Page 15 - The Farming Years proof

FInDInG THE FARM
paddock the house side of a stream in the valley, two 3 acre elds on the hill then a at 13 acre eld at the top of the hill. It was, in fact, the basis of just what we wanted but it would take a lot of work and investment to get to the standard we would need.
At 42 years old Sylvia and I were at the right age to meet this challenge. We also had a mortgage free property and a good bank balance and anticipated our property value was well in excess of John Billows’s price of a man needing a sale.
This was 1975 and agricultural land values were around 5% of today’s values so a surplus of £15,000 on our sale at Billing would go a long way towards the house improvements and our farming budget.
John was keen to progress quickly with the purchase. We agreed on a price and I asked Chris Bletsoe an ex fellow Round-tabler who was an Estate Agent and farmer to give me an opinion as to the value. He con rmed that the price was very acceptable and commented ‘They don’t make land any more’ so you have to take your opportunities.
So we completed the purchase on 24th May 1975 for which we had to nance before our Billing House sale as we clearly had some work to do on the larger stand-alone cottage to make it acceptably habitable while we were working on the main farm house.
How were we going to nance this farm purchase? The big plus was agricultural land was £500 an acre at the time. We had some cash available but nowhere near enough yet we had cash in hand at the factory in a deposit account. I decided to take a bridging loan from the factory paying the same interest rate as they were receiving from the bank and so we were able to seal the deal and become potential farmers.
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