The Farm: The Story of One Family and the English Countryside recorded the last remnants of a way of life that is dying before our eyes - that of the small family farm in Britain. It began when I travelled home to attend the sale of my family's farm in Yorkshire. The Bensons had been farming there for 200 years, but modern economics had made it impossible to continue. My brother, father and mother had to sell what they could and find another way to earn a living. The story of the sale, its aftermath and the family's recovery was set against a background of great change in the countryside, and explored social and personal issues: my own disastrous childhood on the farm, my father's sadness, and the lost generation of people in the village. It was a story of pigs digging up lawns, men wrestling bulls to prove a point, and love affairs among haystacks and tractors, but like any family story, it was about more than that. It was also about childhood, parenthood, change, death, food, alienation and belonging - and about the bonds between people and the land and each other.

The Farm became a UK number one bestseller, a Radio 4 Book of the Week, a Richard and Judy's Book Club choice, and was shortlisted for The Guardian's First Book of the Year award. This site contains additional information about it, and updates the story.