Insights into five years of the Owen family: growing up on the farm!

Insights into five years of the Owen family: growing up on the farm!

Today, May 24, 2025, the highly anticipated special episode of the series, Our Yorkshire Farm: 5 Years with the Owen Family, will air on 5 HD. This episode gives a unique insight into the Owen children's growing up over the last five years on their 2,000 acre farm in the Yorkshire Dales. The focus is on the influence of rural childhood on children's development, with unpublished footage from previous episodes shown. The episode is a tribute to the experiences Amanda Owen and her children had during this time and will air at 5:05 p.m., followed by a repeat.

Amanda Owen, herself a mother of nine children, emphasizes the freedom that her children experience on the farm. She explains the importance of teaching children practical skills and how to deal with dangers with respect. Their children – Raven, Reuben, Miles, Edith, Violet, Sidney, Annas, Clementine and Nancy – grew up in an environment that allows them to explore nature and learn through play. For example, they play extreme hide and seek and explore caves, which Amanda Owens believes is an important part of their upbringing. These views on the balance between risk and learning are also reflected in the experiences that the historian Ewald Frie describes in his book.

A life on the farm

Ewald Frie, professor at the University of Tübingen and winner of the German Non-Fiction Prize 2023, describes his own childhood on a farm in Münsterland, Westphalia, in his book “A Farm and Eleven Siblings. The Silent Farewell to Farm Life.” He grew up here with ten siblings and his memories are characterized by hard work. In an interview, Frie explains that change in agriculture involves both a rapid process for society and slow, individual changes.

Like Owen, Frie sees the value of practical skills and the importance of education for the next generation. The children learned to work on the farm in addition to their school education, which was criticized in the 1950s by child rights activists who criticized the high workload on farm children. Frie also reflects that life on the farm was often characterized by the pursuit of social connection, with older siblings growing up in a self-sufficient world, while younger siblings more often experienced exclusion.

The challenges of modern agriculture

Amanda Owen, who does not come from a farming family, found her way to becoming a shepherdess through her own passion for rural life and literature. Her commitment is also reflected in the renovation work on the 200-year-old property, which she purchased with her ex-husband Clive in 2020. Their documentation will be captured in the series Our Farm Next Door, which will air on More4 from April 29th. Amanda is often seen as a champion of traditional lifestyles, while recognizing the challenges of modern agriculture.

With a significant social media presence and the book The Yorkshire Shepherdess, Owen has made a name for herself in recent years and manages to share her family's stories with a wide audience. Today's episode and its reflection on growing up on the farm highlight the strength and charm of rural life, which brings with it both challenges and numerous valuable lessons.