Robert is my Dad and from here on in he shall be called so. Dad came back to work on the farm just about as soon after finishing at Shuttleworth College of agriculture as he could. To begin with he spent a good deal of his time working in the mill and mix plant that we used to have at plantation farm, according to Mum he used to be up there at all hours of the day and night running the machinery up there. I never saw the plant, and from all accounts I'm glad of it it is said that the reason he spent so much time up there is because no one else could handle the job.

Dad has been the managing director of the farm since 1982 (ish) and has been responsible for many great things here. He has brought over 1000 acres in his time. It has been his mission to grow the arable potential of these bits of land since he brought them. Often this meant moving some of the hedges that split the parcels of land over to the edge of the field. This is an act that brought much ridicule from the locals at the time. But Dad stuck to his guns, and I'm glad that he did, he has great vision that allows him to see what stuff will look like when he's finished with it, and now that these hedges have been successfully moved the land is both practical in an arable sense and beautiful and rejuvenated in an environmental sense. Dad is still using his powers of long term vision. He is applying them to the property on the estate, as he reconditions the various buildings around the estate he is doing so with a view of what they might be in the future as well as the present. Dad's approach is what sparked the phrase 'growing potential' that I use as a tag line for the estate, because that is exactly what he has been doing all his time in charge.

On the rare occasion that Dad is not busy on the farm he goes sailing on his boat Merhonour which is currently moored at the Hamble river, this boat is known as a trailer sailor because when he gets bored of the Solent he can pick it up plonk it on a trailer behind his land-rover and take it somewhere different, Spain for example, or Scotland, or even Ireland. Mum and Dad have recently brought a house in the south of France with a small vineyard the plan is that they will spend a pleasant bit of time out there and I'm jealous!