Where is the rest of the (human) flock? The four middle Owen children - Edith, 10, Violet, eight, Sidney, seven, and Annas, five - are at primary school, and hurtle in at 4pm, after an hour-long bus ride. A lamb (a fluffy toy this time, but in this house, who knows?) completes the tableau. Nancy, two, has also just woken from a nap and hurls herself into her mother’s arms. She’s popped out another baby since then, too. She gives Clemmy, now three, a big kiss on the head.
![baby clemmy happy farm baby clemmy happy farm](https://www.pricerunner.se/product/125x125/3001339668/Clementoni-Soft-Clemmy-48pcs.jpg)
I always wanted a home birth - not because I’m an Earth Mother, but because it’s just less faff - but the midwives would never agree to it. ‘My first child, Raven, got stuck and that ended up with a caesarean. What was his reaction? ‘Let’s just say there was swearing involved.’ It was Amanda’s dream birth - no-fuss, on her terms, and, you suspect, deliberately rebellious.Īmanda Owen pictured tending the flock at her farmhouse high up in the Yorkshire Dales She then delivered the placenta, and took baby Clemmy upstairs to meet her father. ‘I’d done enough lambing to learn a thing or too,’ she says. She simply piled towels in front of the fire, gave herself a stern talking to, and eased the baby out with her own hands. Little wonder, then, that when the contractions started for baby No 8, Amanda didn’t even wake husband Clive and tell him to get the car keys. For a woman in labour, in the dark, this must be the road to hell. The nearest maternity unit is two hours away. In reality, the drive is a precarious one involving a twisty road, with sheer drops.
![baby clemmy happy farm baby clemmy happy farm](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/85/4b/c2/854bc2748d4a0188f5f41fcb370cb447--navy-stars.jpg)
On the map, it looks as if Amanda, better known as the Yorkshire Shepherdess, lives just a hop and skip from civilisation.
![baby clemmy happy farm baby clemmy happy farm](https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/laughing-horse-982846.jpg)
Quite frankly, on the tortuous (if scenic) journey to her farmhouse high in the Yorkshire Dales, you wonder how she made it to hospital with any of them. Five of Amanda Owen’s nine children were born in either cars or ambulances at the side of the road.