SHEEP BLEATS
I've always been among sheep and shepherding.
As a shepherd, you're always looking after your flock.
It's a great pride thing to have a healthy flock,
a good, strong flock.
apart from when we gather them in.
It's fulfilling to go and gather your sheep in
and to walk the flock back home.
Every summer, another lamb will call to a mother across the fell.
Each time her voice is thrown open,
it slows to the same wavering conclusion...
..just like an old gate as it sweeps through its radar arc,
year after year,
until the shepherd hears in the bleat of its hinge
the ewe's signal to come on in.
DOGS BARK
MAN SHOUTS
HE WHISTLES
WIND BLOWS
SHEEP BLEAT
HE WHISTLES
DOGS BARK
DOG BARKS
SHEEP BLEAT
Jess, come on here to me.
Nell. Come on. HE WHISTLES
Nell!
At the start of the gather,
we're walking round the boundary edge
and heading to the highest point,
Scafell Pike, to bring the sheep back down.
The sheep will come off the fell six times in the year.
We gathered them in July for the shearing.
DOG PANTS
BLEATING
They'll be up an hour before daylight, I guess,
around about 3.45 or something.
I get up and, on a perfect day, the stars are out
and it's absolutely perfect, crystal clear...
Come here to me.
Come here. Get in here. HE WHISTLES
..but every now and again, it isn't.
Back in! HE WHISTLES
Get in, Jess.
Sometimes, it's hail...
..little globes popping into powder against the rock.
Other times, it's wind.
Unexpected.
A soft face full prickly with the first raindrops.
Or pollen falling through sunlight
with that same drifting grace as snow.
And when it's snow, it comes little by little...
..until the whole hillside fills like a sail.
But now it's mist.
As morning heats up and the mountain path remembers its way,
one cairn at a time.
Each pile of stone imminent until fully realised.
Loose plates of rock slowly scurry up a slope.
A low, loping shadow wolfs into a dog.
And a boulder up ahead, shaggy with lichen, stands up,
opens its eyes and becomes a ewe.
The Herdwick's native to this area
but some people believe it came from Norway or the Vikings.
It's special because it's hardy enough to survive here.
Other breeds have been tried on these mountains and failed.
They're pretty well camouflaged, Herdwick sheep,
to the untrained eye, in the crags and the rocks,
cos they're a pretty similar colour to the rocks and stuff.
And in certain light, you probably never will see them
unless you're really looking for them.
Get up, get up. Get back!
Get back! Get back! HE WHISTLES
Fetch on, fetch on.
Star, back. Star. HE WHISTLES
Get back, get back, get back, get back.
Go back, Nell. HE WHISTLES
Go back, Nell. Good lass.
Star, fetch it on. Get up.
Star, get up! Star, get up.
Get up, Star. Get up, Star.
Nell.
Star. Star, fetch it on. Fetch it on. Good lass, Nell.
Good lass, Nell.
Get back, get back, get back. Fetch it on. Fetch it on.
Fetch it on.
HE SHOUTS COMMANDS
Fetch it on. Fetch it on.
Star, Star, Star... Star! Fetch 'em on!
Good lass. Star, Star, Star, Star. Good lass.
Yeah, yeah. Star, come on. Good lass.
Jess, here. Jess, here. Jess, here, here, here.
Nell, Nell, Nell! Nell! Nell. Good lass. Nell. Nell.
Here, Star, Star. Star.
Come on, lass, fetch them on. HE WHISTLES
Come on, Jess. Jess, Jess, Jess. Jess, Jess, Jess.
Good lass, good lass. Good lass. Come here to me.
Get 'em on! HE WHISTLES
Get 'em on!
Nell, Nell, Nell!
HE SHOUTS COMMANDS IN DISTANCE
Our sheep are in Upper Eskdale.
The boundary runs up Slight Side,
onto the Long Green,
Scafell, Scafell Pike,
round onto Broad Crag, Great End,
right to the River Esk,
and then the River Esk divides us and the neighbouring farm.
There's no fences or walls out there.
The flock's 500 sheep spread out over 1,200 acres.
They're obviously spread out in smaller groups or individually
throughout that area.
That's what gathering is -
to gather them into a larger group to bring them home.
WIND WHISTLES
Lie down!
WHISTLE
Lie down.
Back up.
Go one, go on, go up.
Come-bye.
Skye, Skye, go back up!
HE WHISTLES
When we go out together, we take a team of people
and a team of capable dogs with them
and they know the land and they know the sheep.
Everyone's sort of fanned out, funnelling the sheep in
to eventually bring them together in a big group.
