Our Yorkshire Farm favourites Amanda Owen and family star on Air Ambulance Christmas cards

Yorkshire shepherdess Amanda Owen and her family are back on our TV screens in "Our Yorkshire Farm" and they also star on a newly-released charity Christmas card painted by Harrogate artist Anita Bowerman. Amanda, husband Clive and their nine children have been followed by more than 1.5 million viewers in the second series of the hit Channel 5 documentary Our Yorkshire Farm and the family, who farm at remote Ravenseat in Upper Swaledale, feature in the 2019 Yorkshire Air Ambulance Christmas card. It is now on sale for £4 for 10 cards and all proceeds go to the charity.

The card showing Yorkshire shepherdess Amanda Owen with children and animals at Ravenseat farm

It depicts Amanda and her children tending animals in the family's historic barn on a starry night. Anita has also illustrated two more Christmas cards for the YAA this Christmas – one entitled "Travelling home for Christmas" featuring a snow-covered Ribblehead Viaduct and another showing a snowy scene with deer and a curlew at Malham Cove. All three scenes feature the YAA helicopter.

The Travelling home for Christmas card

“Painting Amanda and her family and animals is always such a joy. In the card you can see Amanda with some of her children, sheepdogs, a robin, Tony the Pony, an owl, a robin and much more. The holly hanging above them is kept in this ancient barn all year. It is a privilege to be able to support the vital work of the YAA through the sale of these cards," says Anita, who collaborated with the Owen family last year to produce what became the Yorkshire Air Ambulance's best-selling card.

Multi-talented Amanda is a hill farmer at one of the highest and most remote farms in England. She is also a photographer, public speaker, author and is now a Yorkshire Air Ambulance ambassador and keen supporter of the work of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance.

Amanda at Ravenseat farm. Picture by James Hardisty.

She says " I was contacted by Anita last year to ask if I’d be happy to collaborate with her and the YAA by painting me and my sheep as a scene for one of the YAA’s Christmas cards. Obviously it was a real honour for me to accept, and it went on to be the charity’s best-selling Christmas card ever.“I hear they were sending them out all around the world and as far away as Canada. We have then kept in contact since and when I was asked to be an ambassador I was absolutely delighted. I genuinely couldn’t think of a better organisation to be involved with. I was very emotional when they first asked me.”Amanda adds: “I am aware that living as remotely as we do the YAA is a vital service that can make the difference between life and death. We have had our fair share of medical emergencies, though are fortunate to have never yet ourselves required the services of the YAA.”

The snow lays deep and crisp and even at Malham Cove - another of this year's Christmas cards painted by Anita Bowerman

*Copies of last year’s Yorkshire Shepherdess card, along with the new one, are available to buy through the YAA website: www.yaa.org.uk/shop or you can call in to Anita’s Dove Street gallery in Harrogate to buy a pack. Visit www.anitabowerman.co.uk for location and opening times. The Yorkshire Air Ambulance serves five million people across Yorkshire and carries out over 1,500 missions every year. The charity operates two, state-of- the-art Airbus H145 helicopters and needs to raise £12,000 every day to keep saving lives.