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Running for the Hills: Growing Up on My Mother's Sheep Farm in Wales
A memoir of the author's family life on a remote sheep farm in Wales offers a first-person evaluation of the natural world that traces the author's unconventional mother's decision to leave London society to raise sheep in a challenging new home. 30,000 first printing.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published March 13, 2006
20 people are currently reading
422 people want to read
About the author
Horatio Clare
36 books99 followersHoratio Clare (b. 1973) is a writer, radio producer and journalist. Born in London, he and his brother Alexander grew up on a hill farm in the Black Mountains of south Wales. Clare describes the experience in his first book Running for the Hills (John Murray 2006) in which he sets out to trace the course and causes of his parents divorce, and recalls the eccentric, romantic and often harsh conditions of his childhood. The book was widely and favourably reviewed in the UK, where it became a bestseller, as in the US.
Running for the Hills was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award and shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Horatio has written about Ethiopia, Namibia and Morocco, and now divides his time between South Wales, Lancashire and London. He was awarded a Somerset Maugham Award for the writing of A Single Swallow (Chatto and Windus, 2009).
Running for the Hills was nominated for the Guardian First Book Award and shortlisted for the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award. Horatio has written about Ethiopia, Namibia and Morocco, and now divides his time between South Wales, Lancashire and London. He was awarded a Somerset Maugham Award for the writing of A Single Swallow (Chatto and Windus, 2009).
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews
April 12, 2017
Looking across the valley to the Beacons on a stormy evening it was easy to see the dragons: their smoke rising from the pine forests; their wings in the torn black clouds; the horizon bloody with their fires.
Before I even made it to the halfway point of this book, I knew I wanted to see the Wales that Horatio Clare knew as a child. His writing had me yearning for a glimpse beyond the Cardiffs and the bookstore villages. The mountains, where it is said the ancient gods have gone to live...that's what I now want to see.
Clare's parents purchased a rundown farm in a highly inaccessible part of Wales and he and his younger brother grew up there with his maverick mother, after his parents divorced. Most children can read about adventures, but he truly lived them. Running a sheep farm, his mother is portrayed as a woman who worried about her sheep while others could care less, as the EU subsidized Welsh farmers based on the amount of sheep, not whether they were being cared for by their owners. I always winced whenever the author describes the death-by-raven of a newborn lamb. It's a harsh life.
Then the rain came down with a great ripping, hissing sound, as if a dragon had doused his fiery snout in the clouds.
This small but tight family lived with a local mouse who was accepted for its audacious foraging. They lived without television at a time, the 1980s, when the telly was everything for everyone. They lived with freezing drafts that could only be fought with crumpled newspaper stuffed into crevices. And they lived through a horrendous blizzard, stuck by themselves with no one able to get to them.
But they were surrounded by something that few now appreciate...nature.
Oystercatchers in their dinner jackets pipe the reveille, jackdaws chatter, boasting about their dreams...
Whether he's describing a shorn ram as an old man in white thermals or relating the hilarious tale of he and his brother refusing to ever mention the word, "quark", believing it to be an obscene word, Horatio Clare does a splendid job of making one realize just how much we have lost over the last 30+ years, a loss that can never be compensated by smartphones or gaming or the web.
I want to see the real Wales.
Book Season = Winter (mountains like clenched fists)
Before I even made it to the halfway point of this book, I knew I wanted to see the Wales that Horatio Clare knew as a child. His writing had me yearning for a glimpse beyond the Cardiffs and the bookstore villages. The mountains, where it is said the ancient gods have gone to live...that's what I now want to see.
Clare's parents purchased a rundown farm in a highly inaccessible part of Wales and he and his younger brother grew up there with his maverick mother, after his parents divorced. Most children can read about adventures, but he truly lived them. Running a sheep farm, his mother is portrayed as a woman who worried about her sheep while others could care less, as the EU subsidized Welsh farmers based on the amount of sheep, not whether they were being cared for by their owners. I always winced whenever the author describes the death-by-raven of a newborn lamb. It's a harsh life.
Then the rain came down with a great ripping, hissing sound, as if a dragon had doused his fiery snout in the clouds.
This small but tight family lived with a local mouse who was accepted for its audacious foraging. They lived without television at a time, the 1980s, when the telly was everything for everyone. They lived with freezing drafts that could only be fought with crumpled newspaper stuffed into crevices. And they lived through a horrendous blizzard, stuck by themselves with no one able to get to them.
But they were surrounded by something that few now appreciate...nature.
