[theme music playing]
[birds chirping]
[tense music]
- [Sue] Morning, Jeremy. - [Jeremy] Morning. How are we looking?
We're looking like it's a pub.
- [Sue] It's a pub! - It's a pub.
[Sue] It's exciting, isn't it?
I've written your menu up. Do you want to see it?
Er, yeah. What have we got?
Chicken liver pâté or pressed ham piccalilli or garlic mushrooms.
Sausages of the day, mash, Hawkstone gravy, onions.
Lancashire hotpot, apple crumble, cheesecake of the day.
Fantastic.
Morning, everybody.
Oh! Smelling good.
- [Nick] Morning, Jeremy. How are you? - [Jeremy] Well. How are you?
[Jeremy] After our sprint to the finish line,
the mood on opening morning
was reassuringly calm and upbeat.
[all] Good morning.
[Jeremy] Morning, morning. Are we excited?
- Yes, very. - [male worker] Certainly.
- Is that the bubble and squeak? - [worker] Yes, it is.
[Jeremy] I fucking love that stuff.
[Jeremy] Well done. That's great. That's fantastic.
Morning, everybody.
Bread's arrived this morning, fresh bread, so.
[Jeremy] There it is.
[shop employee] Exciting. Eggs have arrived.
Yeah, it's all coming together just in time.
[Jeremy] It always is. I mean, this is it.
I could have got in a blind panic and run around going:
"Do this and do that,"
but I've actually learned everybody knows what has to be done,
and everybody's doing a brilliant job, if you think about it.
They are.
[Jeremy] After my King Charles' style walkabout,
Kaleb and I set about a job I'd been very much looking forward to.
Where does that go?
[Jeremy] Oh, I didn't bother yesterday. It was too complicated.
[Jeremy] Christening the pub with its new name.
[tense rock music]
I've gotta go lower than the sign to start off with
'cause I've gotta slide it between the wood.
[grunting]
[screw-gun whirring]
[Jeremy] So it doesn't fit in the frame.
[Kaleb] It fits inside the frame, but it doesn't fit...
- [Jeremy] At the bottom. - Yeah.
[Jeremy] It's not ideal, is it?
[Kaleb] I know. But Rome wasn't built in a day.
- Let's put the other side up. - [Jeremy] Okay.
We had one slight problem with this,
which Lisa spotted the other day, is that.
She says it's a bit suggestive.
I mean...
Only Lisa would spot that, but she did.
[Kaleb] Yep.
[screw-gun whirring]
[Jeremy] Job's a good 'un.
Well, it's not. Job's kinda half done. But it'll do.
[Kaleb] It looks good, actually, doesn't it? The sign looks awesome.
[Jeremy] The sign is. We went through "The Farmer's" everything, didn't we?
[Kaleb] Yeah.
[Jeremy] But there's nothing more loyal than a farmer's dog.
Your dog is the most loyal thing you'll ever know.
- Yours, on the other hand. - Ours aren't fucking loyal!
[tense music]
[Jeremy] We then hung up various other things.
- [Kaleb] I'm on this side. Are you? - No.
[Jeremy] There we go.
[Jeremy] And just as we were finishing that,
Charlie arrived and made a rather alarming observation.
- [Charlie] Erm... - [Jeremy] What?
[Charlie] What about the prices?
[Jeremy] Oh.
What are we charging?
- Have we not done that yet? - [Charlie] Nobody's done it.
Oh, for fuck's sake!
[Charlie] What time is it? We open in forty minutes.
[tense music]
[Jeremy] While Charlie hurried off to sort that out,
my stress levels once again shot up
as I started to notice a host of other problems.
Rachel? Where's the carvery unit going?
[Rachel] Well, I still think this is the problem with wanting a room
to be a private dining room and a carvery room.
[Jeremy] I know, but it can't stay there.
[Rachel] But the problem is, it's very heavy.
[Jeremy] But it's on wheels.
These bar stools don't work.
- They don't swivel. - [John] They don't.
They're ugly and they block the bar completely.
So you can't sit in them unless you're actually facing forward.
[tense music]
[overlapping conversations]
[Nick] I've got carrots on the go there for veg of the day.
I'll need some beans
- going through, chef. - [chef] Yeah.
What's all this shit?
- Oh, it's a Dojo. - [Sue] Yeah.
[Jeremy] For the tent?
- [John] For the tent. - Right, so what are they doing here?
Oh, my giddy aunt. What's all this?
No, we're not doing fucking bins there.
What is the matter with everybody?
- [upbeat music] - Music off!
No music on in here ever.
Come to the Cotswolds and we'll put a plastic bin in the view.
Prices. We know what we're charging.
But, er...
[Jeremy] Does it include a profit?
There's a margin over the food. So, you know...
[Jeremy] Urgh... You know I don't understand money.
[Charlie stuttering] It's, it's...
Really?
Well, I'm just here to spend it, Charlie, that's all.
That's all I've done for a month.
[tense music continues]
[Sue] Rachel, I've got the prices!
[Rachel] Er, well, erm... Oh, God.
[Sue] This is what Charlie's just given me.
[Rachel] Oh, all right, okay.
[tense music continues]
So I'm not making the time up.
Quarter to twelve. Damn.
Here we go.
