Coffee and Cake with Helen Rebanks | 24th Nov | 2PM

What to expect:

Helen will be chatting about her life and her book with Sue whilst enjoying coffee and cake prepared by our wonderful cafe team.

The event will be held in our cafe, with a table seating plan rather than rows. Once you book a ticket you will be assigned a seat, so if you want to sit with your friends, let us know asap!

Please arrive promptly at 2PM so we can get you seated, take your drink order and serve your cakes before the event starts at 3PM.

Please let us know if you or anyone you are booking tickets for has any allergies or dietary requirements.

The book:

‘The Farmers Wife’ is Helen’s memoir.

A portrait of life at Helen Rebanks’ Lake District farmhouse that beautifully captures the unsung work of keeping a home and raising a family. As dawn breaks on the farm, Helen Rebanks makes a mug of tea, relishing the few minutes of quiet before the house stirs.

Within the hour the sounds of her husband, James, and their four children will fill the kitchen. There are also six sheepdogs, two ponies, 20 chickens, 50 cattle and 500 sheep to care for. Helen is a farmer’s wife.

Hers is a story that is rarely told, despite being one we think we know. Weaving past and present, Helen shares the days that have shaped her. This is the truth of those days: from steering the family through the Beast from the East and the local authority planning committee, to finding the quiet strength to keep going, when supper is yet to be started, another delivery man has assumed he needs to speak to the ‘man of the house’, and she would rather punch a cushion than plump it.

‘True, unflinching, powerful, lyrical’ Kate Mosse

‘It’s quite an achievement to shine a light of truth on the often idealised, always understated, role of the farmer’s wife.’ Raynor Winn