Come-bye.
DOGS BARK Go!
SHOUTING
HE WHISTLES
You definitely have to know the area very well,
especially in the mist as well...
..there's that many rough crags and stuff.
Go away. Go away. HE WHISTLES
WIND WHISTLES
They're immense, the crags.
Our sheep live on them and we go and gather them and that
but you always respect them, like.
You'll never boss them mountains, will you?
DISTANT BLEATING
Good lass.
Sit down. Good lass.
I wasn't very old -
I must have been about 12 or 13 or something -
and there was a little lamb was stuck on a ledge there.
I'd gone into this ledge, got this lamb off,
joined it with the rest of the flock,
and continued on the gather.
And when me and my uncle came down the fell wall,
pointed back to where I'd actually got the lamb out of,
and he wasn't best impressed, like.
I wouldn't do it today -
I wouldn't even think about going in there today.
WATER RUNS
BIRDS TWEET
SHEEP BLEAT
If a thousand years could pass in an hour...
..the day-night sky flicker like an eyelid,
and inside an oak, each pale ring expand
as if the acorn had dropped into a bucket of milk.
Then, in every hollow of this hill,
a Herdwick would watch it all with slot pupils,
her lower jaw on a loop,
turning a wet globe of grass over and over.
WHISTLE
Lie down.
Lie down! Skye! Lie down.
Lie down.
All pure Herdwicks have white faces and white legs
but they range very different colours on the body wool.
You'd probably recognise some of them from a lamb
and you'll know them right through their whole life.
The ewe takes its lamb back to where it lives at on that fell
and then that lamb grows up knowing that area
and then it'll have a lamb and it'll take its lamb back to that area
and so on and so forth,
so it's passed on through the generations of the sheep
as to where they live at,
so the flock will be where we always find them at.
Skye, Skye, Skye!
Come-bye. DOGS BARK
Go.
Whoa.
HE SHOUTS
Skye!
Come-bye!
Come-bye.
Get on, get on!
Skye, Skye! Go on, go on!
Skye, that'll do it.
Skye, Skye! That'll do. Skye, come on.
That'll do. That'll do.
Skye, Skye, Skye, Skye.
Come-bye.
Whoa. Whoa.
For the shearing gather in July,
there was eight of us and probably 16, 20 dogs.
They were all pretty good shepherds who know the area.
And the dogs know the area.
The knowledge, it's just been passed on
from generation to generation with the people,
the same as the sheep have -
they've passed their knowledge on down through the generations.
Same as the dogs we have here.
BARKING
WHISTLING
That'll do.
BLEATING
INDISTINCT SHOUTING
BIRDS TWEET
DISTANT SHOUTING
The flock are easier to manage once you've got them a big group.
Sometimes I'll leave the rest of the shepherds and the flock
and go and look for a couple of stragglers
or something that we've seen from a distance.
DOG PANTS
You need good dogs,
a good stick for balance for when you're walking
but also if you've got a sheep in a crag or something
and it's just out of arm's length.
These fell dogs up here travel great distances
over very rough terrain.
We call them curs.
It's a breed that's kind of held in the Lake District.
DOG PANTS
BIRDS TWEET
Upper Eskdale, up here,
I would describe it as stepping into a different world.
It's one of the quietest places in the Lakes.
But when you get to listening, it's not that quiet.
There's all sorts going on all over the place
but it's just the calmness of it, I guess.
BIRDS TWEET
SHEEP BLEAT
Listen and you will hear the shape of things.
The way a lamb bleats, the full curve of the valley.
A rook about to land,
caws open the hollow in the rock his wings close into.
A skylark's beak unfastens a small red throat...
TWEETING
..and out comes the mountain.
HE SPITS
Gem.
Sit down. Star, stand there. Stand there!
I've never been frightened or scared up here,
but I was about 11 and we were gathering S Pike...
..and my dad said, "Right, wait here," with my dog.
I sat and waited.
And I waited and I waited and I waited,
and I got to the point I was putting my hands under the dog's armpits
to keep my hands warm,
it was absolutely bloody freezing.
After a while, I said, "Well, bollocks to this, I'm going home."
Gave the old fella a bit of stick when I got home.
Left us for dead. HE CHUCKLES
Away, back up.
In mountain snow,
he smoothed numb fingers into the pockets under her forelegs.
And when feeling returned,
it was her fur,
it was breath spreading the rings of her ribs...
..and even a subtle suggestion of heart against his palms...
..its soft wobble, almost like a flame,
as it calms between cupped hands.