[Jeremy] Meanwhile, in Lisa world...
I'm just doing the little finishing-off bits,
all the nice stuff.
A bit of sewing, a bit of gingham hanging.
I've gotta hang some more paintings.
But, you know, otherwise... Put some more tea towels up there.
Little bits and pieces. But all in control.
Have we only got one bar stool here?
Things keep getting moved and it's not by our staff.
[Jeremy] We've got a nest of tables.
What's this shit?
[Rachel] Almost Gin labels.
- [Jeremy] Okay, well... - Kevin was walking around with those.
- [Jeremy] We've got ten minutes. - Yeah.
Who's... Can we have... I need an army of people.
Where's all the staff?
[Rachel] They're having a quick briefing.
We have to open, we know that,
so they need to know what they're doing quickly.
Where does the vacuum cleaner go?
I'm going to kick him in his fucking bollocks shortly.
[tense music]
[Jeremy] Shit.
[panting]
I can't do this.
Fuck it. No, I haven't got time. Somebody else can do that. Fuck it.
Crack on with those. We do need them ready for service.
[tense music continues]
[Sue] Hi, guys.
Here's the bar. Grab a drink.
[overlapping conversations]
[Rachel] Hi. How are you?
Hi. Good to see you. For two? Inside or out?
[John] Hi, there, guys. How are you?
Oh, fuck off, no.
What's up?
The gas has just gone off.
[Nick] Yeah, fans are dead.
That cannot stay in here.
As I've been saying all along.
Er, power cut. Fans are dead. No gas.
- [Jeremy] What? - The fans have just died,
causing the gas cutout to, er...
- You hear that? - [Charlie] Yeah.
- [Charlie] Sorry. - [worker] Sorry.
[Jeremy] It's not like it's a power cut.
Well, the extractor fan-- The gas system is locked into the extractor fan.
So when the extractor fan goes off...
- The gas goes off. - [Nick] The gas has an auto cutoff.
[Jeremy] Chris, we've lost power in here, mate.
Are you all together?
[chattering]
[electricity unit restarting]
[Charlie] Okay, there you go.
[Jeremy] That sounds good. What happened, Chris?
[electricity going off]
[Charlie] It's gone! It's gone. That fan's gone.
- [Jeremy] Gone again? - Yeah.
[mumbling] Oh, dear.
[Rachel] Come with me round here. I'll get you in over here.
- How many are you? - [patron] Two and a baby.
[Rachel] Two and a baby? Okay, fantastic.
[Nick] Er, trunking comes from the top. So...
[Chris] You know the switch on the right-hand side?
- [Nick] Yeah. - [Chris] Does that isolate it?
It must be a fault, then.
[Rachel] Hi. Who's next?
[chattering]
Can you not help?
I don't know anything about it...
It's, um... specialist.
[Sue] Do you all know there's no food yet?
There's a little problem in the kitchen!
So I don't know how well you can see that?
So that's the isolator switch.
[electrician] Yeah. Turn one of the fans on.
[Charlie] Okay.
Now go to the key down below, turn it off and turn it back on again.
- [Charlie] Okay. - And you should have gas now.
[Charlie] Yeah, should have gas now. No. There, it's gone. It's just tripped.
[electrician] Right. Okay.
Unfortunately, I've got no chance of getting there.
Okay. Cheers. Bye.
He knows what he's talking about.
Erm, he's in Hull.
[beeping]
Jesus.
[Jeremy] I was then told Annie urgently needed me
at the bar in the tent.
[Annie] The coolers have gone down and I can't serve half our range.
[Jeremy] You can't what?
[Annie] We can't serve half of the Hawkstone range
because our coolers have gone down.
So I'm limping on one cooler.
- [Jeremy] Where's Mark? - I don't know.
- [patron] Hello, Jeremy. - Congratulations on the big tent.
[Jeremy] Well, yeah, yeah. We've got teething problems now.
[Jeremy] Yeah, go on.
- We've got an issue with the coolers. - So, I know that. Everyone's telling me.
How do we resolve it is the main thing.
Erm, I've already spoken to Brunswick. They're coming out at the moment.
[Jeremy] Yeah, where are they coming from? What time will they be here?
- Two hours' time. - [Jeremy] Fucking hell.
What have we got running?
I can do a cider, a lager. I'm gonna have to drop half the range.
'Cause the wastage, for every pint I'm pouring, I'm losing a pint.
[gas clicking]
[Nick] This lunch service is a bust, basically.
I put it to Sue and Rachel, and this is the realistic situation.
No food now until 5:30.
No food now?
[Nick] No food from now until 5:30.
[Jeremy] What, there's definitely no lunch?
- Definitely not. - Definitely no lunch.
Well, we can send them down to the tent.
They're all happy anyway.
They've been told on the door there may or may not be some food
but there's loads of food down the garden,
enjoy the whole day and the whole site. So everyone's happy.
[Jeremy] No, it's pouring with rain. Absolutely pouring down.
No one can sit in the garden.
[chattering]
The coolers aren't working over here either.
I don't know what's going on.
They're not working over there and they're not working here.
- [Sue] Hi, guys. - [female patron] Hello.
[Sue] The crisps are very good.
- [indistinct] - [Annie] Yeah, I'm on it.
