A COUPLE who swapped the commuter belt for the good life in west Wales have spoken about how the decision has changed their lives.

Steve and Karen White swapped city life for a 34-acre smallholding following a short break four years ago, in a holiday cottage run by Gwynne and Linda Davies at Llanddewi Brefi, near Tregaron.

They are renowned sheep breeders, with prize-winning North Country Cheviots, and Gwynne is assistant honorary director of the Sheep Section at the Royal Welsh Show and a former chair of the NSA Wales & Border Ram Sales.

It was inevitable that Gwynne and Linda would show Steve and Karen the sheep. They had begun to tire of the daily commute and so the seed was sown. Steve and Karen returned to help with lambing the following spring and then began to look for a small farm.

Karen explained: “In the back of our minds we had been thinking about moving, but this was just a weekend away, somewhere new that we hadn’t been.

“I think we’d been to Wales separately, but not together. We saw that Linda’s cottage was on a working farm and so we just booked it up. They took us round the farm and we just got interested.”

Steve asked Gwynne how he could learn to farm and was told to ‘just find a friendly farmer’. The friendly farmers turned out to be Gwynne and Linda, but lockdown and Steve’s cancer diagnosis intervened, so delaying their finding a farm and making the move.

Steve said: “We started looking again after lambing last year. Now we have 34 acres and 22 ewes and 26 lambs.

“They’re crossbreds and we bought them in Llanybydder, with Gwynne’s help. We’re hoping to do lambing ourselves next spring. It’s work in progress, we’ve got a long way to go but we’re well underway.”

They have had the farm fenced and are gradually kitting out the land and sheds.

Steve has retired, but Karen jokes that she has to keep working full time from her new home, with occasional trips to London, because as fast as she gets money in the bank Steve is spending it on sheep and equipment!

She acknowledges they’ve begun at one of the most expensive times ever, but added: “The thing is there is never going to be a good time and I think things came sharply into focus when Steve was diagnosed with cancer.