Harvest of love

ROBIN Nicholson knows just the kind of wife he needs. A shepherdess, good around the house and kitchen, who understands country living and could work beside him on the farm. Unfortunately, finding her isn't proving easy.

The 40-year-old bachelor runs Daleside Farm on the moors above Hawnby with his 'aged, 70-year-old parents'. It's a hard life - and there aren't that many people around.

"You don't meet many people if you have to work long hours - daylight hours," he says. "People say things like it would be nice to visit for the weekend - but that's just as busy as any other time."

The long hours mean he relies for his social life on invitations from family and friends. He's often invited along as 'the bachelor'. But it's not so much meeting women that's the problem, as finding the right one.

"I would like to find that perfect companion," he concedes. "But it is finding somebody who is able to share the life with you. You are so much tied to the farm. And up in the hills, it's a very hard living, with very little income. To support a family, the wife would have to go out to work. It's not an ideal situation."

She would also have to be able to put up with him. "After a while, you get settled in your own ways, become more quirky. You become quite happy with your own company."

All of which means he's in two minds about the thought of marriage. Part of him has learned to be content with his bachelor life. But a bigger part does want a family of his own, to 'carry on the farm and business'.

He has tried lonely hearts columns in local newspapers a few times. "But you never get anywhere. You only have about 10-20 words to say who you want to meet, and it has got to be amusing, enticing. There is a serious side that will never come over in a few short words. You tend to get a lot of ladies from Leeds, and it is such a completely different world!"

Robin isn't alone, of course, in having problems finding that 'perfect companion'. It's never easy at the best of times - but for young farmers, often leading lonely lives working long hours in remote countryside, it is harder than for most.

"It is difficult and isolated on a farm," admits Slingsby farmer Chris Wilson. "It's not like working in a factory, where there are 200 people and the chances are you will meet someone you like. You have to make a lot more effort. And when you're working 12 to 16 hours a day, seven days a week, you don't always want to make the effort."

Chris, 50, the club leader of Amotherby and District Young Farmers, admits there's some truth in the old joke that young farmers clubs are a kind of unofficial marriage bureau. He met his own wife Ann a quarter of a century ago at a young farmers club barbecue. "We went out the following night, started seeing each-other and after six weeks we decided this was it!" he recalls.

If anything, Chris says, it's probably harder now than ever for young farmers to meet the right companion - part of the reason why, perhaps, younger people are leaving the industry in droves. The average age of farmers in the UK today, he believes, is between 50 and 60.

It was to help lovelorn farmers that, two years ago, Country Living magazine launched its free matchmaking service. It featured 13 farmers from around the country and had some impressive results. To date two couples have married, three couples are engaged, a baby has been born and another is on the way.

Now a new TV series, The Farmer Wants A Wife, will follow the magazine's second matchmaking campaign which tries to find partners for 30 farmers across England, Scotland and Wales.

In charge of finding the perfect match is Catherine Gee, Country Living's head of shows and official Cupid.

Catherine, who is in her 30s, found she was popular with the bachelors. "I think in some cases they might not have had a lot of female attention apart from their mothers," she admits. "Then I came along telling them how lovely they looked on their photographs and making a fuss of them."

Despite the lure of female company, many of the farmers who took part needed a helping hand to get involved. Rex Russell, 63, from Broadclyst, Devon, has his ex-wife, from whom he has been separated for ten years, to thank.

She wrote in on his behalf, without him knowing.

Rex, who describes himself as an entertainer, a 'bit of a talker' and a 'sort of a challenge', decided it would be a 'grand opportunity'. Despite his outgoing personality - and despite 'one or two girlfriends' over the last few years - he believes he has his work cut out finding a partner.

"I think it is much more difficult to meet a woman in the countryside - especially when you are older," he says. "They certainly don't go down the pub and when you pop down the supermarket you can't tell whether they are single, separated or divorced."

With his Ben Fogle looks and manner, 28-year-old arable farmer Richard Ryman, from Lichfield in Staffordshire, proved the most popular of the farmers on the show - receiving 280 letters from potential new girlfriends.

But Richard, who works on a 900-acre farm with his father and brother, admits he was shocked when he learned how many letters had been sent in - and that he probably won't do anything about any of them. "It was quite scary," he says. "I would never have the bottle to phone them up. I wouldn't know what to say!"

It's a 'shrinking violet' attitude that's likely to win him little sympathy from Ken Harrison. The Hovingham farmer, who is an honorary life member of Amotherby Young Farmers, believes a lot of nonsense is talked about how difficult it is for farmers to meet people. "You've got to go out and look for it!" he says. "Life doesn't come to you."

But if you do make the effort, he insists, there is a great social life for young people in the country - everything from dances, barbecues, fun charity events and social gatherings - with the young farmers clubs at the centre. He agrees with Chris Wilson that in a way the clubs operate a bit like unofficial marriage bureaux. But they're not just for farming folk, he stresses. "We get all sorts of people. A lot of the girls are nurses, teachers, or work in banks."

He met his own wife Pat when he was chairman of Amotherby young farmers, and she was secretary.

"I had a good look around to see what was available and decided I couldn't improve on her!" he jokes. "When you find somebody as bright as that, you take her!"

Which, as advice goes, is just about as good as any you are likely to get.

- The Farmer Wants A Wife starts on ITV next Thursday, 9.30pm

Updated: 10:43 Thursday, November 01, 2001