Episode 1 Meet the Watkins

Hidden away in the Gwendraeth Valley, West Wales, is a family business like no other.

In the last count, I'm sure it was 18 family members working here.

They are the fruit and veg mafia of Gorslas.

There's me, I'm Roland.

There's Stuart, Rueben, Tom, Davina, Rachel.

-Coral works here.

-Born a scrubber, always a scrubber.

And then there's Moya, Kim,

Maria. My son, William.

AIR HISSES

We're all in it.

Stuart's son, John, is working here.

Rueben, his son, Luke, is working here.

I've got to go and take this lad and kill it. What do you expect me to do?

His daughter, Marie-Alice, is working here.

Ashley, Nicky.

Who else is working here?

I can't think who's working there.

Also I just forgot - I'd better tell you, my wife is working there,

Gina, or I'll be in trouble.

Don't know. I can't think of anybody else off the top of my head. I think I've got round a few.

How many did you count?

This time on Meet The Watkins

the family prepares for the busy lambing season and, for Stuart,

it's the end of an era as he makes the final trip with his lorry back to the farm.

# Happy birthday to you Happy birthday to you

# Happy birthday dear both of you

# Happy birthday to you. #

It's a special day at Cwmcerrig

and the farm shop's had a transformation.

It's the location for a special birthday party

for two of the Watkins clan.

We're not all here yet, are we?

The family doesn't often get together in one place,

so tonight's party is a good excuse to get a few photographs for the album.

I get don't get this opportunity often.

Cwmcerrig Farm is midway between Swansea and Carmarthen

and the Watkins family empire is a familiar sight for many

who travel along the A48 on their way to Pembrokeshire.

Tom, the youngest brother of the Watkins family,

and Linda, the eldest sister, have both reached milestones

and it's all hands on deck to make it a party to remember.

Big party tonight. Double celebrations.

The 40th and the 60th.

Brother and sister, so we have come in

and volunteered to do sandwiches, as you can see.

And it's been well worthwhile cos we'll have a great time tonight.

Feeding a large number of people will be a piece of cake for them,

but Tom's had some trouble organising tonight's disco.

I booked a disco about a month ago and then lost the number for him.

So I phoned about four or five people this week asking them,

"Have I booked a disco with you?"

And it turned out I found the one at the end anyway. So I'm quite happy about that.

Before things get into full swing,

there is another important job to see to.

Well, this is a surprise job.

Cos yesterday afternoon we got told they didn't have a birthday cake,

so Rachel put one in the oven yesterday

-and this morning we spent an hour decorating it.

-Yes.

So it's supposed to be a little bit of a replica of the shop, it is.

The Watkins know how to throw a good bash

and so the party goes on until business as usual tomorrow morning.

The farm shop relies heavily on the sale of the Watkins' own lamb and beef

and today is an important day for the business

if they want to produce a good supply of lambs for next year.

12 weeks previously, the sheep flock were artificially inseminated

and now it's time to find out how many ewes are pregnant

and also how many lambs they're carrying.

Roland, Watkins brother number five, usually takes charge...

INAUDIBLE

..and he's keen to get things under way.

This is for scanning the sheep so we know what's inside them,

so it helps the management.

If they're singles they go in one pen, doubles in another pen

and we feed them accordingly.

Cos if you feed too much to the singles, lambs get too big

and you can't get them out.

So it's all to do with management.

And if anyone needs to know how many lambs each ewe is carrying...

well, Roland has his own high-tech method.

One dot for onesie, two dots for two. Three dots for three.

If we get any.

She's having two and she's a big ewe, look.

Empty. E. This is one of the oldest ewes we've got.

She repeated quite a few times. She'll have to go now on the cull.

We won't keep her any longer. She's had six, seven years, so...

That's the way life is. I don't like to see them go, but it happens.

She was a good ewe.

That's it. Quite a few singles.

A few empty ewes repeated a few times and quite a few doubles.

No triplets and no quads,

so quite good on that score, I reckon.

Roland spends most of his time on restaurant duty, where things can get quite heated.

That big table, go and collect all the glasses. We need them out.

I need the tables. Go and collect them.

Someone who knows better than anyone

what it's like living with Roland is his wife, Gina.

What's Roland like?

Um... He's fairly straightforward.

You know, if he's got something to say, he'll say it

and there's no thought about how it may sound

or how you may take it because he's just saying what's on his mind

or how he feels about things.

Other people say to me, "Gosh, he sounds a bit strict,"

or a bit hard and things, and I just feel,

well, no, he isn't - that's Roland.

