Our 20th and final post to celebrate our Farm Shop’s 20th Year is all about how we love our people.  By this I mean not only all the amazing staff that have worked at Broom House over the years but all our wonderful suppliers and customers, without whom a Farm Shop wouldn’t survive.

When we first moved to Broom House we employed one person, Alan Hollard, as a general farm worker.  As we expanded we took on Martin, who has been looking after our Aberdeen Angus cattle since 2001, and then Paul, who is the most useful person you will ever meet.   A few years later the flock had expanded and Steven was employed to learn the ropes as a shepherd. Steven’s great passion is training sheepdogs and he left to pursue this dream, replaced by Harriet who was fancying a new career in the outdoors. Now we also have Lewis who’s in charge of the pigs and anything else that needs a very strong person…(he’s recently taken to tractor work – due mainly to the rather nice tractor we borrowed whilst ours was broken) and Sienna, who’s on placement from Houghall College, helping us out with all things sheep and beyond.

Standing out in the Farm Shop has to be senior butcher, Michael, simply because he has been with us since October 2004.  John, Vincent, Rachael and Darren are making very positive changes in the Farm Shop every day, they make a great team, led by John, and we all send Vincent our congratulations on his recent marriage to Jessica. No longer working in the Farm Shop but still great friends of Broom House are the lovely Ian, Chris and Jamie and our original Saturday girl, Laura.  Who remembers these faces?

Over in the Coffee Shop we must say a special thank you to Tricia, Melissa, Jon, Anthony, Mel, Rebecca, Amy, Chris, Scott, Ruari, Megan and Emma for bringing their flair and imagination to work in years gone by and also give a huge thank you to our current team, led by Tim and Abbie, who are doing an amazing job and making awesome coffee and food with very little help from me.

There are literally hundreds of others who have added their ideas and elbow grease to Broom House Farm over the years. I tried to remember everyone and write down all your names, but the task was too big…and how I wish I had a photograph of you all, from lambing students to forest rangers and baristas. Thanks to each and every one of you for your hard work and enthusiasm, I hope that you have some happy memories of your time working here.

But for me it’s our customers that make it all worth while (Tripadvisor apart!).  When we started out on our Farm Shop journey every one of our neighbouring farmers said to us that they simply could not understand why on earth we wanted to have the public coming on to the farm!  And I must admit that this was something that we were a little nervous about. How wrong we were. We are so lucky to have met so many wonderful people over the years, many, many of whom we know by name, some of whom have become lifelong friends and some of whom we have known since before they were born!  We love the fact that such a lot of people call this place “The Farm” and that you like to shop here, not just because of the great meat but because we are a great destination with great people.  Over the last few weeks, as we’ve been quietly celebrating our 20 years, we’ve had so many lovely messages and conversations with customers who have happy memories of visits over the years and feel that their life has been “threaded together with Broom House Farm” (Thanks for the lovely description Fiona)

Thank you to all of you, staff, suppliers and customers for making my day, everyday and for making this a fantastic 20 years  – please keep visiting!