Helping hoodies hatch into good eggs | ||||||
Clive Aslet meets Roger Hosking, a farmer who combines rearing livestock with aiding delinquents |
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1 | Picture this, Roger Hosking, a | kids who come crush them, they are so | ||||
Derbyshire farmer, is collecting eggs | angry and tense that they’ll pick up | |||||
with a young assistant. The assistant | three eggs and they are squashed. | |||||
is carrying 15 dozen of them. And then | These youngsters come with angry | |||||
for no apparent reason, he has thrown | hands. But their hands change. Within | |||||
them at Roger who is dripping egg yolk | a day or two – certainly within a week | |||||
and standing ankle deep in broken | – I can guarantee those angry hands | |||||
shells. Question is: what happens | have become gentle hands. They’ve | |||||
next? Does Roger tell him to get off | never thought gentle before. Thinking | |||||
the farm and never come back? Or | gentle means I can have a decent | |||||
say, in a mild sort of way, without | conversation without swearing.” | |||||
judgement: “Why did you do that?” and | 5 | Egg collecting is not a mindstretching | ||||
end up with a better understanding of | job. While two people are at | |||||
the teenager than anyone has had in | it, they have time to talk. It is the | |||||
the lad’s life. | talking that leads to the blow-ups, | |||||
2 | Roger, 64, has owned the 100- | personal violence and sometimes egg | ||||
acre farm Highfields Happy Hens since | throwing. When the lad who threw the | |||||
1967. On the farm he keeps free range | 15 dozen eggs got over his explosion, | |||||
hens (25,000), turkeys (1,600 - but that | he started to talk, then cry. Finally, he | |||||
was before Christmas), a few sheep, | took off his shirt and showed Roger a | |||||
pigs and goats. But what he and his | back that was covered in wounds. | |||||
wife, Beryl, principally farm are | They were from the dog that his father | |||||
delinquents, the sort of hoodies that | would set on him for misbehaviour. | |||||
everyone else has given up on. The | 6 | Then there is love. It is a word | ||||
Hoskings have been working with the | Roger uses quite a lot, but in no soppy | |||||
Youth Offending Service since their | sense. One day Roger came back at | |||||
sheep were slaughtered during a foot | lunch time to find the yard wrecked, | |||||
and mouth1) outbreak and they were | the walls covered in graffiti. Roger told | |||||
forced to find new ways of increasing | the culprit: “If you do that again, you’ll | |||||
their budget. | have to go.” Then he realised that | |||||
3 | The delinquents they work with, | those words had been said to that boy | ||||
have been expelled from school and | time and time again in his life. The | |||||
spend their free time smashing up bus | Hoskings faced a choice: stop | |||||
shelters and taunting the police. Roger | fostering or stop being farmers. They | |||||
has had his collarbone broken, and no | decided to tough it out. Profit came | |||||
end of windows smashed. But | second. “To be honest with you, I | |||||
something about the farm works. The | wasn’t a very successful farmer.” | |||||
re-offending rate is almost nil. The only | Whatever happens, they will never | |||||
exception was one lonely boy who | again ask anybody to leave. | |||||
made sure he got caught, in order to | 7 | Roger and Beryl hope that the | ||||
be sent back to the farm. | model of their Highfields Happy Hens | |||||
4 | Both Roger and Beryl have no | will be rolled out across Britain. Roger | ||||
degree in social science, no social | believes: “Every town and city has kids | |||||
work training. Their success is built on | being expelled from school and a | |||||
the twin foundations of egg collecting | market for free range eggs. If the | |||||
and love. Roger Hosking, who looks | Hosking principle could be applied | |||||
more like a jovial monk than a farmer, | nationwide, a major social problem | |||||
explains the magic of eggs. “At first the | would be solved.” |