LIFE doesn ’ t have to follow the same old pattern . The trend for dairy farmers getting bigger and bigger just to survive , or having to get out otherwise , aren ’ t the only ways , despite what some farm consultants may say . There really isn ’ t just one way to do anything . There is the right way for you as an individual , as a farming family or as a bigger farming business . That ’ s the way the Collinsons see it .

The Collinson family of David , Moyra and son Philip of Bellfield Farm in Willerby on the edge of Kingston upon Hull is a prime example of a family unit that is trying something different by neither going out of dairying nor increasing their herd , but by reducing their dairy herd and putting all their milk into milk vending under their new name of The Milk Well , and it is certainly proving popular since opening 28 October last year .

“ We ’ ve done it to hopefully make our life a little easier in the long term ,” says Moyra . “ It ’ s not gone that way at the moment but that ’ s because it has gone a little bit crazy , which has been good . Hopefully when it all settles down we can find our level . We ’ re currently flat out as a family business and doing it all ourselves . This hot weather is certainly keeping up our milkshake sales .

What they are also finding is that their family farm is now well and truly on the map for those who now come to pick up their milk , whereas previously it was pretty much only a milk tanker that came to visit .

“ We ’ ve been here for years ,” says David . “ But now that we have people coming regularly I ’ ve lost count of the times people have told us they didn ’ t

know there was a dairy farm down here .

“ We are tenants on 130 acres between Willerby and Cottingham and my father had 10 cows way back . We got up to about 100 at one point and we couldn ’ t have had any more because we can ’ t increase the size of our acreage .

“ We came here in 1935 because of the compulsory purchase of where my granddad ( Arthur Leonard Collinson ) had farmed on West Parade in Hull . My dad ( John Henry Collinson ) was 14 when they came .

“ Our dairy farming lineage can be traced back to 1928 because there are some cows registered to West Parade in Spring Bank in the Friesian Cattle Society Book .

Dad used to walk them from there over the railway crossings passed Walton Street ( where Hull Fair is held ) under the next railway bridge and graze them on the fields on the left-hand side .

David says the changes they have made recently at Bellfield Farm has brought an end to the days of the milk tanker collecting their milk .

“ We ’ re cutting right back on dairy cows and milk production . In my entire life the milk tanker has been coming here and it stopped this year . I ’ m still getting my head around that . We are now selling all of our milk through milk bottle vending .

“ We have reduced the dairy herd milk as much as possible

by drying them off and selling blocks of them . We ’ re a bit into the unknown , but all my life I feel like I ’ ve fought the milk tanker and I ’ m not having to do that now .

“ Other dairy farmers will know what I mean . And this is no reflection on the last dairy we supplied , Chestnut Dairies , they were very good to us and are a very hard-working dairy farm and dairy business family . They were very good to us , taking us on when Dairy Farmers of Britain went bust . We ’ ve had a good relationship with them .

“ We are just traditional milking . We aren ’ t in a pit , just an abreast parlour with five standing at each side . We just have a few

Jerseys and black and whites now . Any surplus produced goes towards feeding our beef cattle . We use sexed semen on the cows , so that we get replacement dairy heifers and we also use British Blue , Aberdeen Angus and Wagyu .

David says the Collinson family farming business is now mostly a mix of milk and arable cropping .

“ We grow winter wheat , winter barley and beans , which we are growing for the first time this year , and grass for forage for the cows . With us having less cows we are running the crops around a little more . We have five-year leys for the grass which is controlling blackgrass and helping the soil . With other additional land we combine around 200 acres .

“ As I grew up I was a tractor lad and dad looked after the cows . My first tractor was a Fordson Major . It was from Harbour Motors on Anlaby Road . I became more of the dairy man as tractors have progressed and my skills in that maybe haven ’ t . That ’ s more Philip ’ s department .

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