Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2011 | Page 68

COUNTRY LIFE

Fred Colson's shorthorn cattle

£2.50 a week he was receiving from his
father.
“I saved up £1,900 and successfully
applied for a council farm – Sheep
Lane Farm - at Blackgang in 1971,
which was a good move for me. It
wasn’t the farm I originally wanted,
which incidentally was sold last year
for £850,000. I told my father it
would be a good investment.
“I then acquired a piece of land down
at Godshill and borrowed the money
to build a house there, which is Milk
Pan Farm, and had 78 acres. I tried
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to buy another farm but couldn’t so
eventually in 1989 I managed to get
200 acres of land where I now live,”
said Fred.
But buying it wasn’t that easy
because his bank manager refused to
lend him the £300,000 he needed,
claiming Fred was ‘still living in the
1940s’, and needed to get an office
and a computer to get up to date.
He was more successful with another
borrower, but to this day refuses to
carry a credit card or have any modern
day technology in his house, claiming

the TV in the corner is only for
long-suffering Lesley to watch.
He prefers doing a bit of light work
on the farm, as well as gardening, and
keeping a few turkeys, ducks, chickens
and guinea fowl on a piece of land at
home – but he’s not sure how many.
He built the farm house where he
lives in 1994, added to his land, and
bought Sheep Lane Farm off the
council. So now he is up to personally
owning 500 acres, and rents a further
500, comprising mainly cattle, but also
corn, pigs and sheep.