[gas clicking]
[Jeremy] As I hid in my office imagining the Tripadvisor reviews,
Charlie and Chris the electrician
managed to work out why the extractor fans were tripping.
- [Charlie] Left-hand side. - [Nick] Yeah.
[Charlie] Up, up, up there.
- [Nick] Yeah? - [Charlie] Yeah.
[electricity unit restarting]
[Charlie] Okay, there you go.
Yeah.
What's happened, Chris? Has it mended?
Yes. You had the urn and the industrial toaster off the fan circuit,
and it overloaded it.
[Jeremy] You're grinning, he's grinning.
[Chris] All good.
[Nick] 209: three sausage, one gammon, one pie.
Quickly, yeah, good, well done.
Right then, pie, sausage, no starter.
Garlic mushrooms on the toast. Absolutely spot on.
Service, please. Thank you very much.
[Jeremy] By two o'clock, the first of the lunches
finally made it out of the door.
Help yourselves. Grab yourself a pint, grab yourselves some great food.
And pay attention to this.
Every single thing you're gonna consume in here
was grown or reared by British farmers.
So that's all good news.
[Mark] In there, not in the bottom.
[Jeremy] Mark the brewer also got the beer coolers sorted.
[John] Boys, what can I get ya?
Lager?
[Jeremy] And outside, Gerald was introducing Kaleb
to an old Oxfordshire pub garden game
called Aunt Sally.
If you get this!
[Gerald laughing]
[Gerald] Go and sit on there. I'll see if I can take your wig off.
We'll sit 'em on the top of there.
[Kaleb laughing]
- Oh, yes! - [crowd applauding]
Good one.
[soft music]
[Jeremy] By the evening,
like everyone, I was exhausted from the ups and downs of the day.
I desperately wanted some sleep.
But that was impossible.
Because more night harvesting beckoned.
[soft music continues]
We're gonna call it.
All right, my friends. Thank you so much.
[Jeremy yawning]
[rock music]
[Jeremy] After a couple of hours kip,
I returned to the pub, which was basking
in some typical Bank Holiday weather.
[music continues]
Bloody hell.
[Jeremy] However, we were at least hoping for a smoother day in the kitchen,
because instead of the normal menu,
we would be unveiling my new weekend carvery.
Yorkshires.
[chef] Yorkies are going, yeah. The beef's done.
[Jeremy] People are gonna love this.
[Jeremy] Having toured the kitchens,
I went up to my office for a catch-up with Charlie.
[Charlie] Morning.
Hi, Charlie. How's things?
[chuckling] It's quite damp, isn't it?
[Jeremy] Yeah. I'm looking at the weather forecast.
I'm looking at the figures for yesterday.
- Oh, Christ. - [Jeremy] Yeah, sorry about that.
It's quite a complicated entry procedure to my office.
[Charlie laughs]
[Jeremy] Yeah. We've lost two waitresses.
We've lost a pot washer. After one day.
- One day? - [Jeremy] Hmm-hmm.
And the lights are still flickering. And indeed flickered off.
- [Charlie] That's disappointing. - And they've come back on again now.
[Charlie] Given that we've got a generator.
- And it's not working. - [Charlie] Well, it is working.
Well, there is some evidence to suggest it's not working,
in as much as the light has gone off again.
And come back on again.
[Charlie] We're still quite short of power, aren't we?
- I know. - And the obvious leaks.
What? I don't know about a leak. What leaks?
Oh, my giddy aunt.
[Charlie] Oh, it's good news.
- No, that's not good news, Charlie. - [Charlie] Well, it's not on the mural.
[Jeremy] No, it's not on the mural. That is good news. Oh, Jesus.
- [Charlie] Yeah. - [Jeremy] That's a big leak.
It's just where the roof joint.
- It's just the joints. Alan's on his way. - [Jeremy] Is Alan coming over?
[country music]
[Jeremy] On the plus side, the rain did eventually stop,
the replacement pot washer started work.
[Kaleb] There's no easy way of doing this, is there?
[Nick] Right, then. So, gravies on. Carrots are on.
- [chef] Cool. - [Nick] So that's fucking happy days.
[Sue] Sorry about the wait.
[Jeremy] And at noon, we opened for business,
bang on schedule.
Here's the bar. Grab a drink.
[Rachel] It's a carvery today.
Erm, it's twenty pounds.
[Jeremy] Ladies and gentlemen, the carvery is now open and ready.
[upbeat rock music]
Cauliflower cheese there. Yorkshire puddings, potatoes
and all the veg and the gravy
and your sauces are over the far side there.
[Jeremy] With the electrics holding up and the carvery going down a storm...
[Nick] Er, here we go.
[Jeremy] ...I breathed a sigh of relief
for the first time in two days.
[Nick] There we go!
[Jeremy] However, I had forgotten one important thing:
portion control.
[chef] There's no more cabbage, is there?
- [kitchen worker] No, chef. - [chef] No, it's all gone.
[Jeremy] We'd hoped to serve food until 6 PM.
But by four, the kitchen was in trouble.
[Rachel] We're gonna do another 25 to 30 people,
and then after that, there's no food left.
[tense music]
[worker] I'm gonna be brutally honest here.
