Any Fool Can Be a Dairy Farmer

Any Fool Series #2

by James Irvine Robertson

This is the humorous account of how the young James Robertson set out for lush fields of Devon to turn grass into gold via the medium of milk. It only took an encounter with his first cow to make him realize that he would need the survival instincts of the SAS to appreciate this rural idyll.

156 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

James Robertson was born and educated in Scotland. He studied law before working in advertising in London, Toronto and Johannesburg.

He is an author, broadcaster, historian, humourous columnist & contributor to a wide variety of newspapers and magazines in the UK, US and Australia

After working in advertising he became a pig and dairy farmer in South West England, contributed to agricultural journals and wrote a series of comic novels - the ‘Any Fool’ series. He returned to Scotland in 1991 since when he has concentrated on history.

As James Irvine Robertson, he writes articles and books largely relating to Scots history.

Reviews

[Tarn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolute top-notch review of the comic travails of dairy farming (albeit in England). Excellent dissertation on the attitudes and private lives of cows.

[Phil · Rating 2 out of 5]

At the start of this book, the author has been pig farming for a few years but has tired of it, so decides it might be fun to be a dairy farmer instead. (At the end of the book, after a few years of dairy farming, he tires of that too and ends up selling the herd. Judging by the number of other 'Any Fool Can Be A...' titles he has written, he doesn't seem to stick at any career for very long!) He knows nothing about cows and doesn't make much effort to find out anything before starting. The book consists of supposedly funny tales of his farming experience. "I bought a dairy farm even though I know nothing about dairy farming. Isn't that funny?" "Ha, ha, ha, look at all these mistakes I made because I couldn't be bothered taking advice from anyone." "One of my cows has died because I was too ignorant to recognise signs of illness, isn't that hilarious?"

If you're the kind of person who finds someone bragging about their own incompetence to be funny, then you might enjoy this book. I just found it tedious and annoying. And when it resulted in unnecessary suffering to his animals, infuriating. I have read some genuinely funny books about farming, especially written by those who were new to it, but this isn't one of them.

[Kieran White · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The truly rich man is the man who can say that he enjoys what he does. As a dairy farmer for five years, I was a millionaire.”

This book is hilarious from start to finish. Being a farmers son I could relate to everything within, even more so because I’ve just come away from working full time on the family farm for 5 months through lockdown and so everything I’ve experienced was stated in this book.
James Robertson has a lovely way of placing the reader into his shoes and making a farcical joke about accidents that happen with animals and in a farmers life.

Definitely well worth a read!