-My table's been booked for 1.30.

-Yes.

-Right, the queue...

-How many of you are there?

-There's six of us.

-The queue is out the door at the moment.

-Yes.

I'm going to have to go around now and get ourselves through here

because my parents can't get out.

Sorry? Your parents don't have a table...

What's the point in booking if it's absolutely inundated with people here?

-Your parents...

-The understanding was that we reserve the table

and we also understood that we wouldn't have to go in a huge queue...

We never said that.

Roland's mother died when he was 25

and he stepped in to become the unofficial head of the family.

When it comes to running the business,

it's clear that Roland is a born leader.

For 10...uh, 11, is it? Yeah. That one there.

I'm going to have this table right at the back for you.

-Will you come and get the order?

-You can have the table,

but somebody's got to join the queue to get the food.

I think the reason he's the driving force

is because when he was younger, when his mother died,

the realisation that there was all these children

and I think it was a case of,

"OK, somebody has to do it," and that was it.

You know, somebody had to take the driving seat

and I just think Roland was there to do it.

Farming and business has always been a way of life for the Watkins.

Starting with vans and door-to-door deliveries of fruit and veg,

the family moved on to markets as well as a warehouse

and store in nearby Cross Hands.

When they sold the warehouse,

they used the money to start their new venture.

450,000 was our expected expenditure, 650 tops,

and we spent just over £1 million.

So we had to earn money from other places,

so once we get over the first three years, yeah, it'll be worth it.

It'll be something for the family, won't it? That's what I think.

If it's just only for me and just me and the wife who are working here,

and the same with my other brothers, we probably wouldn't have done it.

It's because of all the family members,

they're all there, and hopefully it's a future for them, isn't it?

That's what I'm hoping.

Driving vans and lorries is a big part of the Watkins history.

Stuart, the eldest son of the family,

has been driving lorries for most of his life,

travelling across Britain to buy straw for local farmers.

But today is the end of an era

as he drives the lorry home to Cwmcerrig for the very last time.

I'm doing hay and straw for the last 20 odd years - 28, 29 years now

I think it is - running up to the Cotswolds, Beresford, Cirencester,

bringing straw back down, selling it to local farmers in this area.

You leave here at 4.30, five in the morning,

drive up to Oxford area, spend two hours loading, drive back.

You'd be finished, hopefully, seven, nine o'clock some nights afterwards.

Five, six days a week. I used to love driving.

-Well, I still do, I suppose.

-HE LAUGHS

There's no doubt that life is going to be quite different for Stuart

and someone who knows this better than most is shop assistant

and Stuart's fiance, Moya.

He's going to miss it. He's going to miss it in the beginning,

but it's going to be easier for him. He won't have to have all the early mornings

and we might get a summer holiday.

Cos everything stops for the straw.

You know, last year I think we had a holiday...

September, October? October, something like that.

Then you're in your winter clothes going on holiday, like.

I don't think it's hit him yet. Because when that time comes now and that phone isn't ringing

or he's not, you know, phoning all the local farmers

asking do they want straw, do they want hay,

that's when it's going to hit him, I think.

The first load of straw we brought down, I think, we sold for £28 a tonne.

I'm bringing straw... Well, the last load I sold was £115 a tonne.

I will miss it.

It's lambing time and Cwmcerrig farmyard is transformed into a five-star maternity unit

ready for the family's pedigree Texel flock.

It's a busy period for Roland, his brother, Rueben, and farmhand Gareth.

Roland is happy with the lambs born so far and has already found himself

a potential breeding ram for next year.

It was born at one o'clock this morning. What is it now? 10?

So he's three hours old. He's up, his belly's full, he's sucked his mother.

He's been tagged now because we've all got to give them individual tags

cos we've got to know the breeding of the ram.

He'll hopefully sire rams himself. That's what he'll be.

He won't be one for the pot, he'll be to sire rams.

We'll colour-code him so we know what his father is. He's got nice, dark...

On the nose, he's got nice dark colours. If we wanted a bit more,

we'd like to have the dark on the of the eye.

And he's good born, look. A good lamb. Healthy.

Hopefully in a year's time, he's still healthy.

A year from now, we'll have offspring from him, hopefully.

Breeding Texel sheep is a big part of the Watkins way of life.

It involves a lot of hard work, but Roland and his family would never be without them.

1970, some of the Scotch boys, different people,

brought them in the country. They come from Holland and France,

and then they only had a few of them

and then they put them on to other sheep and if you do it about eight or ten times,

what they call upgrading, and then they become pures.

