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Farming Today: Farming Today This Week: Countryfile Farming Hero Robert Bertram

Farming Today This Week

25/04/2015

Farming Today This Week: Countryfile Farming Hero Robert Bertram

BBC Radio 4 - Farming Today, Farming Today This Week: Countryfile Farming Hero Robert Bertram

Charlotte Smith visits Northumberland, and a shepherd who saved his neighbour's life.

Charlotte Smith visits Robert Bertram, a shepherd who saved his neighbour's life and now a contender for the title of Countryfile Farming Hero in the BBC Food and Farming Awards.

Robert Bertram has lived in the same valley in Northumberland since he was born, in 1947, and his local knowledge was crucial to saving his neighbour's life in January this year.

A blizzard was raging when, late one evening, Laura Hudson came to Robert's door with her two very young children. Her partner, Mark Dey, had failed to return from the hill where he'd been feeding sheep, and because her phone was cut off, she had struggled to get the family into the car to drive and get help. Robert didn't hesitate to set out in search of Mark. By the time Robert found him, lying where he'd been trapped for eight hours under his quad bike in freezing temperatures, Mark, his back broken, was close to death. He had been kept warm in the snow only by his sheepdog, Roy, who heard Robert's own quad approaching and ran to lead him back to Mark.

Robert, Mark and Laura tell Charlotte the story of that night from their own perspectives, and talk about life in the sheep-farming hills of Northumberland, where communications are tenuous and the locals rely more than most on the neighbours around them.

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