Oystercatchers in their dinner jackets pipe the reveille, jackdaws chatter, boasting about their dreams...
Whether he's describing a shorn ram as an old man in white thermals or relating the hilarious tale of he and his brother refusing to ever mention the word, "quark", believing it to be an obscene word, Horatio Clare does a splendid job of making one realize just how much we have lost over the last 30+ years, a loss that can never be compensated by smartphones or gaming or the web.
I want to see the real Wales.
Book Season = Winter (mountains like clenched fists)
June 5, 2011
Horatio Clare writes beautifully: "...the first hot yawns of full summer..." "The cooling land sent up the first twinges of breeze to nudge the treetops..." "The scalping plunge through the surface seemed to peel my head from crown to neck; it drove icy fingers through my ears into my brain; silver claws hooked into my nostrils and my chest heaved with the shock of it."
I read this book fast, eager to see what new ways he would find to put words together. There is not much of a story, other than the narrative of a life, structured by the linear progression of time. Still, there is enough variety, humour, and drama in the several episodes that are recounted to keep interest up throughout the book. The 'characters' (real people) are sensitively yet honestly portrayed. I wonder if any of the names (such as Huw and Idris) were changed to avoid embarrassment.
I read this book fast, eager to see what new ways he would find to put words together. There is not much of a story, other than the narrative of a life, structured by the linear progression of time. Still, there is enough variety, humour, and drama in the several episodes that are recounted to keep interest up throughout the book. The 'characters' (real people) are sensitively yet honestly portrayed. I wonder if any of the names (such as Huw and Idris) were changed to avoid embarrassment.
June 15, 2012
Loved Horatio Clare's writing. It was simply beautiful. Did not love his mother. The description says this is a tribute to her, but I don't know how I feel about that. I think Clare wants her to appear good, since she is the one who raised him, and she is absolutely strong and determined. She did some great things. But throughout his writing, I felt an undercurrent of regret and longing that he didn't get to grow up with his father. I don't think that detriment is outweighed by the benefits he got from growing up on this farm. A solid three stars for beautiful writing and an enchanting story.
July 28, 2013
As an avid knitter and beginning spinner, I was captivated by the Clare's story of growing up on a Welsh sheep farm. His writing style kept me engaged with the entirety of his life. He has a very colorful way of expressing his childhood thoughts and perceptions of the adult world around him, while also doing a lot of reflection on how it was, and how things could have been different. I did really feel for him as he tried to make sense of his parents' divorce and still continue on with his childhood.
March 30, 2023
A touching memoir illustrating the beauty and hardship of hill farming in Wales in the 1970's. It's also a story about a family and how an over powering passion for the land, despite the debts and difficulties, could be in stark contrast to another person's aspirations for career and comfort and eventually lead to separation. The details about the rhythms and rituals of sheep farming and the vivid descriptions of harsh winter's are both fascinating and frightening.
July 30, 2024
A beautiful read, giving a balanced view of life in a remote area.
January 18, 2020
Memoir of growing up on a sheep farm in rural Wales. Vivid and compassionate. It’s a refreshingly unsentimental take on ‘the simple life’, and never forgets that nature isn’t a theme park but a prosaic, often brutal place.
Clare’s accounts of raising lambs are not for the faint-hearted:
Maggots and flies are wonderful things for clearing up corpses, but they are quite terrible when they find a purchase on the living. Undisturbed, maggots will eat a sheep alive. At first their bites itch, so the sheep scratches, rubbing itself on tree trunks or fence posts. This opens small cuts, widening the maggots’ menu. The sheep jumps and twitches and rolls in the grass; it makes no difference. Eventually, the sheep withdraws to some quiet place, and there, silently, the maggots eat it.
Clare’s accounts of raising lambs are not for the faint-hearted:
Maggots and flies are wonderful things for clearing up corpses, but they are quite terrible when they find a purchase on the living. Undisturbed, maggots will eat a sheep alive. At first their bites itch, so the sheep scratches, rubbing itself on tree trunks or fence posts. This opens small cuts, widening the maggots’ menu. The sheep jumps and twitches and rolls in the grass; it makes no difference. Eventually, the sheep withdraws to some quiet place, and there, silently, the maggots eat it.
May 22, 2019
I identified strongly with much of this book. An in-love, city couple buy a fairly large, very old, run-down sheep farm in Wales. They know nothing about sheep or living in the country or fixing up things. Of course, each person responds differently to life on the sheep farm and it eventually causes them to split up (this is not a spoiler; it is obvious from the beginning). But, I loved the story of the two of them trying to learn about life on a farm, and I loved the stories of the hardships and learning – it reminded me very much of my husband and me trying to live up in the woods of Idaho without electricity or running water and often having to walk in and out in the winter.
