Sweetstone Life on A Devon Farm

The pattern of farming in Devon is changing, and many of the traditional farm skills--such as hand-turning butter and making a mangold 'cave'--are disappearing. Over a twelve-year period, Jacqueline Sarsby regularly visited two brothers and a sister and their elderly mother who farmed near Blackawton in South Devon, talking to them and taking photographs of their daily activities and village life. Sweetstone, A Farm in the South Hams is the result: a beautiful photographic record and intimate picture of a vanishing way of life. The family keeps local breeds of cattle and sheep, and has resisted the move to more intensive farming. They recall traditional ways of farming which often involved hard and heavy work, but which were less isolating than the lonely field-work of the modern farmer, and often less harmful to the land and to the people who worked it. More than 80 beautiful and atmospheric black and white photographs are complemented by insightful text, creating a fascinating portrait of family life on the farm as it used to be.