We are not gonna be able to serve you guys food.
It's all gone.
[Jeremy] Happily, we could keep operating as a pub.
But then, an hour later...
[Nick] No, nothing.
- Is there no water? - No.
[Rachel] All the water's just gone off in the building.
So if you go through the trees, there's some Portaloos.
[Jeremy] I was hoping the problem was something trivial,
but the plumber quickly realised
it was being caused by the village down the hill.
[plumber] As far as I know,
the water pipe comes all the way up from Asthall village.
- [Jeremy] It does, yeah. - Or it's from Worsham, is it?
- [Jeremy] Yeah. - So, if it is what's happening there,
everyone in the village is turning their water supply on,
showers, filling up the pots and pans, kettles,
and it hasn't got the oomph to push it up the hill.
[Jeremy] So...
this isn't gonna get any better, is it?
Potentially, not at the moment.
But how would you ever resolve it on a permanent basis?
[plumber sighing]
I don't think there is another supply.
Fucking hell. All right. Thanks, mate. Thanks.
Sorry, everybody.
A thousand apologies for the disasters of today.
We will resolve it. I will resolve it.
I don't know how, but I will resolve these things.
Sorry, sorry, sorry.
[kitchen worker] That's all right.
[Jeremy] Then, Sue and Rachel said they wanted a word in the upstairs bar.
And they didn't hold back.
We are pubs, and we know how to run pubs. We've done pubs forever.
This building is not really fit for purpose.
There are too many issues for us to run a successful business from this site,
with failing water, no toilets, no gas,
leaking roofs, struggling staff.
Everyone is exhausted.
Even when we say "Go for a break", there's no staffroom.
They're weeing in a portaloo. It's not lovely conditions.
They love you and they love working here because of that,
and they're excited about the British food
and everything that this pub is, and they wanna get behind it,
- but they're working fourteen-hour days. - [Rachel] It's gonna wear off quickly.
No, no, shoo. I have no problem with the staff,
not one single problem with the staff.
They're all brilliant. They're smiley and they're nice.
The kitchen is about to go pop. Those chefs have had it.
[Jeremy sighs]
It might be worth popping into the kitchen.
- I've just popped in. - Go back.
[Jeremy] I said: "Well done, thank you."
Go back.
- [Jereym] What? - Go back, would be my advice.
Do you want me to find a new manager or to go back into the kitchen?
- [Sue] The former, I'd say. - Or you want me to get the leak mended?
Or do you want me to deal with the car parking issues?
Or do you want me to deal with the neighbours?
Do you want me to deal with the council?
I've got plenty to be doing and I'll get on with it. Thank you.
[Sue] No probs. Come on, let's get on with it.
Right.
[melancholic music]
[Jeremy] With no water for the indoor lavatories
or for washing glasses,
we couldn't continue to operate.
So at 6 PM, we had to make the announcement.
[Annie] Ladies and gents, the pub's shut. Thank you.
[melancholic music continues]
[Sue] So sorry to let you down.
Goodbye. Thanks for coming.
[Jeremy] As the pub was emptying,
Nick was ringing round
desperately trying to find more British meat for tomorrow.
Forty kilos of beef joint and thirty kilos of pork joint.
Call it forty of each.
Does that work? Is that possible? Is that possible?
[Jeremy] And in his professional view,
today's carvery catastrophe had uncovered
deep flaws in my cooperative scheme.
We're starting to see at this point where Jeremy's plan,
albeit very, very well meaning,
his lack of knowledge to do with pubs.
We can see where the supply chain for food is starting to crack,
and crack quite severely.
What Jeremy doesn't understand
is that there's a reason that food wholesalers exist.
They pick up that slack in the supply chain
between the grower and the end user.
If we're dealing direct with a producer,
there's a lag in terms of when they can dig the produce.
They might not have it ready to harvest that week.
Like, their beans might be two weeks off.
A wholesaler would just go to somebody else.
[rock music]
[Jeremy] I was determined to prove Nick wrong on this point,
but that would take time.
In the here and now, I had to harvest water overnight
when the village didn't need it,
so that we could open on what we hoped
would be a very busy Bank Holiday Sunday.
[Jeremy] Er...
Right. Sit rep.
Erm, we're hanging on just.
We've worked out if we shut the lavatories
and use plastic glasses in the bar rather than glass glasses that need washing up,
we'll have enough water to serve food for six hours, twelve till six.
So, we can do that.
Erm...
Next problem is, Sue and Rachel, who brilliantly set the pub up,
have now left.
Er, so it's a Sunday morning.
[scoffs]
And I've managed to get, erm...
a new front-of-house person
who is the head of the sixth form at the local village school.
So that's good.
[Nick] Good news here. It's loin of pork.
[Jeremy] Nick had also managed to find more meat.
But instead of opening the carvery at twelve as advertised,
he was now saying he wouldn't be ready to go until three.
[Nick] She's very well presented. Morning, Jeremy. How are you?
- Well... - [Mark] I'm not anymore. I'm not anymore.
But yeah, let's do that. If Squeezy stays in here with me
and then you work that with Katherine outside.
[Jeremy] Three o'clock?
Could you help me to understand why?
'Cause you've got people who've driven literally hundreds of miles.
