If you've been watching Clarkson's Farm, you'll have seen what happened to the first calf ever born on his farm — sent for slaughter while pregnant with twins after reacting to a TB test, only for the results to show she never had TB at all.

I couldn't watch it. Because we've lived it — and it cost us everything we had.

2014, and a young family

Our boys were tiny then — Oliver was three, James just ten months old. I was working nights as a veterinary nurse, Dan was driving tractors full time, and alongside it all we were doing what we thought farming was: buying in calves, rearing them on milk, fattening them on corn, and selling them through market. The kind of beef, if I'm honest, that so many people pick up in a supermarket without a second thought — bred for beef, pushed on grain, and sent through the system at twelve to fourteen months old.

Then TB struck

When bovine TB hits, your farm goes into lockdown. No animals in, none out. But those cattle couldn't thrive on grass alone — they needed their corn — so the feed bills kept coming while our only outlet, the market, was slammed shut. We were pouring money into animals we couldn't sell.

The debt mounted, and mounted. And it broke us. It got to the point where the only way to pay the bank back and keep the bailiffs from the door was to sell our home.

So we did. We sold our house and moved into rented. I won't pretend that doesn't still hurt — because it does, even now. But you pick yourself up, and you carry on, because what else is there.

A promise, and a fresh start

When we started again, I made myself a promise. I didn't want to raise my family on food I knew nothing about. I wanted to be self-sufficient, and to do it properly this time.

So I went looking for a different kind of cow — one that could live outside nearly all year, off the land, with no bought-in corn. Hardy. A small carcass that sits nicely in the freezer. And above all, tasty and full of goodness.

I found Dexters. They ticked every single box. David and Victoria arrived not long after — and everything we are today started with those two.

Why every TB test still puts me on edge

So when I see someone stood at that trailer, I don't just sympathise — I've been there, in the very worst way, when your whole world falls apart and you lose your home to it. Every TB test since puts me right back on edge. That fear never really leaves you.

But whatever you make of the man himself, I'm grateful to Clarkson for one thing: he's shown farming in its true light, and got the whole country talking about the things we've quietly carried for years.

What brings me peace now

Here's what settles my heart these days. Our Dexters don't rely on feed we have to buy in — they live off our land, the way nature intended. And we don't sell through a faceless market any more. We sell straight to you — people who care where their food comes from.

After everything? That warms my heart more than I could ever say.