Kelvin Fletcher and his wife Liz candidly opened up about their farm on James Martin's Saturday Morning, sharing how their dream of moving to Hollywood didn't pan out, leading them to an unexpected life in farming.
From Hollywood to the Peak District
During a repeat episode of James Martin's Saturday Morning, airing today (June 13) at 9:30am on ITV1, the couple discussed their series, Fletchers' Family Farm. The show follows Kelvin, Liz, and their four children in the Peak District as they navigate life on their 18th-century farm. But farming wasn't always in their plans.
Revealing how the ITV show came about, Kelvin told James: 'We just kind of thought, well, this, you know, it's hopefully of interest. It's certainly of interest to us, our journey into farming, into this new life. And then, yeah, we kind of pitched the idea, and thankfully, ITV thought it was a good idea too. And four series later, yeah, we're still doing it.'
James noted: 'It's been an amazing journey. Just to recap from the reason why you got the farm in the first place was no reason whatsoever. You were originally gonna go to America. This was a total life-changing thing... Well, you'd got the visas and everything, didn't you, to go to the States?'
Liz replied: 'Well, as two actors, we thought, you know, Kelvin had been in Emmerdale for 20 years and kind of wanted to try something different. And as two actors, we thought, well, why not? Let's go to Hollywood and LA and see what happens. And we only had two children at the time, but unfortunately COVID stopped that.'
'They actually stopped the visas. We never got the visas completed, because they said there'll be a pause on this for at least two years. But we'd mentally moved on, hadn't we? And we'd sold the house. We were like, 'Well, what are we gonna do now?' That's when we saw the farm, and it's literally that that gave the idea.'
Life Imitates Art
James asked: 'But none of your family are from farming backgrounds, either of you?' with both Kelvin and Liz agreeing. Turning to Kelvin, the host added: 'You played a farmer for 20 years and you knew [as] much about farming as you did on a sort of postage stamp, didn't you?'
Kelvin replied: 'That's it, that's the irony, James, is that, yeah, I was playing a farmer for 20 years, but as you'll know with soaps, did very little farming. It was more, I think, shooting people with shotguns, going to prison, getting married three or four times. That was the bit I was more accustomed to!'
'But it sounds, when you think of it like that, it sounds crazy, but life has imitated art and that's the little bit that people used to say, there's an obvious connection there.'
'[They said], 'You played a farmer in Emmerdale, you're now living this farming life,' and we'd never seen it like that. You know, as Liz said, we'd had this dream of going to America. It didn't pan out. And from Los Angeles to the Peak District is probably not an obvious connection.'
He continued: 'It was, I guess, a gamble in some regard, but we'd not moved there to farm. [I] think that came as a genuine [concept], it seemed to evolve. We went there just for a quieter life, obviously with young children, being a bit more connected with nature and being in the countryside, and then you couldn't help where we live; everyone's got sheep, so we got a few sheep.'
An Obsession with Farming
Liz said they moved to the Peak District for an 'idyllic life' and quickly formed an 'obsession' with farming after getting ten sheep. Kelvin admitted: 'We're only a small family farm, but it's just been a bit overwhelming at times, but we've become obsessed and honestly, James, I can't imagine us doing anything other than what we're doing now. I love it.'
Liz concluded: 'Looking back, I don't think we would've lasted two minutes in LA!' before sharing that she loves having the chance to 'amend your failings' on the farm.
Fletchers' Family Farm and James Martin's Saturday Morning are both available to stream on ITVX.
