- Farmer Roley Price
Roley Price (Emma Drabble)
Roley and Ann have farmed at Channel View in Redwick for around half a century. “We take pride in the village,” says Roley. “It’s a good community,” adds Ann.
Roley was born here. After Trevor, his father, married Caerphilly Land Army girl Gwyneth Commerson the family took on a smallholding. They managed a small herd, baby Roley “popped in a handy cake tin as Mother milked the cows”, while Trevor drove the milk from neighbouring farms to Marshfield Dairy. There were eggs to be collected, cider apples to be bagged up for Bulmers in Hereford and even a pet donkey to teach Roley a lesson: “I put a thistle up her ass once and she kicked me!”
When his father fell ill 12-year-old Roley would milk the cows before school. Market days meant more time out of the classroom: “I was already working for the auctioneers in Newport at 13. I learned more than at school.”
Now the couple run their own 80-strong dairy herd. “There are six dairy farms within a three-mile radius of here.” Many still trade in the traditional way, buying on trust and meeting bills up to several thousand pounds when the money comes in. As Roley explains: “Your word has got to be good.”
Life on the Levels Interview:
Rowland Price, a dairy and sheep farmer from Redwick, talks about farming, orchards and cider making, SSSIs, sheep sales at Marshfield and saltmarsh sheep, pollution from steelworks.