Chapter Ten

LIFE ON THE FARM

I was born in Salford, near Manchester, in December 1987. We lived there for a few years until I was about three or four and then we moved to mid-Wales, where my mother had grown up. My parents wanted to move out of the rat race. Where we moved to wasn't far from where my grandparents lived and they were farming at the time.

My brother Jack and I were really keen to help on the farm and we spent lots of time there. Then when my granddad reached retirement age, he told my parents he wanted me and my brother to have the farm when we were older. But for that to happen, my parents would have to run it in for the meantime, until we were at an age where we could take over. So my parents agreed and we moved to the farm when I was about six or seven. My mum, Lynne, has always been a farmer. It was her side of the family that owned the farm and my brother and I are fifth generation farmers in the family. My dad had been a dock worker. He'd worked at moving the big containers in the container base in Manchester. But together they took the farm over and it was a good place to grow up.

When I was starting out with the Dragons and travelling down to Newport to play games, I would always look forward to the trip home because I knew I was going back to the farm. However, after a while, I moved down to live in Cardiff and I found that hard to start with. Just seeing street-lights and hearing the sound of people and vehicles outside the house at midnight was hard to get used to.

If there was a vehicle about at midnight back at the farm, they would be stealing your farm quad or something! It's just peace and quiet there. So I did find it hard to adjust. To start with, I would come down on Sunday night, train in the week, drive back on Friday night and have the weekend on the farm. But the more I progressed in rugby the less I was able to go home. However, when I do get the chance to go back, I take it. If we have a Friday night game at Rodney Parade, I jump straight in the car and go back. It's just a chance to get away. It's what I enjoy. It's completely different from the day job. It's my peace and quiet, my release.

The farm is in a little place called Abbeycwmhir, near Llandrindod Wells. It's an averagesize farm on a hillside, about 500 acres, and there's a lot to get through. It's a sheep farm. We've got about 700 sheep. My granddad had cattle, but we've just got sheep, although my brother would like to keep a few cows in the future, like my granddad did. Jack, who is two years older than me, basically runs the farm, but he and my mother and father all work together and I join in whenever I'm home.

Life on the farm depends on the season. Lambing is all sort of hours and during Six Nations time, they tend to be busy lambing, so everyone has to help. At that time of year, they work in shifts. My brother gets up at 5am and they don't finish until 11pm. But they still take time out to watch me play on television. Then when I get back home, I get stuck in too.

There will be days when it's really hard work, but then we all come in and Mum lays on a massive feast and we sit round the table, have good food and go to bed happy. We're quite close as a family. I ring my dad, John, every day for a chat. He is Salford born and bred and a Manchester United fan. Football is very much the sport on his side of the family. My cousin, Jason Lydiate, played for Manchester United reserves in the same team as Ryan Giggs and went on to play for Blackpool, as well as other clubs.

But I was never going to be a footballer. You'd know why if you saw me kick a ball! My dad only got into rugby because my brother and I started playing, but he's a fan now. Being English-born, he obviously wants England to do well. When we play England, he sings both the anthems. But he supports me at the end of the day and I think he would rather see Wales win the Six Nations than England.

My parents have been great, right behind me since I started playing. They have also brought me up to be the person I am. They have taught me to value things, such as that good manners cost nothing, but they mean the world. It's a big thing in our family, always being polite to people, treating them as you would like to be treated yourself.

I think my upbringing has also helped me with my rugby. There's a lot of manual labour on the farm. It's more mechanical now, but when my parents took over it was all about lugging hay bales around and things like that. In the winter, you are always loading up quad bikes with these bales and feeding the sheep. You also spend a lot of time trying to catch sheep and they will fight with you as hard as they can. All farmers can tackle because they are used to chasing sheep. Unless you've got a good dog, you are on your own chasing them down. That's probably where my tackling ability comes from!

Being back on the farm is a real refuge for me. That's why I enjoy going back so much. Players do have off games and you do beat yourself up about them, but going back there you can put it out of your mind. I'll say to my parents that I don't want to talk about it, and we'll just have a cup of tea and talk about everyday life instead.

So, when I get a couple of days off I go back there and find it's a great place to clear my head. I can get back in touch with reality and I always feel better for going there. I really enjoy that part of my life and I think it's something I'll always go back to. I would like to have a long career in rugby, but you never know these days. I'll try to make the most of it for the time being, but I will always want to move back to the farm because I really enjoyed my upbringing there. It will be nice to maybe have a family of my own there. Playing rugby is not a job for life. I'm just a farming lad from midWales and that's what I'll be doing full-time when the rugby ends.