Yorkshire, farmers and now ghost-hunting: Could this show be any more Channel 5?
The Yorkshire Vet: at Home with the Greens could only be more Channel 5 if Jane McDonald turned up at the end to belt out a tune. The broadcaster loves Yorkshire in general, Yorkshire farming shows in particular, and always refuses to take itself too seriously. So how about a Yorkshire farming show in which a bunch of paranormal investigators try to contact a ghost in the cow shed?
The stars of this programme – a spin-off from The Yorkshire Vet, which is now in its 21st series – are Jean and Steve Green. Steve is 96 and Jean is 73. He is quite possibly the oldest working farmer in the country; she, rather incongruously, wears a bright pink hoodie with googly eyes on it. They're great characters, and I bet the producers couldn't believe their luck when they stumbled across them.
The Greens were clients of Alf Wight, better known as James Herriot, and still tend animals on their farm just outside Thirsk, including calves named Toffee and Apple. Where Jean used to stand at the gate and look onto pure countryside, her fields are now bordered by row upon row of newbuild houses. 'All they do nowadays is build, build, build. There'll be no green acres left,' she laments. In many ways, she and Steve live the same life they did 50 years ago, with few modern comforts. Not in all ways, though. Jean has a mobile phone on which she thinks she has captured pictures of ghostly goings-on. Jean and Steve also believe spirits are visiting the farm and leaving behind a smell of fish and chips. They report this in an utterly matter-of-fact way, which makes it all the more enjoyable.
Cue a visit from West Yorkshire Paranormal, ghostbusters whose equipment looks as if it was bought from a toy shop but who keep straight faces throughout. The voice-over informs us that Jean called them in, and only a cynic would suggest this was really the brainchild of a production team keen to fill the episode with something daft. The greatest weakness of the series is how contrived it can feel. A fly-on-the-wall documentary showing the reality of their lives would have been just grand.
The vet, Peter Wright (trained by Herriot himself), is clearly very fond of the couple, seeing them often and giving them fish and chip shop vouchers for their wedding anniversary. We see a lot of him and of another vet, Matt Smith, whose jobs this week include castrating a sugar glider. I'm pretty sure you won't have seen that particular operation on TV before. 'The angriest little animal known to man,' said Smith, although it's unclear whether that goes for sugar gliders en masse or just this one.
One of the joys of the internet is that you can look up programmes from decades ago when they pop back into your head. At Home with the Greens brought to mind Hannah Hauxwell and I sought out Too Long a Winter, the Yorkshire TV documentary which first brought her to national attention. It's all there on YouTube, beautifully-shot and gimmick-free.
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