I'll ring you from start to finish:
at 7 PM yesterday, the water ran out in this kitchen.
I'm well aware of that and we mended it.
And we've closed the lavatories.
And we're using plastic glasses behind the bar, so we don't have to wash up.
This food is not prepared on the day.
- Vegetables are pre-blanched - [Jeremy] Yeah.
- The previous night. - [Jeremy] Yeah.
- They are blanched using steamers. - [Jeremy] Yeah.
And also, the cauliflower cheese is roasted off.
Some Yorkshire puddings are made. They're done before.
- [Jeremy] But they're made? - We have some food.
We don't have enough food for 450 covers.
So you're just saying a three-hour service today, that's all you can manage?
- No. - [Jeremy] 3 to 6?
It's not all "I" can manage.
It's all the kitchen, as it stands, can manage. That's...
- Okay. - That's how this works.
Okay.
[melancholic music]
[Jeremy] Mercifully, Nick quickly worked out we could open at one,
providing we ditched the time-consuming puddings.
Where are we? Basically, we need to cook veg.
We need to cook these courgettes. We need to heat up these potatoes.
[kitchen worker] Yeah.
There. We are open.
[crowd] Yeah!
[Jeremy] And, this is Clare.
She's the head of the sixth form at the local school.
She's helping us out this morning with crowd control.
And if you misbehave, she'll smack the back of your legs with a ruler, so.
- Detention for everybody. - [Jeremy] Yeah.
[tense music]
[Jeremy] With portion control now in place...
[Mark] We've got rib of beef, pork.
You can have one of each or two beef, two pork.
[Jeremy] And with Mrs Brown wrangling the crowds...
Where are my twos that were happy to buddy up?
Give me one second and then I'll be with you.
- [waitress] Nice to see you, Mrs Brown. - [Clare] Hello.
Where's my family of five?
[Jeremy] We did manage to achieve our first trouble-free service.
[Mark] There we go.
[Jeremy] But there was no getting away from the fact
that the opening weekend had been a disaster...
As his cheerfulness was at pains to remind me.
You know, just stepping back, there might have been some things.
You know, do you, erm...
Let's get through this next couple of days
and then have a proper sit-down on Tuesday.
You know, the... Er, but do you, you know... There...
I mean, there's no point going over the hindsight now,
but you know, fundamentally,
some people might say...
it could have been a week or two too soon.
[sighs]
Sorry. Erm, I'm not...
I was gonna say I'm multitasking, but I'm simply not listening to you.
You... No, no. And I didn't even think
I would say you're not listening to me, are you,
because...
- the answer was clear. - [Jeremy] Yeah.
Erm...
[Charlie] But I always said
that when we open,
you know, it's gonna start moving and then, some bits will shake loose.
But I hadn't kind of envisaged
quite as many bits shaking loose quite as quickly.
- No, everything fell apart. - [Charlie] Yes. Which...
First day and yesterday, absolute disasters.
I never want to relive them.
Oh, fuck.
[melancholic music]
[Jeremy] The pub, hanging on by the skin of its teeth, wasn't my only problem.
Because a serious issue was also developing over at the farm.
By now, at the tail end of August,
we should have harvested the durum pasta wheat,
our most valuable crop.
But because of the erratic weather,
it was still sitting in the ground losing its quality.
[Alan] It's up here, Mark, look. There's a tile missing there.
[Jeremy] So, we continued to attend to the needs of the pub...
If you could get that in, that would be fantastic.
[Jeremy] ...while waiting for a dry-enough day to harvest.
[Kaleb] 27.4 high.
[Jeremy] But a full two weeks later,
when that day still hadn't arrived,
I asked Charlie to come over for a crisis summit.
[Charlie] I've told you again and again
you've got three qualities in the wheat which are paramount to make it milling,
and particularly for pasta.
You've got the protein level.
You've got the bushel weight.
But the critical one is the Hagberg.
And as that number... It's the Hagberg falling number.
If we leave it there too long and that starts to drop,
- it's using up the seeds' resources. - [Jeremy] So it won't make pasta?
It won't make pasta.
- Eighty acres of that. - [Charlie] Yeah.
[Jeremy] And our most valuable crop.
[Charlie] And has been the most valuable crop for the last few years, yeah.
[Jeremy] So, this is looking bleak.
Yeah. I'm, for the first time... You know how optimistic I am generally?
No, I don't know that.
[stuttering] I, I... Yeah, I'm not convinced.
[Jeremy] If we can get it out of the ground.
[Charlie] Yeah.
- Get it over to the mill. - [Charlie] Yeah, get it analysed.
Then we will know. But we've got to get it up now.
Correct.
Oh, Kaleb's back with his Moisture-O-Meter.
- All right, mate? - [Charlie] Hello.
- [Kaleb] Afternoon. - How are you?
- Have a seat. - [Kaleb] I'll grab this chair.
- What's the news? - Oh, it's shit, isn't it?
Just done a moisture test on the durum wheat. 27.2.
[Charlie] 27.2?
You bite it, yeah? It's like you're biting a Jelly Baby.
27.2. It's read high.
- Basically, me going to the river. - Why don't you just run it under a tap?
Yeah, just fill it up and then establish that water's wet.
When was the last time anyone can remember a harvest being this late?
