Diary of a waller: Free-spirited sheep lead a chase across moors

She farms the last piece of Yorkshire before the high road takes a turn for the worse and descends into the sinister dark lands to the west. Her farm has been home to generations of hardy, horned sheep who show no respect to the majority of the walls and fences designed to restrain their movements.

In some ways the free spirit of these ewes is to be admired and the way they stalk their boundaries for a chance of escape is reminiscent of Steve McQueen's motorbike seeking its way across to Switzerland in The Great Escape.

Hannah, of course, is not in total agreement with my admiration for these sheep as she spends a good percentage of her waking hours retrieving absconders from neighbouring farms, moors, woods, and reservoirs. The upside of all this is that she has become a proficient dog handler and enjoys considerable success in the sheepdog trialling world. The advantage from my point of view is that Billy gets to repair the walls and fences.

Last week I had a call from Hannah about an hour after dark as she was herding some strays by torchlight, whispering into the

mobile like some kind of secret agent.

"Billy, can you do me a favour and come tomorrow to mend a gap and look at some fencing at the top of the valley?"

"Can you speak up, Hannah? I can hardly hear you."

"I daren't speak any louder. I've just got two score of ewes out of the garden at Beckside and I'm trying to get the beggars home without being discovered by them inside."

I rearrange my workplan and agree to call up the next day, chuckling at the thought of the Becksiders discovering a thousand hoof-shaped divots and piles of sheep muck on their pristine lawn. No brain work required there then to identify the culprits.

Morning dawns, and a peek through Hannah's binoculars identifies a gap in the wall and 30 yards of collapsed topwire. As is usual at Hannah's, nothing is straight forward and I am often requested to help clip a few hoggs, hang a gate or dose a few lambs before I can start on the walling job in hand. Today, I am informed that Hannah and her son, locally known as GT, are going to "gather" the moor and

would I mind taking them to their starting points in the Land Rover?

En route we come across another three sheep bouncing over a wall into the road. After some careful shepherding, the rebels are locked in a "safe" field and it is an hour later that I load my walling and fencing tackle into Hannah's quad bike and trailer and set off across the valley. The gearbox on Hannah's quad is as unruly as her sheep but gets me safely to the scene of the breakout. The broken fence posts must be 50 years old and have snapped at the bottom

after a particularly vicious woolly onslaught.

With the fence on the floor, it is easy to see how the three tons of mutton had demolished the four foot wall in their bid for freedom the day before.

I repair the gap and am just completing the fencing when the phone rings. Hannah again. "Billy, I'm up on top of the moor but looking through the binoculars I can see a few sheep in the field below where you are working. When you're done, can you bring them down to the green fields at Old Snapstones?" I agree to see what I can do, pointing out that I am armed with only a quad and not a dog.

With the fencing complete and the trailer reloaded with equipment, I set off to the gate at the bottom of the field. Parking on the slope, I apply the handbrake and jump off the quad to open the gate. Bad move! It seems the hand brake has been as well-maintained as the gearbox and I quickly realise that the quad is chasing me to the gate. Discretion being the better part of valour, I stand aside and let the gate take the hit. What a pantomime.

Once through the gate I can see two ewes and their lambs quietly grazing in the middle of the field and I approach, like a motorised Shep, to drive them to Old Snapstones. Naturally, being Hannah's stock, they make for the opposite direction and I spend several minutes dogging them up and down with the quad until eventually I get them to the correct field.

It is only then when I glance behind that I realise the back door has bounced off the trailer along with two hammers, an iron bar, a radio, a flask, a mell, a bucketful of staples and a dozen antique fencing posts destined for Hannah's fire.

The contents of the trailer are now scattered over a

10-acre patch.

Ah well, I suppose it could always be worse – I could have a job in the city.

After gathering everything up, I am climbing back on the quad when my mobile rings and a snorting voice laughs. "Billy! I have just been watching through my binoculars..."

It's a good job I am happy in my work!

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CW 9/10/10