From Our Home Correspondent 04/08/2020

From Our Own Correspondent

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.4 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 4 August 2020

⏱️ 28 minutes

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Summary

In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers around the United Kingdom reflecting contemporary life. When lockdown dramatically curtailed orders, those businesses providing perishable products suffered particularly badly. Artisan cheese-makers had been growing in rural Wales creating much needed jobs there in recent years. But what does the future hold? BBC Radio Cymru's Garry Owen visited one cheese-maker in Carmarthenshire to find out. As well as foodstuffs, farmers responsible for other products - such as wool - have been affected by the consequences of Covid-19. In places like the Scottish borders, where sheep are currently being shorn, fleeces are worth nothing - even less than that after allowing for their transport. John Forsyth has been to the Ettrick Valley in the Scottish borders and spoke to producers and wool graders. What is it like to like with the after-effects of brain surgery? Each year at this time, the children's writer, Caroline Golding, reflects on the removal over twenty years ago of a tumour she had and how her thinking about the experience and what it meant has evolved. Finally being able to bury his brother whose funeral took place just before lockdown has prompted Martin Vennard to consider how the place where they both lived still tells the story of the times they shared. And Tim Hartley, profoundly missing his regular visit to the Cardiff City Stadium to watch his favourite team play in the EFL Championship, understandably jumped at the chance to see them recently in a vital match. But the experience for this football veteran turned out to be a salutary one. Producer: Simon Coates

Transcript

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0:00.0	Thank you for downloading from our home correspondent on BBC Radio 4.
0:05.0	I'm Michelle Hussein and our pieces this time are tales of resilience and
0:10.0	fortitude more than anything else.
0:12.0	The sheep farmers having to make the best of a sharp downturn in the
0:16.1	wool market, the correspondent marking 20 years since her brain surgery. There are memories of a shared childhood as another correspondent says a
0:25.7	final farewell to a sibling and why being back in the stands for a football match isn't
0:32.0	as thrilling as it sounds.
0:34.0	First, when lockdown decimated orders overnight, those working with perishable products were amongst the hardest hit. In Camarthenshire that included cheese makers
0:45.7	whose businesses had been growing in recent years creating much needed rural jobs.
0:51.9	Gary Owen of BBC Radio Cumbary has been talking to one of them.
0:57.2	The narrow winding roads of rural West Wales, hemmed in by roadside hedges are strangely quiet.
1:05.0	I pass a solitary farmer and his tractor.
1:09.0	With a friendly wave he obligingly moves to one side letting me pass. It could be idyllic. Were it not for the fact that I'm
1:18.8	traveling to a local business dealing with a crisis.
1:30.4	Glen Aethinogh is a traditional solid stone-built Welsh farmhouse surrounded by lush pastures in Camarthenshire.
1:36.7	Since 1986 the focus here has been on cheese production with customers for cows can now ranging from international airlines to big name supermarkets.
1:40.4	It's part of a tradition of cheese making in Wales stretching back hundreds of years.
1:46.0	We've got the milk and the climate is a slogan often used.
1:51.0	Artisan cheese companies have been a growth industry here.
1:56.0	Between February last year and the start of the pandemic,
2:00.0	sales grew by nearly 5%. Now they're facing the challenge of coronavirus.
2:07.0	Karuin Adams, the owner, is waiting for me at the Farmyardard gate near a collection of COVID
	...

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