Amanda Owen was brought up in Huddersfield going through the usual teenage crazes of the 1980s though privately she also indulged herself in James Herriot tales and other farming stories.

Her love of animals and an interest in sheep farming encouraged her to enrol on a veterinary nursing course, which led her to becoming a freelance shepherdess and general farm hand.

In 1996, while visiting a farmer in a remote corner of Swaledale, North Yorkshire, Amanda met the man who she would marry.

The sheep farm, Ravenseat, has 2,000 acres of hills and tough terrain, where life has its very real challenges and is ruled by the seasons and the needs of the animals.

The photographs in this book show the hard winters endured, but every season has its beauty and, because the farm is so quiet it has been an ideal place to rear her seven children.

This is simply Amanda’s story told with amusing anecdotes such as the story of the rat at Christmas and the holiday weekend in Edinburgh.

Amanda’s life is hard but rewarding and it is always interesting to read an autobiography by someone who is not famous, but living a different way of life to most of our own.

She is also a star of The Dales, ITV’s popular series.

She said: “Life at Ravenseat isn’t easy. Winter is beautiful, but can also be bleak and harsh. This is balanced by the joys of spring and early summer, with lambs being born and the birds returning.

“I’m delighted to be able to share my life on the hill farm and show people a way of life I love.”