That's why you've got so many different strains of Texel.

We started in the year 2000 so we are in our 12th year,

so I wouldn't like to stop doing it.

Some people play golf, we're out all night lambing sheep instead.

Sad cases are we!

But there's a problem with one of the ewes.

The lamb is upside down at the moment the back is down instead of up.

We'll see, now. We might get it, we might not.

Try. Try and turn it over.

It's quite tight and it's quite a big lamb.

Bloody tight in there, isn't it? Plenty of room?

Roland tries his very best to put his delivery skills to the test,

but the ewe is struggling.

Hold that leg up. Pull that firm, don't let it back.

Just hold it firm. Don't pull it too hard.

Actually, I think its whole head's this big.

This problem is too difficult for the boys to deal with

and help is required.

Forget it. If you've got a phone on you, phone the vet.

You'll get the vet to check them at the same time, I think.

Inside you've only got that,

but the head's as big as that and then you've got two legs like that.

It ain't going to happen, like.

Get the vet, hopefully, he'll come now soon.

Rueben, find out if they're coming soon.

If they're not coming soon, I'll go somewhere else.

FARMYARD ANIMAL NOISES

Careful of them.

Good heavy lambs are what Roland is aiming for.

And once again, he thinks he's found a whopper.

There, come on. Won't be long.

Come on. Hold it up.

SHEEP BLEATS

Eight kilos. 17-pounder.

Born.

-Have you got a record?

-No.

We've had a 21-pounder.

That's a big lamb, though, 17 pounds inside the unit.

Lot of stuff to carry around.

Right, shall we go and have a look at that mule again?

The Watkins' door-to-door van service was started over 50 years ago.

Six days a week, three vans provide a delivery service for South and West Wales

and it's still very much an integral part of the business.

It's early Saturday morning and John, Stuart's son,

loads his van ready for another busy day.

Today, John's round is made up of farms

and rural customers, which rely heavily on this service.

Some customers have been buying from the Watkins for a very long time.

Four or five carrots, please.

'We expect John every week.

'He comes regular, never misses.

'I look forward to seeing him every week.'

I think we ought to support local companies.

That's the policy now, to support all the home growers,

or home produce, so I think it's essential.

16.30... 16.50 altogether, please, Stephen. Ta.

-Thank you, John.

-Thank you.

-Thank you very much.

Meanwhile, back at Cwmcerrig, and help arrives for the struggling ewe.

Lambing is always a busy time of year for local vet Helen Scott.

Absolutely manic, yes.

Everybody's just started lambing in the last couple of weeks,

so we've gone really busy all of a sudden. We've got calving as well.

It just makes life a bit more interesting, really. So,

erm, anything else I need?

-Is this one guaranteed to liven up?

-It's alive at the moment.

I can't make any guarantees it's going to be alive in a minute,

but it's alive at the moment.

When we come in here, there's no guarantees, is there?

It's a complex procedure

and Helen prepares as carefully as possible for a Caesarean section.

Getting the lamb out alive is the priority,

but making sure that we're clean in the process of doing it as well,

so if we weren't clean, then there'd be a risk to the ewe,

so we've got to try and weigh up the, well,

the balance of making sure we do the job properly,

but also being reasonably fast with it as well,

because, obviously you've got a risk to the lamb.

If the lamb gets distressed it means they're more likely, to, to, erm,

to not make it.

SHEEP BLEATS

Lamb's alive.

It's fighting.

There you go.

Told you he wouldn't come out the back.

Oh, no way would that have come out the back.

Another very large healthy lamb to the Watkins flock.

And a sigh of relief for everyone involved.

The ewe is finally ewe-nited with her newborn lamb.

There you are.

Shall we put this straw in there?

Back on his van round,

John is certainly the blue-eyed boy amongst his customers.

-OK, my love? Got everything?

-Yes, I think so.

John comes anything from 12 o'clock onwards.

And for years now, they've been extremely good.

I damaged my leg in a car accident. I can now hardly walk,

so there's no point in me attempting to go over the road.

They come, they collect the order,

and deliver it back.

And apart from anything else, they also give me cashback,

which means I don't have to worry about getting to the shop

or to the bank.

It's wonderful that I can depend on them

and they're a lovely family.

-Tea or coffee or anything?

-No, I'm fine, thank you.

-You don't want to use the loo as usual?

-No, I'm fine, thank you.

SHE LAUGHS

It's gone midnight, and Roland and his wife Gina

are on night lambing duty.

The ewes are normally relaxed at this time

and so this is the very time they tend to get birth to their little ones.

