Helen Rebanks is flying the flag for invisible women

The Shift with Sam Baker

Sam Baker Ltd

Society & Culture, Health & Fitness, Personal Journals

4.8 • 525 Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

My guest today is the farmer, business woman, cook, conservationist, mother and now writer, Helen Rebanks. She has been cooking and baking, professionally and domestically, for more than 30 years, and with her husband, has turned the farm that has been in their family for generations into a global beacon for regenerative farming. (No, I didn’t know what that was either - in short, it’s farming in nature-friendly ways.) Now she’s put all her experience of food, farming and nurturing into one beautiful book, The Farmer’s Wife. A moving and honest account of the daily grind of life on a farm, as a woman whose work too often goes ignored. Helen joined me from the Lake District, where she lives with her husband, four children, Six sheepdogs, 2 ponies, 20 chickens, fifty cattle, 500 sheep and 110 different species of flowers and grasses (!) to talk about the reality of being a farmer’s wife, paying tribute to our foremothers and the invisible work of wifedom (yes it’s that domestic load conversation again). She also explained why she’s passionate about sustainability and being part of the climate solution, What it means to live a good life and The messy dirty joyful stuff of life. If you enjoyed this episode you might also like the episodes featuring Marina Benjamin and Tamsin Calidas. * You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Farmer's Wife by Helen Rebanks, and the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by me. * And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com • The Shift (on life after 40) with Sam Baker is created and hosted by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls @ Pineapple Audio Production. If you enjoyed this podcast, please rate/review/follow as it really does help other people find us. And let me know what you think on twitter @sambaker or instagram @theothersambaker Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Jamie Lang and Sophie Haboo have arrived on Disney Plus.
0:04.5	We're having a baby.
0:05.5	We're having a baby.
0:07.2	I've always wanted to be mom.
0:09.4	And we're bringing you on our journey through everything.
0:12.4	I have no idea what we're doing.
0:13.6	Thank you. I have more of an idea.
0:15.6	I think of it like a Tamagocchi.
0:17.8	At the end of all of this...
0:20.0	We're going to have a little baby.
0:21.8	Raising Chelsea, a Hulu original series streaming exclusively on Disney Plus.
0:27.3	18 plus subscription required T's and T supply.
0:35.4	Hello and welcome to The Shift, the podcast that aims to tell the no holds bar truth about being a woman post 40, created and hosted by me, writer and broadcaster Sam Baker.
0:46.1	My guest today is the farmer, businesswoman, cook, conservationist, mother and now writer Helen Ray Banks.
0:53.4	She has been cooking and baking professionally and domestically
0:56.1	for more than 30 years and with her husband, the writer and farmer, not really in that order,
1:01.7	James Raybanks, has turned the farm that has been in their family for generations into a global beacon for regenerative farming.
1:08.8	No, I didn't know what that was either. In short, it's farming in
1:12.4	nature-friendly ways. Now she's put all that experience of food, farming and nurturing into one
1:19.8	beautiful book, The Farmer's Wife, a moving and honest account of the daily grind of life
1:25.7	on a farm as a woman whose work too often goes
1:29.3	unnoticed. It's not represented in many books. It's not represented in many films. And it seems
	...

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