Nell, come here with me.
It's grand when you're out there on your own,
testing your dogs against the sheep and the landscape.
It's as good as it gets up there, you know.
Come in to heel now.
BIRDS TWEET
SHEEP BLEATS
Star! Star! Star!
HE WHISTLES Star!
Star. HE WHISTLES
Gem.
HE WHISTLES
And for those long minutes without sheep or dogs,
you'd still know he was a shepherd.
Not by the horned stick which he leans on...
..but the way he listens beyond the ferns,
beyond the slits in their leaves,
the soft loss of wind as each frond dips and dithers
around his waist deep watchful stillness.
HE WHISTLES
DOG BARKS
SHEEP BLEAT
Nell, come in to heel.
HE WHISTLES
DOG BARKS
HE WHISTLES
DOGS BARK
BLEATING
The dogs are just bringing all the sheep that are in my sight
and taking them forward down the valley in front of me.
And if there's a bunch of sheep getting away over the skyline,
you need a dog that's going to be on them in minutes
and bringing them back without you being able to see what it's doing,
gather them up and bring them to the main bunch of sheep.
HE WHISTLES
Nell, come in to heel.
BIRDS TWEET
Nell. HE WHISTLES
Nell.
SHEEP BLEAT
DOGS BARK
It's a very long way from getting into a group
to actually getting into the sheep pens.
You just all work as a team to get them down
in nice controlled fashion.
To any dog that's working sheep,
you've got to get them in the right direction
with the right amount of pressure.
That'll do! That'll do!
Direction and pressure - that's the two key things.
DOG BARKS
HE WHISTLES
HE SHOUTS COMMANDS
These hills are empty of wolves.
The kettle howls unheard for centuries.
DISTANT BLEATING AND BARKING
Yet still, sometimes the flock, as one,
will lift the slim pockets of their ears and close ranks...
..until the gaps fill with tussly wool
and each feels the hot stare of the ewe behind,
except the old, the sick,
who stumble and lag,
butted and shunned to the back.
They feel, at the dark base of the skull, the empty hills,
the nothing,
that's coming...
..closer.
Closer.
BLEATING AND BARKING
When we're on the way home with the flock of sheep,
we're constantly watching to make sure everyone's travelling well
and we're not rushing them too fast
if it's too hot or anything like that.
We're constantly keeping an eye on them.
If we spot anything that may need a bit of help
or a carrier or a lift home,
we will catch it and pick it up immediately and carry it.
That'll do. That'll do.
That'll do.
That'll do. That'll do.
You can tell if the sheep's off-colour just by looking at it.
Just that one glance and you'd say,
"There's something wrong with that sheep,"
just from their ears and their eyes and their body posture.
But you don't really normally see a sad Herdwick.
They've always got a cheeky little grin on their face.
Very, very intelligent and they don't miss much.
BLEATING
SHEPHERDS SHOUT COMMANDS
DOG BARKS
The hill farmers in the Lake District,
it's a very tight community in general,
and localised it's even tighter.
Everyone gets on and helps out.
Sit down.
DOGS BARK
Get down.
Go on, that'll do. That'll do. That'll do.
That'll do.
DOGS BARK
That'll do, that'll do, that'll do.
That'll do. That'll do.
Come on. Huy-uy-uy-uy. Come on.
Huy-uy-uy-uy. Come on.
SHEEP BLEAT
SHEPHERDS SHOUT COMMANDS
That'll do, that'll do. That'll do.
That'll do. That'll do.
If you didn't have very good shepherds
or you didn't have very good dogs to bring in the sheep,
the sheep would, at the bat of an eyelid,
be going in the opposite direction.
They know that you're rubbish at your job
and you've got rubbish dogs.
They will be boss of you in a very short time.
That'll do, that'll do.
DOGS BARK
BLEATING
DOG BARKS
DOGS BARK
Once upon a time,
every farm would have at least one worker full-time on that farm,
or two or three - depending on the size of the farm.
You'd send two people to go and help a neighbour gather in
and he'd send one back, help you gather.
But it's just got to the point now
where there's such few people actually shepherding
and working on farms.
It's a growing concern of mine
and all the other hill farmers in the Lake District as well.
WIND WHISTLES
DOG PANTS
Come here.
Hey, come here! Jess.
Come on. Get up, Star.
Go up, Star. HE WHISTLES
Go.
You've had these little farms,
maybe only a couple of hundred sheep or something like that,
and you'd have your younger farmers that are just coming into farming
setting off on them places,
and over the past 50-odd years,
a lot of these littler farms
have just completely disappeared altogether.