Never. It's my latest.
[Jeremy] Yeah, but you're only four.
Somebody told me it's seventy years since it was this late round here.
So this is late, on everybody's scale.
Well, what are we going to do?
So, should we combine it early to try and...
[Jeremy] Get that Hagberg.
- Stop the loss of Hagberg. - [Jeremy] Yeah.
- And then we pay the drying charges. - [Charlie] We pay.
But why are we paying drying charges if it turns out to be animal food?
Because you don't know where you are on that.
- Where you stand now. - [Charlie] Yeah.
[tense music]
[Jeremy] In the end, we decided to harvest as soon as we could.
But if we didn't want to break the combine,
we'd still have to wait for the wheat to go from sodden
to merely damp.
[Kaleb] That's it, like that.
[Jeremy] I wanted to pass the time in my bed, sleeping.
Woah.
[Jeremy] But there were other farm jobs to be done,
like sending the next batch of pigs off to the abattoir.
Come on, girls, on the lorry.
[Lisa] Thank you for being pigs at Diddly Squat.
[Kaleb] Go on then!
[Jeremy] Then it was time to make a decision
I'd been dreading:
the fate of Richard Ham.
[oinking]
What are we going to do with you?
Hm?
The problem is, if he goes on the lorry,
he's killed
and all we get in return
is a chipolata and a pork chop the size of a walnut.
If he stays here,
we've gotta feed him
for no reason.
And that's not farming.
[sighs]
[Jeremy] But then, I had an idea.
Wait a minute.
The next lot of sows
we're going to use artificial insemination on them
to make them pregnant.
But we can't do that until they get in heat.
And they won't get in heat unless there's a man pig nearby.
So why don't we keep him
as the farm's man pig
to get the ladies in the mood?
He could be a fluffer.
- Richard Ham the fluffer pig. - [Kaleb] Having fun over there?
- [Jeremy] What? - Working hard?
[Jeremy] No, I...
I've just made a good decision.
- Yeah? - [Jeremy] Lisa, you'll like this.
- [Lisa sighs] - We're gonna keep him.
And he's gonna be a fluffer.
[sighs] Okay.
- [Kaleb] What's this farm coming to? - [Lisa] I don't know.
[Jeremy] Yes, good old Richard Ham.
You can be Hugh Hefner.
[tense music]
[Jeremy] Finally, it was D-Day.
Durum Wheat Day.
[Jeremy on radio] Here we go.
[Simon on radio] Jeremy, I'm ready to unload.
[Jeremy on radio] Steady, steady.
[Kaleb on radio] Yeah, go for it.
[Jeremy on radio] Right, I'm full. I'm going back to the farm.
[Jeremy] Despite our anxieties
about whether the pasta wheat would make the grade,
we all cheered up when Diddly Squat's reserve combine driver
turned up for his traditional shift.
[Gerald on radio] Simon?
[Gerald speaking indistinctly]
[Kaleb on radio] Turn it off, mate, and I'll come and have a look.
There are certain annual events we all look forward to, I think.
There's Christmas, obviously, and there's Easter,
and then there's the harvest.
When we all get to hear Gerald talking on the radio
from inside a combine!
I actually prefer that to Christmas. I prefer it to almost anything.
[tense music]
[Gerald speaking indistinctly on radio]
[Jeremy] The harvest continued into the next day.
But the suspense was killing me.
So I had to break off, scoop up Charlie,
and go to the mill with a sample of what we were harvesting
to see if it was good enough to make pasta.
So we've got a bag of ergot.
[Charlie] Durum with some ergot in it, yeah.
[Jeremy] So that'll kill everyone who eats it.
[Charlie] We keep quiet when we get to the mill.
- [Jeremy] But it's the Hagberg, isn't it? - Hagberg falling number, yeah.
[Jeremy] That's all we're interested in is the Hagberg.
And what does it need to be?
It needs to be over two 250.
[Jeremy] And we needed our durum wheat to make the grade more than ever
because Charlie had got the results in from all the other crops
and the news was not good.
[Charlie] Yield-wise,
below par.
[Jeremy] So we haven't got as much as we wanted.
But it's actually-- So far, the barley and the milling wheat...
- [Jeremy] Have made quality. - All quality.
- [Jeremy] All two ounces of them. - [Charlie laughing] Actually, I did--
[Jeremy] We got two ounces of very high quality wheat,
and an ounce of very high quality barley is what we've got.
[Charlie] Yeah, you're right.
[Jeremy] Imagine if you were a heart surgeon
and every operation you did was dependent upon the weather...
- [Charlie] Yeah, I mean-- - For its outcome. Or anything.
- Anything. - [Charlie] I mean, you wouldn't mind--
Because we didn't do anything wrong.
- Nothing. - [Charlie] Yeah.
Oh, there's Bertie.
[Bertie] Hi, Jeremy.
- Nice to see you. Are you okay? - [Charlie] How are you?
- [Jeremy] How are you? - Very good, yeah. Really good.
Pasta wheat.
Yeah.
Has it got any Hagberg in it at all?
When did you finish harvesting it?
- [Jeremy] Er... - [Charlie] Er... tomorrow.
- We're out there now. - Have you got it all in or not?
- No. So just-- - No, they're getting it in now.
