As A Child, Dad Was My Everything

Her father’s relaxed attitude gave Sara Cox the freedom to enjoy the delights of life on the farm...

- Sara Cox

Growing up in Grundy Fold Farm in Bolton in the 70s and 80s was pretty chaotic. There were five of us kids and it was around the kitchen table I found my voice – as the youngest, it was the best way of getting my parents’ attention.

My dad, Len, is a farmer who’s always working, which is why our farmhouse was never the focus for us. A farmhouse isn’t somewhere you’ll find white lilies and Egyptian cotton sheets. Look at our wall in this photo! (I was about five.) We were halfway through repairs. Our barn had burned down and we’d lost a year’s worth of cattle food. Farming is a fragile economy, and it nearly finished us off. But most of this went over my head. All us kids cared about was having fun. The fields were a deadly adventure playground. Getting into scrapes was commonplace, whether it was jumping off barn roofs or being thrown off horses.