I have completed a gruelling 250 mile 17-day walk from Lower Treginnis Farm near St Davids on the Pembrokeshire coast in West Wales following ancient lost and forgotten tracks used by Welsh drovers taking their herds of Welsh Black cattle to the markets of London and the Home Counties. I am raising funds for the very special children’s farming charity, Farms For City Children.  

My challenging trek, through hail storms and heatwaves, took me through remote mountain passes , along stunning river valleys and through now-silent villages which once buzzed with the hubbub of drovers and cattle markets. 

My walk ended at my home, on an old drover’s road on the way to those London markets, in Chesham Bois near Amersham in the Chiltern Hills. 

My goal was to find out what it must have been like for those tough old drovers taking around 200 cattle hundreds of miles through bleak terrain and wretched weather from West Wales to the livestock markets of the Midlands and Home Counties - and at the same time help a terrific charity whose income continues to be seriously hit by the impact of COVID restrictions.   

From Day One my engines were constantly re-charged by seeing the stream of generous donations coming in - and which continue to come in - for Farms For City Children - and which continue to arrive. Thank you so much!  

If you do want to support the charity through this page it is certainly not too late!! 

Farms For City Children is the brainchild of children’s writer Michael Morpurgo and his wife Clare - designed to give schoolchildren from urban areas - many of whom have never seen a farm animal up close and personal before - the chance to experience life on a working farm. 

I first heard about its amazing life-changing work from the poet Ted Hughes who, together with his wife Carol , were close friends and neighbours of the Morpurgos in North Devon. Ted became the charity’s Founding President.   

Farms For City Children has seen its income seriously hit by the Covid pandemic, which forced it to close its three farms to schools.

I have always been fascinated by the Welsh drovers' and their epic journeys. I decided the  only way to know what it was really like for them on those  gruelling journeys was to follow in their footsteps. Retirement from a high pressure career gave me the chance finally to "walk the walk". And I certainly achieved my objective of understanding what those long journeys must have been like. 

I started out from Lower Treginnis Farm on the Pembrokeshire Coast,. My route has taken me along the “Golden Road” on the ridge of  the Preseli Hills, over the rugged and desolate “abandoned mountain” Mynydd Epynt, across  the winding River Wye at Erwood, and Bredwardine, climbing through  the Cotswolds and Chilterns ranges and finally to the old market town of Amersham. 

Farms For City Charity  is a terrific charity to support  - and has never been  more needed. Michael Morpurgo paints a brilliant picture of how a week on one of the farms can bring children huge benefits, including a new perspective on life, especially valuable as they emerge from the pressures created by Covid:      

“If ever our children needed to breathe deep of country air, look out over wide horizons, tramp in wellies through muddy fields, see swallows fly, and fish jump, it is now. Here, down on their farm in the countryside, is their moment to reclaim their freedom, to run and play, to feel part of their world again, the world that is theirs to enjoy, theirs to care for. The farmers, as well as their sheep and cows and hens and geese and pigs and horses, have missed them, and are all longing for them to come again. So are all of us at Farms For City Children.” 

Carol Hughes, a Vice-President of the charity, has watched its phenomenal impact for more than 40 years:      

“From its early days in the mid 1970’s, Ted and I observed first-hand the powerful influence a week at Farms For City Children would have on the children who visited and worked there. The engagement with the natural world and farming through these many decades of change has had and continues to have a positive and profound effect on each child's self-belief, morale and preparedness for
the adult world they face."

Thank you to the many who have followed my progress on the drover walk through this page, on Twitter (@nickgammage #droverwalk) and on Instagram (@nick_gammage) 

Thank you so much for your support !!

Nick