Oh, right, okay.
[Jeremy] Everything else is going wrong so I'm assuming this will as well.
That's negative. I think, be positive, be positive. Yeah.
- Okay. - [Charlie] How long are you gonna be?
[Bertie] I think we'll be five minutes?
- Right. - Okay, we'll get them tested.
- We'll cross our fingers, all right? - All right.
- Thanks, Bertie. See you in a minute. - [Bertie] Okay.
[Charlie sighing]
This has not been a fun end to the farming year,
I've gotta be honest with you, Charlie.
[Charlie] Well, this is quite a big swing on our bottom line in the year-end.
It's £25,000 is riding on this test.
- [Charlie] Yes. - Let's not forget,
if it passes, £25,000.
Correct.
I mean, I don't get it. You get it and spend it immediately.
But,
- if it fails... - Then...
I've gotta give you 25,000 of my own money.
[Charlie] Yeah.
And it is mine. I know everyone goes: "Oh, it's Amazon."
It isn't. It's mine.
- It's yours. - I know!
It's the... Yeah, Diddly Squat farm will have to...
- [Jeremy] Stump up. - Fund the shortfall,
to fund next year's farming cycle.
[Jeremy] The "five minutes" turned into ten.
But eventually, Bertie was back.
Okay.
So, erm...
The reason I took so long is because
we had to test it twice to get the Hagberg.
And it's actually failed twice.
- Which means it's so low-- - What number was it?
It doesn't even get a number 'cause it failed the test.
Which is pretty rare.
As it stands, it's not going to be able to be milled.
Erm, which is a bit of a disaster. But we will...
Yeah.
[mumbling] Oh, fucking hell.
I'm really sorry. 'Cause we need it as well.
Bugger.
- I'm just really disappointed. - [Jeremy] Yeah.
- I'm sorry. - [Jeremy mumbling indistinctly]
- [Charlie] Thank you. - Thank you anyway.
[Bertie] Yeah.
Hiya. J-Hound inbound.
[Jeremy] All right. Shall I tell him or shall you?
[Kaleb] All right, my friend. What?
[Jeremy] On the Hagberg reading on the durum.
- [Kaleb] What was it? - [Jeremy] Didn't even read.
- [Kaleb] What? - Didn't even read.
[Kaleb] At all? Was it zero?
- Yeah. - [Charlie] Just didn't even register.
Fucking hell.
[Kaleb] Argh.
Fuck.
I mean, that's a twenty-five-grand hit.
[Kaleb] If it's not one thing it's another.
I mean, he is just... I know, he's just harvesting shit now, look.
At least we're harvesting.
At least the sun's shining.
Oh, fuck.
[soft music]
[Jeremy] Tragically, we were not the only ones to be kicked in the teeth like this.
Just about every farmer in the country was reeling
because 2024 had been an absolute monster.
[soft music continues]
I've never known anything like it. This is biblical.
The winter crops, they're turning yellow and they're drowning in the field.
So, if this rain doesn't stop in the next two weeks,
we'll have two thousand acres of bare fields.
[news anchor] This year, the yield has been one of the worst in living memory.
[male new anchor] This September was the wettest,
and those records go back to 1836.
[news anchor] A new report says it's set to see one of the worst harvests
since records began.
People are selling their combines
because they're not gonna have anything to cut.
[Jeremy] As I'm always at pains to point out,
I don't rely on my farm for an income.
But even so,
it's pretty soul-destroying to work so hard
and simply, because of the weather, make a loss.
[soft music continues]
However, I then remembered something Simon had said
during one of our woeful harvesting days.
The thing you have to learn about being a farmer, Jeremy, is that, erm,
if you want to preserve a modicum of sanity,
you don't ask questions that you don't want to know the answers to.
Just concentrate on next year's potential.
[Jeremy] This mantra of stoic optimism
is what keeps the farmers going,
fighting the odds,
rolling with the blows,
doing what they do
to make food.
Beef, lamb, geese, turkeys.
- [Jeremy] Pigs. - [woman farmer] Pigs.
- Potatoes, soft fruit... - [voices fading out]
[Jeremy] And it's a mantra I realised I'd have to adopt.
You keep going
because you believe next year couldn't possibly be any worse.
For now, though,
the Diddly Squat family had earned its right
for an end-of-season lunch.
And this year, we had our own pub for that.
- [John] Are you waiting, boys? - [patron] Yeah.
What can I get you?
[Jeremy] Sadly, however,
we couldn't relax there
because although it was now working reasonably well,
there was always something to do.
Oh, dear God, that doesn't sound good.
[Jeremy] Something to mend.
No, I know, I know, but the heat dump's not working over there either.
[Jeremy] Something to worry about.
- The valley meaning where two roofs meet? - [Alan] Yes.
How much will it be?
It's gonna cost three grand at least.
[Charlie] You know the guy who fell over yesterday?
Yeah? Please tell me he's not suing.
No, no, no, no. He came out of surgery at 8:30 last night.
- [Jeremy sighs] - But we've put his ankle back together.
[Jeremy] So we went to someone else's pub instead.
There's probably chaos in the kitchen. I don't care.
They're probably running out of water. I don't care.
Thank you.
- [Lisa] When did you realise this? - Oh, God.
