TWENTY years ago , North York Moorsborn Andrew Allanson was selling up ready to leave England behind for his biggest ‘ ling lowp ’ of all , jumping the ‘ ling ’ between England and France when property and land across the English Channel was much less expensive .

What is a ‘ ling lowp ’ you might ask . I ’ ll let Andrew tell you .

‘ It ’ s someone who jumps over a ling ,’ says Andrew . ‘ A ling lowper ’. So , there you are . All is now clear .

Andrew never made it to France as he said that the changeover to the Euro , just as he was selling up land to buy what were cheap farms in France at the time , cost him time and the opportunity as it took him around 10 months to sell and by that time prices in France had gone way beyond what he could afford , but France came to him years later in the form of the Parthenais breed of cattle from the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of western France .

He ’ s now one of the country ’ s foremost breeders having started with his first pedigree Parthenais bull 15 years ago .

Today Andrew has 25 pedigree Parthenais cows , some of which are from France , plus another 25 commercial cows that at three-quarter Parthenais are well on their way to being pedigree . He ’ s based at Espersykes Farm near Old Malton .

‘ I ’ d like to get to 50 pedigree Parthenais cows ,’ says Andrew . ‘ They don ’ t cost any more to keep than the commercials , but their pedigree progeny is worth more . They are definitely starting to catch on . I ’ m getting more and more people wanting bulls and heifers . I can sell as many heifers as I breed .’

‘ What is attracting people towards the breed is their easy calving . I ’ ve now one of the larger herds in the country , not the biggest but there are only about a dozen or so pedigree breeders over here . The

Parthenais breed is massive in France and their beef attracts a premium price .’

‘ I AI all my pedigrees , keeping all the heifer calves and use Charlie one of my home-produced bulls on the commercials . He was out of a bull called Hurricane Gonzo . When I get enough pedigree heifers in the herd , I will stick with Parthenais completely .’

Andrew ’ s crossbred store cattle go to Selby Mart where fattener Richard Rose buys nearly all of them with a view to selling to ABP at York .

‘ I calve the herd in March and April turning them out to the grassland here at Espersykes . Charlie seems to be throwing a fair number of twins . Last year we ’ d had three sets of twins in the first 15 calvings , which didn ’ t work out brilliantly as only two out of six survived .’

Andrew keeps his Parthenais and commercials on two acreages – 60 acres at Espersykes , which he has rented for the past 15 years and 80 acres of Forestry Commission land near Dalby village in Dalby Forest .

‘ I take stock of up to 20-30 there in July . It is SSSI land and there are three parcels made up of half woodland and half scrubland . The Parthenais really like it up there .’

Andrew was born at Snilesworth in 1960 , the youngest of nine children . His parents Miah Edgar Allanson and Lucy had 160 acres and a lot of moorland where he recalls they had a lot of sheep .

‘ They had farmed in Fryup and Bransdale before I came along . We then moved to Rosedale before packing up farming in 1969 . I remember we had dairy cows when I was a kid , about 15 of them and I can still see my brother on his stool milking away as it was all by hand .’

‘ I went to school in Osmotherley while we are Snilesworth , then Rosedale when we moved there . After my parents retired from farming , we lived in Thornton le Dale and I went to school in Pickering . It didn ’ t matter how many schools I went to – I left with no qualifications .’

‘ My first job was working with dairy cows and hens for Tony Stockdale at Allerston and then went to SB Bulmer Livestock up Newton Road in Pickering where I became the pig man . I was there six years and knew nothing about pigs when I started .’

When Andrew was in his mid-20s he went self employed and took on his own pigs . He built up to a pig herd of 60 breeding sows on three units . He sold