I grew up in a farming community. My mother has gypsy roots and my dad’s grandad was a blacksmith. I learned the lie of the land from the back of a horse. 

 

 I worked in community theatre in my early twenties and then with horses on the edge of Dartmoor. After a time spent living as part of a self-sufficient community on a mountain and with horse travellers in Ireland, I returned home and I married a hard-working, straight talking, damn good hill farmer and have three sons. 

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In 2010, I re-trained as a copywriter. I did some subbing for Greenpeace; managed the launch of a new walking trail across Wales and wrote commercial copy for the launch of a hydrogen fuel cell car. For the past few years, I've been a carer for my mum, who has Alzheimer’s and I’ve started writing fiction.

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I live in a rural, working community, and it pains me to see rural ways disappearing. We are losing space, in all senses of the word … from open countryside and the wind in our faces, to walking in the real dark, owning our lives, owning our work and contributing to family and community not corporations. 

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The theme for my new book, The Reporter, flows from a firm belief that people, animals and the land go perfectly together and that the small or family owned farm underpins human survival. The small farms are also the units best able to support resistance, should things in the competitive, capitalist world go badly wrong.  

R.Francis, Author