LIVES Bath City Farm’s Helen Fisher

“Our targeted projects help those most marginalised in the community”

HELEN FISHER

Bath City Farm, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary, keeps chickens, goats and pigs, as well as running a café, nature trails, and community events. No wonder farm manager Helen loves her job so much…

Helen has spent most of her working life at 37-acre Bath City Farm, when she started as a volunteer in 2002 at the age of 24. She became the farm’s first paid volunteer co-ordinator, thanks to a government scheme that supported businesses to help young people get into work.

I’ve been here since back in the day when the farm was little known to anyone but local residents. There were no buildings and just a handful of rare-breed sheep, but some really positive ideas and beginnings of exciting community work, which really captured my imagination.

I hadn’t gone to university like many of my peers, and instead lived my later teens going slightly off the rails and doing jobs I wasn’t content with. All I knew was that I wanted to spend my working life outdoors and had a strong passion for the environment.

It is amazing to see how much the place has changed over the years. We have over 40,000 visitors per year and support over 800 people with our targeted projects to help those most marginalised in the community.

The TV show DIY S.0.S came to the farm in 2005 and completed the farm’s first ever building. It was such an exciting week and probably had the single most-biggest impact in terms of the farm’s development. It meant we finally had toilets, an office, electric and running water on-site.

Jonathan Dimbleby used to be the Patron of Bath City Farm and once came to our AGM. Whilst he was here a lamb was born. It was too weak to suckle from its mother, so Jonathan spent a couple of hours with me helping her latch on to the mother’s teat. He used to keep sheep when he lived in Bath and he was such a natural with animals.

Many people that work in the third sector do it for love rather than money and go above and beyond to help people, or the causes they support. I get to meet so many inspiring people in my line of work. Everyone is very down to earth and all have a common love for wildlife and being connected to nature.

I ran the Bath Half Marathon earlier this year to raise money for the farm.

One of the worst times was at the beginning of lockdown when we realised the site and all of our projects were going to have to shut. The amount of people affected was huge and we just didn’t have clue when things were going to re-open. Our finances took a massive hit and it looked like we were facing closure at one point.

We launched an appeal to help us to keep going and managed to raise an amazing amount of money, thanks to the generosity of so many local individuals and companies.

I am keen to increase the biodiversity of our beautiful 37-acre site. During my time here, I have seen a steep decline in very common species such as the house sparrow, house martin and many species of butterflies and am keen to help reverse that trend.

The farm is on the cusp of some really great developments with a new indoor café in the pipeline and lots of new exciting partnerships developing with other organisations. Our work development and therapeutic projects are all interlinked into the café project and it’s really huge development for us. It will help make us more financially sustainable and provide a fantastic resource for the local community.

I really fell in love with Bath in my early teens when I moved to Box with my mum and stepdad. I now live in Batheaston, and I truly love it. The river is just stunning and it has easy access into Bath city centre along the cycle path. I live in an amazing and vibrant community and it feels so safe for children to grow up.

I have two children aged 10 and 12 called Iona and Staffa. They are named after two very beautiful Scottish Islands, and they make me laugh and cry every day! I’m a single parent so it can be challenging at times juggling work/school/home but I have some very amazing friends and wider family that help me. I also have Teddy, a very cute terrier. n

Follow @Bath City Farm on Twitter and Facebook for the online celebrations marking the farm’s 25th Anniversary

For more: Bath City Farm, Kelston View, Whiteway, Bath; www.bathcityfarm.org.uk