Page 92 - British Blue Yearbook 2023

90
OLD STACKYARD BLUES – THE JOURNEY
THE CHARITY BRITISH BLUE HERD
Emyr Wigley’s life has always been centred around two things: His wife, Evelyn, whom he adored, and farming. But after the untimely death of Evelyn in 2015 due to ovarian cancer, Emyr decided that he would use his passion for farming to honour his wife’s life, and so began his fundraising journey.
He met Evelyn, ‘the love of his life’, in 1967 at the age of 20, at a local young farmer’s dance. Before that, however, Emyr had a job as a farm hand, leaving home with £7 in savings and a dream of one day farming in his own right.
After 21 years of hard work on different farms, he began farming with Evelyn on a 19-hectare (47-acre) dairy farm in Deytheur, Llansantffraid, but the farm was derelict and needed completely rebuilding.
“The best way to describe it was a rat infested, galvanised hole,” he says. But with years of hard work and help from relatives, they got the place up to scratch.
Renewing buildings, updating the house and fitting a new 10:10 herring- bone parlour meant they could milk their herd of 120 cows within two hours.
Emyr says he and Evelyn were a team, seven days a week, 365 days a year, building the farm to more than 65ha (160 acres) and 220 dairy cows. While on the farm,
they started using a Charolais bull on some of the cows. Evelyn then bucket-reared the calves. These were, however, proving difficult to feed on the bucket. So, in 1983 they tried Belgian (now British) Blue AI.
Emyr says: “They were lively calves, which were quick to learn to suck and Evelyn loved them.”
In 1991 they decided to buy two Belgian Blue pedigree heifers alongside the herd, to breed their own bulls.
These could be used on the dairy herd, and sold as pedigree for another income stream and enabled them to have a closed herd.
Upon retirement in 2007, the farm was sold with 25ha (64 acres), but the couple kept an 11ha (27-acre) field to build a house and start to relax after a life of hard work - they wanted to pursue their interests of gardening and walking, which they were not able to do before.
Emyr says: “The wheels came off our plans when Evelyn was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012.