[1] In 1976 author Michael Morpurgo and his wife, Clare Morpurgo (the oldest daughter of Sir Allen Lane, the founder of Penguin Books),[2] established the charity Farms for City Children,[3] with the primary aim of providing children from inner city areas with experience of the countryside.
[6] The first children arrived in January 1976 at Nethercott House; the charity now has three farms, in Devon, Gloucestershire and Pembrokeshire.
The rewards are, unusually, non-material and self-generated: children discover an active enjoyment in life and a sense of achievement, the effects of which remain with them long after they have waved the farms goodbye.
Jobs include feeding livestock, mucking out, grooming horses and donkeys, assisting at milking time, beekeeping and working in the vegetable gardens.
Naturally, many of the activities are seasonal and can include lambing in spring and making bonfires and pressing apples for juice in the autumn.