I was fascinated by the way Clare tells the story. He seems to have had access to many of his mother’s and maybe his father’s letters and journals because most of the story is told from his mother’s point of view, including times before he was born, and when he was a very small child. I stopped caring if his reporting was accurate because it is a wonderful story – not easy, not really beautiful, but revealing and accepting and, for me, memorable.
I was fascinated by the way Clare tells the story. He seems to have had access to many of his mother’s and maybe his father’s letters and journals because most of the story is told from his mother’s point of view, including times before he was born, and when he was a very small child. I stopped caring if his reporting was accurate because it is a wonderful story – not easy, not really beautiful, but revealing and accepting and, for me, memorable.
July 3, 2020
The title of this is completely misleading. The book is not about Horatio Clare growing up on a farm, as much as it's completely about his parents' dysfunctional marriage and the battle of wills over owning a massive farm that they have no idea how and eventually no inclination to run.
I found the whole thing frustrating. Stupidity reigns supreme.
The mother is completely pigheaded and has to rely on neighbours who she alternately slags off then asks to help her when the shit hits the fan! The poor father soon realizes that the mother is a stubborn wannabe farmer and promptly declines into a deep depression, hot tailing it back to London while he still has a chance.
Classic tale of goonery! Not an enjoyable or authentic one. Behave!
I found the whole thing frustrating. Stupidity reigns supreme.
The mother is completely pigheaded and has to rely on neighbours who she alternately slags off then asks to help her when the shit hits the fan! The poor father soon realizes that the mother is a stubborn wannabe farmer and promptly declines into a deep depression, hot tailing it back to London while he still has a chance.
Classic tale of goonery! Not an enjoyable or authentic one. Behave!
June 4, 2010
I can't decide whether these kids had a fabulous childhood or a dangerous and difficult one. I'm also disturbed by their mother--who gave her children some beautiful experiences but also exposed them to situations a child shouldn't have to deal with. But beautifully written and very evocative.
October 23, 2008
His breathtakingly vivid descriptions of their welsh countryside were quite memorable. Horatio also paints a poignant portrait of his mother, and her connection to the land she farmed.
January 28, 2012
I could not finish this book...too dry.
August 19, 2021
Gift card | Bleak | I expected this to be another memoir that's a love story to Wales, and I suspect that Clare thinks he's written one. But this book does not paint a happy picture, and the land itself--partly through being such an insulated and small slice--gets buried under the weight of the rest. The subtitle is "growing up on my mother's sheep farm in Wales" but the first half of the book is not Clare growing up. It's the history of his parents meeting, marrying, and then dissolving away from each other. The vast majority of this *half of the book* isn't even written by Clare, it's a wholesale transfer of first his father's journal and then his mother's. And my god, does his mother come out of it badly. So many times she's quoted as calling their father "selfish", when that's the only word I can accurately use to describe her, instead. She wants what she wants, and she doesn't care if it's unhealthy for her children, or if her ex and all the neighbors will have to do extra work so that she can have it. She makes terrible ranching decisions, which she believes are showing how much she loves the animals, even though they actually have in many cases a negative impact on the sheep's quality of life. She knowingly gets into a relationship with a married man, at a time when she had already been discussing her need to move off the farm, but after helping him destroy his marriage, she then wouldn't leave the farm so that they could live safely, and when he moved on she blamed him for it all. She divided her children from their father physically and emotionally, then used them as stand-ins for the adult conversations she lacked, placing undue burdens on small children. The book begins with a story of her having to talk her way out of an assault, which was not a cheery start, and continues with one bit of heaviness after another. The depictions of the mountain were lovely, but it didn't bring up the overall melancholy.
March 9, 2021
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to wander around the fields of a sheep farm in Wales? Wondered how it would feel to grow up amongst the lambs and the ewes, the glorious summers and harsh winters? This book will tell you all about that.
I tend to lean towards comforting, farm or farming related read when I get stressed. Books that aren't big on the action, but books that are soft as I read them and transport somewhere where I could (metaphorically) put my hands in the mud. Horatio Clare weaves a tale of truths and sheep in this thought-provoking story of his youth. Intertwining growing up with caring for sheep and lessons learned from his mother, the pacing of this book remains slow and even, steady as she goes.
I tend to lean towards comforting, farm or farming related read when I get stressed. