Fearless couple trade city life for a fresh start down on the farm

A York businessman and his wife are trading city life for a new beginning on their very own smallholding in rural East Yorkshire.

Shaun and Wendy McKenna have been dreaming of living the country life for years, but are the first to admit that they know absolutely nothing about growing their own produce or rearing livestock. However, the couple are not going let a minor detail like that deter them from achieving their goal and what they lack in experience they more than make up for in enthusiasm.

In the next few weeks the couple will move from their home in Strensall on the outskirts of York to their new farmhouse in the village of Everingham near Market Weighton, which comes with eight acres of land.

Shaun explained: “I grew up in Lancashire and enjoyed spending time on friends’ farms, although I’m not from a farming background myself. Wendy and I love being outside and have always had this dream of living on a farm in the country. We married in 1984 and have six children, so it never worked out because of the economics.”

Now that the couple’s children are older – they range in age from 14 to 27 – they believe that the time is finally right to follow their hearts. However, their decision was hastened by a worrying health scare that Wendy suffered last year.

Shaun said: “Wendy had a cancer scare and, thankfully, it didn’t develop into anything too serious and she got the all clear, but it made our minds up for us. I turned 50 last year and Wendy is 50 in May, so we can’t leave it any longer or we won’t have the same energy that we have now.”

To fund their drastic lifestyle change, Shaun is selling his stake in Inspire 2 Independence, an organisation that helps to get people into employment or training. He is one of four co-directors who founded the hugely successful company back in 2004. It now has a vast team of employees working across the Yorkshire and Humber region, the North West and the West Midlands. Whether Shaun can apply his undisputed business nouse to their new venture remains to be seen, but he’s bursting with ideas.

He admitted: “I don’t know squat about farming. We have three hens – Queenie, Diana and Katie. We got them around the time of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee two years ago, which is why they all have names inspired by royalty. We hatched some chicks and, unfortunately, all but one were roosters. I have no experience of farming other than that and Wendy is a former hairdresser, who now works one day a week tasting chocolate for Nestlé.

“My colleagues at work think I’ve lost my marbles, but I’m selling my shares in the business and moving on.”

Shaun insists that the move is very much a commercial venture, and not just a lifestyle change, saying: “We have to make money out of this. My family has enjoyed a nice lifestyle – last year we travelled extensively – but, to put it into perspective, we’re going from a house with four bathrooms to a house with one. We’re looking at all sorts of ideas – everything from opening a farm shop to a gallery, having camping pods on the land or even opening a petting farm.

“We’re thinking of offering guided walks in the Yorkshire Wolds, which is a largely undiscovered area. I walked the Wolds Way for charity last year on my own – all the way from the Humber Bridge to Filey – and walking is something that we really enjoy. We’d like to get more chickens and sell their eggs, and grow produce in polytunnels to sell.”

It is perhaps this willingness to consider such an array of vastly different approaches to making their investment pay off that will be key to whether or not the McKenna family succeed in their new venture.

Shaun is well aware that they need to look beyond more conventional approaches to farming if they’re to make a living from the land, adding: “We have lots of ideas for the future and commercial success doesn’t have to be purely about rearing animals for their meat. We are prepared to do that but recognise that sending them off to be slaughtered will be our toughest challenge. We hope to have some South African Boer goats as there has been a real increase in goat meat sales and it is seen as a healthy option, so we know there’s a market for that. We also hope to have pigs free ranging in the woods; we’re looking at hardy native breeds.”

Whatever direction their business takes, it will come under the umbrella of The Ginger Cow Company, a name chosen by Shaun because of his love of Highland Cattle and to reflect the fact that he’s a redhead himself. It’s highly likely that Highland Cattle will figure in the couple’s plans.

Shaun excitedly points out that the entire family was given new Wellington boots for Christmas in preparation for the big move. Although those born and bred in the country may chuckle at the notion that a businessman and a glamorous ex-hairdresser with no experience of farming can make money from the land, something tells me that the indomitable McKenna family might just pull it off.

A yearning to learn more

Shaun’s lack of experience should not be mistaken for naivety and he has certainly been swotting up and doing his homework.

“I’ve asked quite a number of people how they’d go about it if they were starting from scratch with eight acres of land, but any further advice would be more than welcome,” he said.

Anyone in the industry who is willing to share advice or ideas can email Shaun at [email protected]