Andrew, Farmer
I’m Andrew, I’m a dairy farmer from King’s Norton. 
Looking at the Ladybird books, do you think your job is like the one depicted in the book?
I suppose in a lot of ways, we’re still producers of food, but I think we’re a lot more efficient and bigger and in that way not much at all like what’s in the book, no.
What are the main differences between then and now?
It’s a lot less physical hard labour now. Where this book was fifty, sixty years ago a lot of it was hand labour, everything was moved by hand. The tractors were very small and had very small bits of machinery behind them, still relied on a lot of brute strength; whereas to be honest now we’ve got forklifts and big tractors to pull gear and it doesn’t rely on the brute strength that it used to.
What things have stayed the same?
The weather, that’s stayed the same really. We still have to work with or against the weather, like we always have done. The fact we can’t change the prices of anything we get, we’ve always been price takers. So, the prices and the weather I suppose.
What makes your job special?
Well, I’m very lucky to work for myself I think, I’m my own boss. We do have a lot of responsibility looking after animals and everything, and we do get to live in a beautiful part of the countryside.
Have you always worked in Harborough?
Yeah, I was born half a mile up the road on a little tiny farm in the village. The landlord sold that for houses when I was fifteen and moved us up to here and I’ve been here for thirty years, in fact thirty years this month.
What is special about doing your job in the Harborough area?
Well, I think Market Harborough’s beautiful. My wife’s family, they’re from Great Easton and we always reckon if you were to drive from King’s Norton to Great Eastern is through twelve or thirteen miles of some of the most beautiful countryside in the country I feel, so yeah we love it.