge in one sitting. Then decides to chop some firewood – in the kitchen.
He likes a game of squash with his lecturers. It helps, knowing them on a personal level, when negotiating an extension or an assignment deadline – and Simon negotiates a lot of these. Having joined every club and society in Fresher’s Week, there’s just never enough time to write that essay on animal physiology or nutrition.
An essay on stratification in the sheep industry or a sponsored parachute jump? A farm accounts assignment or rugby training? Reading a book about genetics or an impromptu sesh in the union bar. No contest, is it.
That little incident with the sheep in the principal’s office seems, thankfully, to have been forgotten about now. If Simon buckles down in his final year, he’s on course for a 2:1. He likes working with his hands, though, and couldn’t bear an entirely office-bound job. Farm management, he reckons, will give him the best of both worlds. Maybe do that for a couple of years, he thinks, then go back to the family farm.
For now, however, he’s got more pressing priorities – like getting drunk in the union bar and showing people his bottom. Again.