Liz Todd talks to a hunt worker and an arable farmer, who both feel that an urban government is failing to address the problems of the countryside

FORMER coal miner Dick Tonks knows what it feels like to be made redundant. The Selby man lost his job along with hundreds of others when the pit he worked in closed in 1994.

Job prospects looked bleak, but Dick joined a training programme set up by the Government.

"The Coal Board paid for a scheme to train me up, to introduce me back to work," he explains.

And so it was that, after less than a year out of work, the 45-year-old father-of-two found himself in a new job as a hunt worker.

Dick has been with the Middleton Hunt, based at Birdsall, outside Malton, ever since. He spends his days doing a variety of jobs, depending on the time of year.

"On hunt days when they are out we will be following the horses, and mending any fences which may be damaged, and we are there with the terriers if they want a fox dispatched.

"But we are also out meeting farmers, doing PR work on a regular basis, or we might be cutting rides in the summer, to make sure the undergrowth is kept back."

His brush with unemployment makes all the more worrying the prospect of being out of work once more if the Government bans hunting.

Dick, who lives at North Duffield with wife Angela, children Adele, 11, and 13-year-old Liam, and his 11 terriers, admits he doesn't know what he would do. He is one of eight members of staff employed by the Middleton Hunt who would all lose their jobs.

"Obviously this is my livelihood," he says. "If I lost this one then it would mean another job to look for, and jobs aren't easy to find."

Dick says it is ironic that it could be the Government forcing him out of a job.

"We were known as the flat cap and whippet men when we were miners," he says.

"The unions I was a part of as a miner were the ones who supported Labour.

"The very men who put them in power are having their jobs taken away from them - they are kicking us in the teeth."

ARABLE farmer Jonathan Wilson knows all about the spiralling cost of housing in the countryside.

The 25-year-old left school at 16 to join his father Martin on the family farm at Stockton-on-the-Forest, outside York.

But now he is struggling to find a place of his own because soaring house values are pricing him out of the market.

Jonathan, who farms cereals, potatoes, sugarbeet, strawberries and raspberries, says the cost of even a small starter home is unrealistic for people working in the countryside.

"Buying a house is something I have been thinking of doing for a while, but I can't get a mortgage as big as I would need for something round here," he says.

"The average price seems to be £100,000-£150,000 and that's very high. It's such a bad start in life, to have that amount of debt around your neck like a noose."

The desirability of living in the countryside has pushed rural house prices way beyond the reach of many agricultural workers, he says.

"I suppose there are some houses which are more affordable, maybe around the Pocklington area, but that is just too far away. You need to be near the farm, working seven days a week."

Jonathan says younger people like himself have to think hard about going into agriculture.

"I have always wanted to be a farmer and I don't have any regrets - I think whatever I do is going to be farm-related.

"But I could also say that I would certainly think twice about it now," he says.

Respect for people working in the countryside is crucial, he says, along with a more realistic idea of the struggle many UK farmers are facing

"The problem facing the countryside today is a big issue. There are such depressing prices in the market at the moment.

"Profit margins on something like cereals are so slender - they don't reflect the amount of risk and work involved in growing the crops in the first place.

"I would like to see more promotion of British products, more understanding of the countryside and how it works."

Updated: 11:33 Friday, September 20, 2002