Amanda Owen, star of Channel 5's Our Yorkshire Farm, has revealed that she was flagged to social services while raising her nine children at Ravenseat Farm. The 52-year-old received a yellow flag in the system after her son Reuben sustained several injuries while playing outdoors, but she maintains that she still allows her children to “roam for miles”.
Yellow flag after untreated injury
In an interview with The Times, Owen said social services first became involved after Reuben slipped in the river and cut his eyebrow open. She did not take him for treatment at the time.
“It didn’t look too bad so I left it. But of course it got infected. The doctor said I should have brought him in for stitches and I got a yellow flag from social services. I’ve never had one since,” she told the publication.
Owen also recounted that when Reuben was a baby, she accidentally slammed his finger in a door, “and it nearly had to be amputated”. Another incident saw a ferret bite her son Miles on the cheek.
Defending outdoor freedom
Despite these incidents, Owen insisted: “Don’t fool yourself into thinking children are safer in their bedrooms. They might be indoctrinated by some dangerous regime while surfing the internet.”
During the same interview, she said: “The older children helped look after the younger ones and quickly learnt to be independent. Maybe Raven, my eldest, who graduated with a first in biomedical science, will write a tell-all book about her traumatic childhood, but I don’t think she will.”
She added: “Responsibility moulds kids. Plus, as Raven joked recently: ‘If it hadn’t been for being dragged up and years of neglect, I’d have never made it to where I am now.’”
No maternity leave
Owen said she never took maternity leave and instead continued working on the farm, involving the older children in work so Ravenseat could keep operating. When her children tell her they are heading “off to the waterfall”, she said she simply says she is “not listening”, explaining that the children “learn their own parameters when it comes to safety”.
Speaking previously at the Hay Festival of Literature and Arts, Owen said: “I don’t see myself as a perfect parent. I got a yellow flag from social services… I believe there is a happy medium whereby you do let the kids climb trees. Yes, they haven’t got harnesses on or hard hats, but I believe there are some lessons to be learned that don’t necessarily result in instant death but actually learn your own parameters.”