Gina has a busy time ahead of her

and is responsible for feeding newborn lambs.

We need to feed two of these.

BLEATING

They'll come, but the teats are very large on the ewe.

And the lamb can't get to it.

And the one ewe hasn't got a lot of milk.

Over the years if something's a bit weakly or something,

Gina is far better than the rest of us...

Take it in the house and she, she seems to get it going when we give up on it.

So, must be something.

There you go.

That's good, isn't it?

If they don't need it, you don't give it.

But if they need it, you've got to be there to keep them going.

She just needs topping up all the time.

Making sure she's having enough.

Have you had enough?

You look as if you've had enough.

Roland relies heavily on Gina during this busy period.

'I'm not needed all the time.

'But if Roland needs help, you know, just to hold a ewe

'while he's checking it and things, you know,

'you just need somebody to be there sometimes.

'So you know there is an extra person there to give you a hand

'when you need it.

'It's a job and I am here. There's no point calling somebody

'to come a mile or a mile and a half away if I'm here, sort of thing.'

At last, time for a cuppa.

The night shift is often a good time to reflect on the business.

After 35 years of marriage,

Gina, as always, is there to support her husband.

Usually, the discussion that we tend to have,

it's things that he's thought about that he needs to remember to do

and things like that. And he will talk to me about it.

And then I'll start making lists at this time of the morning, just to...

just to make sure that he'll remember it all tomorrow.

'His mind is going all the time. But that's how Roland is.

'You just accept it.'

For Roland and Gina, the night is not over.

There is another problematic birth,

and Helen the vet has been called out again.

We've spent quite a bit of money putting this lamb inside.

So we hope it will work. It was alive earlier, I know that for sure.

When I was trying the legs, it was fighting me.

-I've just looked at the legs.

-Huh?

I've just looked at the legs and decided I'm not trying to pull it.

Well, I did try.

Like Helen, Gina is an old hand with the night-time deliveries,

and a Caesarean section is nothing new to her.

-Yes, been here, seen it all.

-Once or twice!

Good assistant, Roland?

Better than me.

-Quiet, compared to you!

-I'm always quiet.

Very patient with them.

I even have the cat coming in to watch what I'm doing.

We've got a cat assistant, as well!

Yeah, she's sat outside the gate,

making sure I'm not doing anything I shouldn't.

Is she pulling the leg?

-Which leg?

-Is it pulling the leg back at all?

I haven't pulled it too.

I didn't pull it about too much.

It might just need a bit of a shake.

This is Helen's third visit to the farm in the last 36 hours.

And tiredness has started to creep in.

But tired or not, it hasn't stopped the delivery of a fine ram lamb.

For Helen though, staying focused, especially at night, can be tough.

When you first start, it's quite hard.

Just because you've not been doing it particularly long

and it's quite a stressful part of the job.

But the longer you have been doing it,

you start to act a little bit more on automatic pilot,

so you just kind of go along with whatever comes along,

and get on with it.

The nice thing is, the drive to the farm is often quite a good point

to wake up and think about what you are going to.

It gives you a bit more time to be completely with it.

I'm sure most of our farmers would say that we are not totally

coherent when we speak to them on the phone.

More because quite often, we have been woken up out of bed.

But by the time we get down here,

we're ready and raring to go.

As the night progresses, Roland and Gina keep going too.

Surviving on little sleep and working

through the day and night becomes second nature to them.

'This will be the hardest week, you can calm down then.

'That's when your problems are, you lose interest

'and something goes wrong.

'It's all our own fault.'

Come on.

If you see them in three or four days' time,

they fill out so quick, the lambs. It's amazing.

But once he's got good, they're fiddling about, is the problem!

Always. But hopefully we'll be lucky now.

This year, to be honest, we've been pretty good. Yes.

Finish like we've gone so far, we'll be very happy.

It's a new day in what has been a relentless week

for the Watkins family.

But for Roland the work never stops.

The cogs have to keep turning

to make sure that the business survives.

'You've got to work to make ends meet, don't you?

'It's a big family, there's a lot of responsibility.

'I don't know what it is.

'Before, when my mother was alive,

'she was basically the head of the business.

'Dad never done much work running the business, he just moved the muck.'

A few of my friends, Dai Rhys and a few of the boys always said

I'm quite good that I can get people to work.

I can get the best out of them.

People say to me, are you going to retire? No. I'd rather be working.

I wouldn't want to not be working.

Next time, the Watkins prepare their cattle herd for the dreaded TB test,

and everyone mucks in for their busiest time of year, Christmas.

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd