In 2017, at the age of 63, Elizabeth Vickerie handed in her notice after over 30 years working in education. She took early retirement and relocated from east London to a 47-hectare organic farm near Bath. Swapping the office for rolling hills dotted with grazing sheep, Vickerie now raises animals and manages events on the land for a living.
“The ability to be outdoors and see the seasons coming in is an absolute joy,” she says. “It’s been so good for my mental health and since I’ve always been a very busy person, I wouldn’t have done retirement well. It’s good that I’ve found another busy job to do.”
Not much of Vickerie’s life has gone according to a plan. Growing up in London in the 1970s, she dreamed of training as a vet but was instead encouraged by her headteacher to enrol in teacher training college and soon began working at a secondary school. She then relocated to South America to teach, before returning to London in the 1980s and the world of local educational policy, eventually working her way up to become senior education officer for the borough of Tower Hamlets.
“My philosophy was always to go through the open doors that presented themselves,” the 69-year-old says. “But I never imagined I’d end up leaving the city altogether for a different life.”
Her route to rural living began with romance. With her three children from a previous relationship having flown the nest, Vickerie decided to try online dating and, in 2011, signed up to a match-making site that paired users with high compatibility scores. “I never managed more than a 34% match with anyone until Richard came back with 96%,” she says. “I had been looking for someone who liked jazz and lived in London, while he loved opera and was living on a farm in Somerset, but I had to find out more.”
When Vickerie arrived for their date, she felt an immediate chemistry. “He’s such an interesting person. He’s older than me, now 81, but he’s disgustingly fit – he used to sail racing yachts in the US when he was younger but he came to the UK and ended up buying a local mill before expanding into this farm,” she says. “I thought he just worked here; I didn’t realise he owned the place.”
Over the next five years of travelling from her east London home to visit Richard on the farm, the commute began to take its toll. In 2017, she took the plunge and moved to the country to help run the business full-time. “It seemed like the right thing to do and I haven’t looked back since,” she says. “When I was younger I wanted to work with animals and loved events – now these are the two things I spend all my time doing.”
Initially pitching in with the farm’s main business of growing organic vegetables, Vickerie soon brought in a flock of wiltshire horn sheep to graze on the land and provide meat for sale. “We started off muddling along with 20 sheep and now we’re up to 70 with the help of a brilliant young shepherd called Josh,” she says. “I never thought I’d be able to lead a lambing season but the first time I pulled a lamb out of a ewe, I danced around the stables and felt like it was the most wonderful moment of my life.”
While the farm is a perfect fit for this stage of Vickerie’s life, she is open about the challenges running a business can have on a relationship. “We can be polar opposites sometimes, but we compromise and Richard has taught me to slow down,” she says. “We’re also both getting older, so we’ve recently begun letting other people take over spaces and parts of the business.”
The couple have a long-term plan to place the farm into a trust so that it can continue to be run by people with a passion for organic produce. Until then, there is plenty more work to be done and Vickerie is relishing every opportunity.
“This move has been a life-saver,” she says. “I needed a new challenge and I haven’t regretted it at all.”
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