Bill Harborne

Hello to you all,

My name is Bill Harborne and i am 65, I was born near Redditch in the midlands where we had a farm, my father was a specialist breeder of Rhode Island Red poultry and we had 20,000 all free range. he improved the breed considerably when he started in 1920 ish the average egg production was just over 200 a year, when we gave up in 1960 the average was 300 eggs per year. he exported all over the world, even back to America (The home of the Rhode island Red). interestingly you could see the poultry on our farm from 20 miles away, so now nearly all eggs in the shops are supposed to be free range why can I travel from Torquay to Birmingham on the M5 and not see a single chicken? Something fishy going on i think.
We went into general farming and had a milking herd of Jersey cows, 400 breeding sheep and beef cattle. After his death in 1977 I was forced to sell much of the farm and went into agricultural engineering building tractor engines for local farmers and making machinery etc. We even made an automatic sheep dip, the farmer could go and have his lunch and when he returned 300 sheep had dipped themselves lol. This business gradualy developed over the years to become the local garage, I had an employee and together we serviced cars and restored old vehicles, many Morris Minors are still on the road today thanks to me (I leave it to you to decide if thats a good thing or not.
I was married to my wife Ann in 1972, she trained and became an RMN (Registered mental Nurse) We had two children Fay and William,
In 1996 we decided to sell up and buy a care Home (My wifes dearest wish) and we moved to Torquay where we cared for 14 residents with severe dementia. we had 7 staff menbers and cared for the residents so well we never did make any money lol. But we loved it, I did a level 4 NVQ in management.
i also took up writing poetry andstill do, I was invited several times to do a phome in and read my work on an America radio show, much of my poetry is humerous some very serious and some not fit for human consumption.
I was diagnosed with diabetes in 1996 and so far have retained my feet which is a good job considering I love gardening.
We gave up the care home in 2007 and turned the large victorian property into flats which we sold. We retained the whole of the ground floor, the garden and garage we also joined an organisation called Shared lives and through them we care for two adults with learning difficulties. I take one of them (A 30 year old) sea fishing regularly. Its adult fostering and it helps pay the bills, it is also far less regulated than a care home, more a family orientated thing, although it can still be stressfull.
The garden here was a nightmare, the rear garden faces south but is over shadowed by two large trees, it is also a bit like a polar bear enclosure at a zoo being in in a hole with a bank rising probably 30 feet up to the back wall. people walk along the road and look down at us, I am still waiting to have a bun thrown to me however. I hired a mini digger in 2002 and excavated a large flat area removing 30 skips of mostly shale (small granite chips)m this gave us a large flat area next to the house. The rest of it I made into tierd beds about 3ft wide (5 of them)using half round treated rails. This works well as i can stand on one bed and weed the bed above without bending.
For my 65 th my children bought me a green house so now I am concentrating on vegetables. I have made 4 raised beds to try and get to grips with the weed problem. Our climate is very mild I have not seen more than a smatter of snow since 1996 (I actualy miss it!) and we also hardly have any frost. being in a walled sunken bear pit helps there.
The mild climate encourages slugs and snails which drive me crazy.

I will try to add some pics later.


Bill