A Herriot-style account of a warm and loving family struggling to survive the extreme hardships of farming in the wilds of Yorkshire. A surprisingly `unputdownable' account. Jean Brown's hillside farm could have come straight from the pages of a Herriot novel. She holds the reader spellbound with this saga of a warm and loving family struggling to survive the extreme hardships of farming in the wilds of Yorkshire. The book's theme is that life is never ordinary; it's a miracle from first to last. Year after year, the indomitable, hard-working Brown family live through the long, lean months of winter, the end of which is marked for them by the arrival of the cuckoo, confirmation that they have made it to a new spring. What cannot be found in these pages, however, is self-pity. Every success (and there are many) is celebrated; every challenge met with determination and humour - a cup-half-full attitude - and it is impossible not to care about these extraordinary people, and not to be affected by their varying fortunes. Now well past retirement age, the Brown sisters still work Currer Laithe, which also warmly welcomes holidaymakers. Visitors and readers alike are beguiled by the women and their farm, and this book is sure to leave the lasting feeling that life really is good.