I recently met up with Chris , Karen and son Dan , the hard-working Wise family of New House Farm , Upper Heaton ; perched on a hillside looking towards Huddersfield . Although the farmhouse is neatly tucked away up Round Hill Lane , when I strolled up to the top pasture to take some photos I was heartily glad of a warm coat . Up there it will test the best in thermals .

New House Farm goes back for five generations . Karen ’ s great-grandfather Taylor Ellis farmed here until his passing in 1933 . His son and Karen ’ s grandfather Walter Ellis then brought his family up here , Raymond her father being born in the farmhouse in 1938 . The farming partnership of W Ellis & Sons was officially formed in 1962 , around the time Raymond and Barbara married and had a bungalow built .

Today the farm has 65 sucklers and calves . Generally , up to 80 head of finishing animals with further stores bought in . They have British Blue bulls and a Limousin as the continental breeds make for better selling calves . The cows are a mixture of beef shorthorn and Continentals , moving towards Limousin to produce a better quality calf .

They have 17 acres of Westerwold on a one-year grass ley , along with 8.5 acres of silage on a 3-year ley and 60 acres of wheat and barley for cattle feed and bedding .

Chris and Karen met as teenagers but only started dating in their early twenties , getting married a couple of years later . At this time Karen was a bank clerk and Chris an overhead linesman apprentice trained at Yorkshire Electricity Board . Chris always had a love of farming from stacking bales for a farmer lower down the hill in his teenage years , followed by learning to drive a tractor , combine harvester and later becoming a wagon driver . Karen learnt to do the farm book-keeping to earn pocket money . Shortly after their marriage they decided to buy a milk round , so gave up their jobs to become self-employed .

As the children were born , Daniel and sister Katy , the family renovated the derelict farmhouse and moved into it in January 1995 as Raymond wanted his family close by in case of emergencies . The milk round was also sold in 1995 as supermarkets and fluctuating milk prices were making it less and less profitable .

Chris then did some agricultural contracting , working with Nigel Hardy , before setting up his own plant hire business with diggers , excavator , mini-digger and tipper wagon . Chris employed a few men to drive the machinery and worked on the diggers himself , in terms both of driving and maintaining the machines . Chris did say that Lloyd of Throckley have provided superb plant parts support whenever required .

Son Daniel was born to be a farmer , as the midwife pointed out at his birth upon seeing the shape of his hands . He

delighted in helping his grandad from the time he could walk and talk . As Daniel became more independent he would dress himself early in the morning as soon as he heard the milking machines start up at 6 am and ask his parents to shout out the numbers to disable the burglar alarm so he could go outside to help Raymond milk the cows , watched over by Tessa the sheepdog .

The farming business of R & K Ellis sold the milk cows as it was less profitable to milk a small herd of cows ( around 36 ), so the decision was taken to sell the cattle and concentrate instead on sheep and beef stores . Daniel missed drinking the natural raw milk he had thrived on and disliked “ plastic ” milk from the shop so much that he asked his grandfather to buy him a “ house cow ”. Every morning and afternoon , before and after school , Dan would go out to milk Poppy in a bucket milker . All the family enjoyed the taste of “ proper cow juice ” and Poppy had plenty for everyone , raising her own calf and

many others , as well as being a calming influence on the store cattle .

Dan ’ s dedication and work ethic stood him in good stead as a teenager when he was asked by a family friend to work in the butcher ’ s shop as a Saturday boy ; he soon became familiar with all aspects of the job and was particularly adept at making delicious pork pies . His intelligence and attention to detail soon had him teaching the butcher how to keep records of orders at busy times as he was aware of the need to write customer names and addresses on Christmas orders from his parent ’ s experience on the milk round .

As well as football games for the local youth team ( what he lacked in ball skills he made up for in steadfastness and stamina ) and Saturday job working at the butcher ’ s , Dan still helped on the farm learning to drive a tractor , stacking the bales in summer and ploughing the fields after harvest .

As Dan worked his way through the education system , gaining high grades in ‘ O ’ and ‘ A ’ levels as well as being awarded