An extraordinary person
I first met Dennis Matheson in April 2026. I had just finished a two year project photographing a young farming couple who were learning to farm on their own for the first time. After finishing the project I wanted to photograph farmers who were still active long past the age of retirement and I was quickly introduced to Dennis, an 80 year old tenant farmer with a mixed farm of cattle, sheep and a small amount of arable that he uses to feed his livestock through the winter.
Dennis farms alone. He has no descendants and now has very little help, in part because his helpers over the years have all retired. He is a lifetime tenant of a farm once owned by his stepfather, which is part of a much larger estate on the English-Welsh border, just inside Wales, although the terrain reminded me of the Scottish Highlands. Dennis is one of seven farming tenants of the estate and his land is particularly hilly and rocky, with streams running through his fields and rivers dividing them. It's pretty unforgiving. Dennis himself lives in a cottage that dates back to the 16th century which is accessed by a stone track that would be almost as quick to walk down than drive. Yet Dennis sets out from his cottage every morning in his trusty Land Rover, opening and closing gates, driving up steep hills and negotiating rocks, bogs and equally steep descents to check on his animals.
In August 2026 I spent 24hrs with Dennis, we met on a Monday lunchtime and I was by his side until early Tuesday afternoon, observing and documenting life on a Welsh farm for an 80 year old tenant farmer.
"I farm because it's fun. When it stops being fun, then when I'll give it up" Dennis told me.
Dennis is a well travelled man, he has spent time farming in Australia, Ireland and several places in the UK before ending up in Wales in the 1980s. That he's passionate about farming is a given but he's extremely concerned by food security and the apparent blasé attitude of governments towards the farming sector.
"I don't think they realise how precarious things are." He quotes irrational policy decisions, the weather, rising costs and increasing administration as contributing factors that are leading to the declining numbers of farms in the UK.
When it comes to farming nothing phases Dennis. Shortly after I had arrived at the farm I heard the sound of a quad bike from one of the lanes and Dennis emerged, all smiles depsite a failed attempt to round-up a group of cattle that had broken through into a neighbours field. Over the next 24 hours I was to learn the necessity and futility of fencing on the hills.
Perhaps when we think of farms, we imagine fields that are rectangular or squarish, fairly flat with some kind of fencing around it. Now imagine a field with 50+ degree incline, a stream running through the middle, rocks, trees, bracken and a shape that doesn't have a name because it's so odd. That's what many of Dennis's fields are like and trying to fence them securely is like painting the severn bridge - it's an on-going job that never ends.
Of course in August 2026 we were experiencing the hottest year on record so for Dennis the priority was to ensure that his livestock had a supply of water, all of which was pumped from underground wells and the river. Checking the pumps and the troughs was now a regular job. "All the streams have dried up, I've never seen it like that."
When checking one field and discovery a calf missing we set off to find it. The field was steep on both sides with a single running through that would usually carry water but none was flowing. We searched the the undergrowth along the dingle thinking the calf may have fallen in but we couldn't see anything. We then checked around the perimeter and found the calf had got itself stuck in a bog - yes, an underwater spring was keeping a small area wet and the calf had gone in search of water. It had fallen over and trapped its head in the roots of a tree.
Dennis went off for pulleys and rope whilst I freed the calf's head. He returned with the pulleys and rope attaching one end to a tree and the other to the calf and then we pulled. It took both of us to pull the calf's head free of the boggy area and put it into the sitting position to recover its strength.
Spending time with Dennis was a genuine pleasure. He never stopped from the moment we met until the moment Ieft. There was always something to do and a list of jobs that never got any shorter. That’s farming - you set off with one intention but then get diverted by a crisis that you find along the way.
It takes an extraordinary person to want to do this kind of physical and unpredictable work at the age of 80, and he doesn’t appear to be slowing down.
