The Old Ways

I had this idea, after visiting the farm of someone I knew, during an outbreak of foot and mouth disease.
The farm was in a sad state, partly due to the need for changes in farming practices in recent years, which many farmers are now unable to cope with.
It seemed to me that many small farmers will in the future be no longer able to make a living off the land, as generations have done in the past.


This family farm is still there
But no longer the same
Hit by this scourge in farming
This disease no one dare name

This birthplace of the chosen few
With people, once happy with their lot
Now only have faces full of worry
Still trying to put back the clock

Machines once clean and working
Now left in a field to rot
Fences blown down, needing mending
A roof with all the slates blown off

Fields full of cattle, now empty
Where has all this now gone
Should we have farmed to intensive
How can this all be undone

Good memories of those happier times
Haymaking under cloudless skies
Those good times gone forever
Judging by how the land now lies

That pride which was once in farming
Now gone…and gone forever
People once proud and hardworking
Who would not give in….no never

All their plans for the next generation
Carrying traditions on of the past
Was it all meant to end in failure
Was it never meant to last

Could we have stopped this happening
Or was the dye always cast
Should we have stuck to the old ways
Can we return to the past

Only one thing remains unchanging
The dog in the yard, still barking
But no one is left there to listen
They’ve all gone away, disheartened