And they turn the little farmhouse into a holiday home
or something like that
so you're struggling to get a well-trained hill farmer,
if you will, cos you're missing that stepping stone.
Nell. HE WHISTLES
Come on.
The unwritten shepherd's bible isn't getting ready properly
by many people any more.
Go on! Nell, come on here to me. Come on.
HE WHISTLES
You always need youth coming on and learning from other people,
not necessarily your family.
Whose was t'bulldog, Sarah?
Right, you go right down this trod here
and round that corner. Yeah.
It looks really bad and rough but it isn't that bad,
just keep on the good sheep trod. Yeah.
And then I'll come over the top of it, all right?
And should I, what, just get there until I see you?
Yeah, I'll be above you.
You'll hit brackens once you get out of the crag
and then you keep on that good trod right by the river.
And just bark your dogs all the way
so if there's owt pops its heads up, you can see.
Sarah's been brought up on a hill farm,
she's got some exceptional sheepdogs for her young age that she is.
I don't know where the yow is for them two lambs.
She's going to make a good shepherdess very soon.
Right, we're going to come back into the mist again. I know.
BIRDS TWEET
SHEEP BLEAT IN DISTANCE
DOGS BARK IN DISTANCE
Star! Go away.
Go away.
BIRDS TWEET
DOGS BARK IN DISTANCE
SHEEP BLEAT IN DISTANCE
HE SHOUTS IN DISTANCE
Star, fetch it on.
Good lass, Nell. Good lass, Nell.
Get back.
Fetch it on, fetch it on.
Star. Fetch it on. Star, Star!
Star, good lass.
Star! Star! Star!
HE WHISTLES Star, Star.
Get up, Star. Get up, Star.
Good lass, Star. HE WHISTLES
Good lass, Gem.
Get back, fetch it on.
Fetch it on.
The sheep have their own little narrow tracks - we call them trods -
where sheep have walked for hundreds of years
to form this little narrow sort of eight-inch-wide track.
It's the easiest route either over a crag or under a crag
or through a crag.
They might be invisible to the untrained eye
but there's loads of them.
They're not marked out on OS maps or anything like that,
they're just the ones that the sheep use.
SHEEP BLEAT
Oi.
HE WHISTLES Come on, that'll do you.
Come on, here to me. HE WHISTLES
Come on. Gem, come on.
HE WHISTLES DOG BARKS
Nell.
HE WHISTLES
Come on.
Go on. Jess.
HE WHISTLES Jess, Jess, Jess.
HE WHISTLES
Jess, go on.
Come on. Hey! Come on.
DOGS BARK
The sheep pass on this path...
..this sometimes cattle path,
this other times red deer path...
..this almost nothing trickle of a path...
..this losing its thread like a grandmother's story path...
..this pressure of each hoof remembered in smooth earth path...
..this decade after decade becoming clearer
but still after centuries not clear enough path...
..this suddenly lost shin-deep-in-bracken path...
..this cannot be followed, only learned path...
..this path that the sheep pass on.
SHEEP BLEAT
Go away, go away, go away.
Come on, here. HE WHISTLES
SHEPHERDS SHOUT IN DISTANCE
SHEEP BLEAT
Go on, that'll do. That'll do. That'll do.
That'll do.
HE WHISTLES
DOG BARKS
Go on, that'll do. That'll do.
That'll do.
That'll do. Go on. That'll do.
That'll do.
DOGS BARK
WHISTLE
On the higher fells, there's very little bracken
but once you get down onto the better soil,
in the summer months, it can get to quite a height
and the sheep can quite easily wander away with its lamb
into the bracken,
so, yeah, you've got to keep them moving.
HE WHISTLES
DOGS BARK
Hey!
HE WHISTLES
Nell, Nell, Nell.
Come on, Nell.
DOGS BARK
SHEEP BLEAT
Get up, get up, get up, get up!
Get up!
Get up, fetch them on.
Nell! Nell! Come here to me.
Come on, Nell. Good lass. Come on.
Here. Here.
Go on, lass.
Get up, Jess. HE WHISTLES
SHEEP BLEAT
HE SHOUTS
WATER TRICKLES
DOG BARKS
DISTANT BARKING
Nell, Nell!
It's a good feeling to get the flock through the fell gate -
you're in an enclosed area, then.
We're nearly home, I guess.
Job nearly done.
Star. Pass.
HE WHISTLES
DOG PANTS
Nell, come on, lass. Nell.
HE WHISTLES
DISTANT BARKING AND BLEATING
This is the mountain with its landing gear down.
