Who knows when the sunshine of the sublime will pop out, which cloud the next wonderful thing is hiding behind? It’s rarely where I think it’s going to be. No. Inspiration never comes when it’s expected. I took Concorde once, expecting an unforgettably seamless, gentle hover in the stratosphere, a finely balanced tête-a-tête with luxury itself. Something really, you know, classy. You know what? It was just like getting on a cross-Channel ferry: great in all kinds of ways but not in the least bit chic or sophisticated. It was raucous, as bling as a billionaire’s barbecue. Everyone was overexcited: grinning and taking photos and saying things such as, ‘I can’t believe it. It hasn’t sunk in yet’, and getting boozy; nearly all were tourists and there was a couple of trapped, bored famous people. Very much like the Brits, in fact. I love the dear old Brits, but it’s not in the least bit posh. It’s a glorious sticky bunfight on a mammoth scale. I think the girls were prettier at the NME awards the following week but I left there when I caught a glass of wine in my lap. I’m just too old for rock’n’roll but it sure is party time at the moment. I went to one fashion week party, for Stephen Jones, the milliner, at the V&A. I saw some very nice hats but I wonder if I said anything or learned anything interesting all evening.
On paper, Highfields Happy Hens didn’t measure up particularly favourably against the big-hitting showbiz parties of the previous week or so. There were certainly no paparazzi outside the farm gates but there was something quite magical happening there.
There were so many speed bumps along the entrance road that I’d been rattled out of my skin by the time I parked my car. Chicken farming hasn’t had the best press recently. Combine large-scale egg production with disadvantaged, sometimes violent, struggling kids and a grey morning and I did briefly wonder what I was doing as I took in the scene that greeted me. Well, there was a fairly typical farmyard. Cute, jumbly, patched-up sheds, and ugly new buildings, dead tractors and bright newer ones; a few ducks waddling around. There’s always more concrete and polythene than you’d think reasonable in farmyards but I find them interesting places: great big machines with living parts. And there was Roger. This was his baby and he was straight off at the gallop, talking 16 to the dozen, attempting to explain exactly what happened here. Exactly what occurs on farms is always quite complicated but there was something here I’ve never come near before. Highfields is a ‘Care Farm’, meaning Roger gives jobs to kids that the education system can’t handle, 14- to 16-year-olds, mainly. Sometimes they are violent, and he’s had his bones broken on occasion, but there was something utterly unassailable about the man.
‘When these kids arrive, sometimes they are so angry, so het up, that they can’t pick up an egg without breaking it,’ he said, and as he was talking various hoodies, Goths and emos began to arrive, almost all by taxi.
Georgette was maybe 16, pretty, intelligent and cool. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she’d been sitting next to me at the NME awards or she’d shown up at the hat party. She showed me the sheep, lambing in polytunnels. Tiny lambs, minutes old. I felt my shoulders drop. ‘Here’s pigs,’ said Josh, a bright-eyed 14-year-old. ‘Kuni Kuni.’ I bent down to say hello to the boar and was instantly in floods of laughter. The thing had the funniest face I’ve ever seen. The kids were smiling and nodding. Pigs are life-affirming — the way that dogs are; they can’t help it, but pigs are more engaging than dogs. They ask more questions.
It got better and better. I didn’t expect an intensive chicken facility to raise my spirits, particularly after Roger pointed out a couple of sheds in the distance and told me that the RSPCA had condemned them. Inside the state-of-the-art Shed 7 there was so much chicken business going on, it was hard to think of anything else. An endless carpet of brown hens. It was altogether elsewhere in there. Amazingly, for agriculture is the job that no one wants. Roger’s statistics are astonishing. The kids seem to find themselves here. It sorts them out. Like magic. ‘One of them said Highfield isn’t a place, it’s a feeling.’ said Roger.
A good feeling it is, too. Making a soufflé is not difficult. Making a decent egg is a neat trick, though. These are the best eggs I’ve ever seen: Happy Hens indeed. Three times last week I went to parties and realised I was just at work. I thought I was going to work and realised I was at a party.
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