THIS FARMING Life's second series has won over the hearts of the nation – and one couple in particular struck a chord with viewers, allowing them an intimate insight into the life of crofters in the Scottish Highlands. Robin and Penny Calvert, from Rogart in Sutherland, allowed the BBC cameras onto their small holding where they follow the traditional lifestyle of crofters, making use of all of its natural resources.

In very much a team effort, the couple took over Reidchalmai croft 25 years ago, transforming it from its run-down state and utilising their vast shared skillset to bring it back to life, turning their hand at all aspects of traditional crofting.

Unfortunately, five years ago Penny was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, which has gradually led to her slowing down on the croft and leaving Robin to do a lot of the work himself. Now, citing a lack of government support and tough price competition from supermarkets, they have both made the hard decision to give up the croft and retire to Orkney to live an easier life not dictated by the farming calendar.

I spoke to Robin to find out more about his experience filming with the BBC hit series and also to hear more about his reasons for leaving the croft.

How did you come to find yourself buying the croft and how much work did you have to put into it?

“We were living in Perthshire working as musicians and rented the croft from the Rogart estate for a while before we bought it. We always knew if we decided to take it on full time it would be a huge amount of work and would need to change the direction of our lives completely.

“When the owner came to be in a place to get rid of it 25 years ago we made the decision to leave our life in Perth behind and take it over.

“When we came to the place it was an absolute ruin – the difference today is amazing; over all the years I must have invested hundreds of thousands of pounds getting the place up and running.

“In the beginning we were very much in a place of ‘ignorance is bliss’, as you never know what you’re getting yourself in to in a business like crofting. There is always something else to be done, whether putting up new fencing or fixing an outbuilding, the whole place was totally run down initially but it was worthwhile seeing our hard work pay off.

“Our philosophy of the croft was to add as much value as possible into our produce and livestock whilst utilising as many natural croft resources as we could.”

We were left with a bit of a cliff hanger at the end of this series of TFL not knowing where you and Penny would be going next. What has changed since the end of the programme?

“We decided it was time to take it easier, Penny isn’t getting any better and at my age I’m developing rheumatism, so the time has come to hang up our boots.

“We are moving to Orkney in December to enjoy our retirement where we intend to manage a smaller property in Sanday with 36 acres, which will allow us some peace and quiet but still some of the same benefits of the crofter lifestyle.

“We won’t be continuing with livestock but who knows, we might explore other options such as fishing. For me, I want to be able to wake up on a Monday morning and not have to work to the diary for the rest of the week.

“We are moving away from earned income to our own pensions so won’t have to work as such. From now on anything else I do won’t be compulsory but out of choice.

“We would have needed to redesign ourselves to carry on with the croft, reassess finances and explore new avenues, which is why it will work for the new owners who will look to diversify and explore the tourism route, which is a sensible way forward.”

What has happened with all the livestock we saw on the programme now you have sold up?

“We closed down our well-hung lamb company in August so are no longer trading meat and we had already pulled out of sheep five years ago when Penny fell ill.

“Our Highland cattle are now down to 11 from our herd of 25, and 7 of them will be staying on at the croft to act as a starter herd for the new owners. We will be keeping Jo Jo our Highland pony and taking her up to Orkney. She is only 9 and one day I might even look to start driving with her.”

This will have been a big decision for you both. What were the main determining features behind this change in direction?

“Over the last couple of years Penny has been less and less involved and you can’t run a croft, keep up a business and look after an ailing wife single handed.

“There are many other factors which pushed us to make the decision to retire, such as over the last couple of years our main events and selling points such as markets and shows have been overshadowed by supermarket trends and the turnover is not what it used to be.

“Supermarkets have damaged the lamb and venison trade, by selling so much rubbish and have thus put the next generation off wanting to buy that produce. We found ourselves going to events and bringing a lot of our lamb home as people don’t realise what good produce is anymore. Farmers markets used to be huge here in the north of Scotland but are now dwindling in number due to supermarket prices.

“Although I have never been a crofter who relies on subsidies, the current CAP system has created an un-level playing field for farmers, and coming from a low value land area we can’t compete with the farmers working high value land and receiving much greater government support. Retail market prices reflect the level of subsidy in the system.

“The different land categories system has created such a dilemma for crofters as some crofts which are mainly working category three land will receive eight euros a hectare through the BPS compared with area one farmers on high value land receiving 260 euros per hectare.

“The system is becoming nonsense, I can’t earn as much per animal as somebody on area one land when I also have to work with worse quality land which provides less nutrients for my animals, meaning more expensive feeding costs during winter.

“Running on this penalty level is not viable with the CAP. The future of crofting in this country is worrying and in the short term there could be a lot of crofts being neglected. There isn’t much in it for crofters any more as so much support is directed at big producers.”

What reasons did you have for going on the BBC series?

“The main reason they chose us for the season is that we do things differently and they wanted to be able to tell a variety of agricultural stories.

“One of the main reasons I decided to go on the series was it was a good opportunity to hit home the state of play with crofting in this country and to look at how ineffective subsidies are in supporting small farmers like ourselves.

“However, all of this was edited out and portrayed quite a different angle to our life, effectively chewing gum for the masses.

“Saying all that, we did have wonderful feedback from people who have watched the programme who have been so supportive, and we have both been blown away by the kindness of individuals and their comments.”

How did you find the whole experience?

“The filming was brilliant, and I felt they did really well throughout the process, we really enjoyed having them here on the croft.

“The reaction we have had since the programme has finished has been incredibly humbling and we have been overwhelmed with people’s kindness.

“The crew themselves were up here two days a fortnight, but every visit is cut down to about two or three minutes filming. There were times I felt there was far too much time watching people driving around in landrovers than listening to what was being said.

“Having a film crew here really focuses your mind on what you do as there were times they tried to guide us in what they wanted to film and I made suggestions as to other options to work with instead. I had to really watch my language too,” Robin laughed.

“They did unfortunately get the timing of filming wrong, packing up at the end of June when most of us are going in to our busiest period of harvest; all of the graft gets done in the summer where nothing really happens in February, so at times we felt we were job creating.”

The programme focused on Penny and her Parkinson’s. How did you find this?

“They focused too much on Penny’s Parkinson’s. Every episode we felt it was emphasised and sometime playing too much on the sympathy card.

“It is something we just have to live with and we adapt as Penny doesn’t have the strength she used to have, we just adjust and get on with things.

“The croft has always been a shared venture for Penny and I, if you are grafting hard and putting in lots of hours of work then you want to have someone to share it with, to share in the disasters as well as the good days.”