[all laughing]
[Jeremy] Okay, it hasn't been the smoothest of openings,
we can all agree on that.
Well, you've been a genius at getting the tent working well
but the pub's been tricky.
- But it's there now. - Yeah.
- So, well done, everybody. We did it. - [Alan] Yeah.
To The Farmer's Dog.
- [all] To The Farmer's Dog. - [Jeremy] Farmer's Dog.
- [Alan] Brilliant. - [Charlie] And the farmers.
- And the farmers who support it. - [Lisa] Long may she float.
Well, I'm tucking in. I'm starving.
Oh, Christ, it's not British, is it there?
Look, prawns. They'll be from India.
[Kaleb] Just for one day, let's just--
- Okay, one day we'll eat foreign food. - [Kaleb] Just one day, please.
[Charlie] The whitebait might be.
Do you have to eat the guts of the whitebait?
[Charlie] Yeah, you just eat everything.
And the guts?
- What's the matter? - [Kaleb] Fishy, isn't it?
- Well! - [all laughing]
[Charlie] The whitebait is fishy?
[Gerald] Did you see what I won Sunday evening, guys?
[Jeremy] What?
Did you see what I won Sunday evening?
[Lisa] What does it say? "Walling C--" Oh!
- [Jeremy] No way! - [Lisa] Well done.
- First prize. - [Jeremy] A walling competition?
[Gerald] Yeah.
Never mind UEFA. Never mind the Six Nations.
Gerald Cooper!
[cheering]
[Gerald] Thank you. Thank you very much.
[all laughing]
[Jeremy] We then moved on to a more sobering topic,
because the whole time Alan had been working flat-out on the pub,
he'd been waiting for some major heart surgery.
- [Lisa] The doctor's next Tuesday. - [Jeremy] Oh, you're in next Tuesday?
Yeah, we're in next Tuesday at the hospital.
Quadruple bypass coming.
And they've gotta test
- for stroke likelihood as well. - [Alan] Yeah, 'cause I had that stroke.
- You know last year... - [Alan] Yes?
It was him, wasn't it?
- Yeah. - [Jeremy] You'd got yourself better.
Yeah, he has.
- [Jeremy] So we're ending this year... - I know.
With our fingers crossed that your operation...
Yeah, well, it should... It's pretty routine these days, isn't it?
[Jeremy] It is routine. But you must be scared to death.
Oh, frightened to death.
I don't even like thinking about it.
That's why I keep going to work, keep out the way.
They told me to really just take it easy and stay at home.
But if you stay, you'll be worrying to death about it.
[Lisa] Of course, it's all you think about, yeah.
Well, listen, Alan.
[Alan] Yeah, I know. Yeah.
- We'll be all right, won't we? - Best of luck.
- [Alan] Yeah. - Best of luck to Alan.
[Lisa] I'll kill you if you don't get better.
We'll come through. They do it every day.
[Jeremy] 'Cause we couldn't have got that pub open without you.
No, well.
[Jeremy] And we'll name a wing after you.
Oh! [laughing]
I'm not saying if it goes wrong we'll name a wing after you.
[Alan] No, no, no, don't. Oh, no, please.
[Jeremy] We'll name a wing after you anyway. The Alan Townsend Wing.
How about that then, Gerald?
- [Jeremy] We've got Gerald's Wood. - [Alan] Yeah.
But we'll have the Alan Townsend Wing.
- [Gerald] Yeah! - Yeah, brilliant.
[Gerald] We've got a foot pump. I'll bring him round, don't worry!
[all laughing]
A foot pump?
[Alan] A foot pump!
Get the old foot pump on him. I'll put some air back into him!
[Alan] That'll be nice, that'll be nice!
Thanks, Gerald. That'll be very nice for your old mate.
If he starts deflating, I'll pump him back up, don't worry!
[laughter]
- [Jeremy] Stop it, Gerald. - What is up with him?
[laughter]
["Downtown" by Petula Clark playing]
♪ When you're alone And life is making you lonely ♪
♪ You can always go ♪
♪ Downtown ♪
♪ When you've got worries ♪
♪ All the noise and the hurry Seem to help I know ♪
♪ Downtown ♪
♪ Just listen to the music ♪
♪ Of the traffic in the city ♪
♪ Linger on the sidewalk Where the neon signs are pretty ♪
♪ How can you lose? ♪
♪ The light's so much brighter there ♪
♪ You can forget all your troubles ♪
♪ Forget all your cares ♪
♪ So go downtown ♪
♪ Things will be great when you're downtown ♪
♪ No finer place for sure ♪
♪ Downtown ♪
♪ Everything's waiting for you ♪
♪ Downtown, downtown ♪
["Downtown" by Petula Clark keeps playing]
♪ Downtown ♪
♪ And you may find somebody kind ♪
♪ To help and understand you ♪
♪ Someone who is just like you And needs a gentle hand ♪
♪ To guide them along ♪
♪ So maybe I'll see you there ♪
♪ We can forget all our troubles Forget all our cares ♪
♪ So go downtown ♪
♪ Things will be great When you're downtown ♪
♪ Don't wait a minute more Downtown ♪
♪ Everything's waiting for you ♪
["Downtown" by Petula Clark keeps playing]