Amanda Owen Bio
A normal childhood
Amanda was born in Huddersfield, in 1974. Despite being a ‘townie’ by birth, she developed a love of the great outdoors from an early age. Amanda spent her formative years daydreaming and reading James Herriot books.
After accidentally stumbling upon a book on hill shepherding she set her heart on becoming a shepherdess and left Huddersfield and the ‘normal’ life behind to follow her farming dream.
FARMING LIFE
After gaining experience (both good and bad) milking cows, driving tractors, clipping, lambing, drystone walling (and shovelling a lot of the proverbial) she settled down, working as a contract shepherdess aided by a couple of sheepdogs. It was a chance encounter that led Amanda to Ravenseat and Clive, her future husband, he too being a first generation farmer hailing from Doncaster.
That was 1996, who would have thought that Amanda would end up living in the very place that provided part of the backdrop for the television adaptation of James Herriots books, All Creatures Great and Small. There they’ve raised a family of 9 children, a flock of Swaledale sheep and an assorted range of horses, cattle, pigs and dogs in one of the most remote areas of the country – living the traditional farming life Amanda dreamed of as a child.
SHARING HER EXPERIENCE
Amanda and her family first appeared on the popular ITV series The Dales, presented by Adrian Edmondson and subsequently featured in Channel 5's New Lives in the Wild with Ben Fogle. Amanda regularly shares insights into her life through Twitter and has built up a strong social media following.
In 2014 she released her first Sunday Times bestselling book, The Yorkshire Shepherdess, in 2015 was voted Yorkshirewoman of the year by the Dalesman magazine, and released her second bestselling book, A Year in the Life of The Yorkshire Shepherdess, in 2016.
In 2018 Amanda and her family were featured in a new Channel 5 'fly-on-the-wall' 4 part documentary entitled Our Yorkshire Farm which received great acclaim, continuing for a further 3 years.
2019 saw the release of her third book The Adventures of The Yorkshire Shepherdess which fast became another best seller!
Her 4th book Celebrating the Seasons with The Yorkshire Shepherdess was released in 2020, a delightful and uplifting collection of her monthly Dalesman columns.
Amanda's latest book, released in October 2021, Celebrating the Seasons with The Yorkshire Shepherdess, shares more funny and charming stories about life through the farming year with her family and their many four-legged charges at Ravenseat, as well as some of her fav ouriote recipes.
In August 2019 Amanda was appointed as Ambassador for Yorkshire Air Ambulance and in 2021 she became Patron of Malton based charity Ryedale Special Families.
Amanda regularly shares insights into her life through Twitter and has built up a strong social media following. You can follow her on Twitter here