Engines off,
coast into that pad of meadow grass by the bank...
..where even the water has lowered below the white river stones...
..streamlined and perfect.
And although you can see the trees have grown
into the tilt of a crosswind...
..their brittle branches blown like glass into intricate shapes...
..the breeze too has dropped...
..that sense of homecoming as you meet the level ground.
Phones coming into signal,
back in touch as you touch down.
And before you know it,
the mountain has become a plain
rolling, rolling away...
..toward the slow momentum slopes of the next horizon.
Over and out.
BIRD CAWS
DOGS BARK
SHEPHERDS SHOUT
WHISTLING
SHEEP BLEAT
I would say there is a sense of relief from everyone,
bringing them all back home,
cos, you know, it's shearing time,
you've got young lambs that haven't been gathered in this way
ever before so it's all new to them, what's going on.
So everything's mis-mothered,
everyone's going, "Maaar, I've lost my mother!"
SHEEP BLEAT
HE WHISTLES
Hey, Star.
Good lass. Star. HE WHISTLES
HE WHISTLES AND SHOUTS
HE SHOUTS
All this space can be taken in...
..like a deep breath.
These peaks,
these green basins,
this generous sky,
and somewhere a hiker is saving thick white cheese in a barm cake,
in a withered ball of tinfoil
for the summit of Scafell Pike.
And all this can be given or given into,
this river,
this wind honeycomb of dry stone wall.
And somewhere, a cyclist can feel the tug of a downward slope
in their brake fist and just lets go!
But for the shepherd, there is no give-and-take.
His moment always comes back to now
as his shout scatters into dogs
who run and corral and kettle into a flock of sheep
who bank left and right
and try to make a break for it as a single lamb to be returned -
returned from the hillside
as the echo of the shepherd's shout.
BLEATING
Get up, get up, get up, get up! Get up!
Go on, lass!
Get up, fetch them on. HE WHISTLES
Nell! Nell, come here to me. Go on, Nell.
HE WHISTLES Good lass, come on.
The higher fell gather normally takes about six or seven hours.
Sometimes things go wrong
and obviously most of the time you don't get them all,
bar for one or two, but, you know, you've got to do your best
day in, day out,
year in, year out.
HE WHISTLES
DOGS BARK
BARKING CONTINUES
HE SHOUTS
HE WHISTLES
CHICKENS CLUCK
WHISTLING
It's good to see the flock come in healthy and fit and strong
and get them counted and see how many's there
and see how many we're missing if there is any missing.
Most of all, it's getting them to the sheep pens
and the sheep pen gate shut.
SHEEP BLEAT
SHEARS BUZZ
SHEARS TURN OFF
SHEARS BUZZ
I love shearing, absolutely love it.
There is a rhythm and you sort of relax.
You're not gripping the sheep too hard
or not gripping it too gently - it's just control, basically.
I guess it's footwork as much as anything -
knowing where to position your feet
to keep the sheep in a comfortable position
whilst you're shearing a certain area of the animal.
In the shepherd's hands, the sheep goes completely slack
as if she had left her body.
Her front leg aflop, hoof dangle at the joint...
..and her spine limp as a braid from the back of her head.
Under the comb and the blur of the blades...
..under the tingling stillness in each new stripe of nakedness...
..where has she gone?
SHEARS BUZZ
Normally, it's really hot days in July.
You have to shear the sheep -
remove the fleece from it -
just for its own welfare.
Just the sheer weight of the fleece,
you know, they get quite heavy.
Everyone in farming is making money, apart from the farm.
The last sort of 30-odd years,
you're probably getting about 30p per sheep off the wool -
less, maybe.
SHEEP BLEAT
WIND WHISTLES
BIRDS TWEET
We don't buy in any sheep - they're all bred on the farm.
They're marked to the farm -
so each farm has its own individual mark on the sheep.
My family has farmed the top of Eskdale about 120 years.
There's an awful lot of knowledge
and there's been lot of mistakes made along the way
to gain that knowledge, as well.
It's not the easiest of farms to farm,
as far as hill farms go in the Lake District,
but I'm very privileged.
Privileged to have been brought up
and taught how to farm in these areas.
Very privileged.
It takes the closing of many gates to get here...
..through road and field and pen.
A hand on the top bar guiding the swing
towards the solid shock of gatepost and tinkling latch.
And there's that split-second
when the hand holds on to the firmness of a shut gate...
..that feeling of being utterly in place,
then lets go.
BIRDSONG
SHEEP BLEAT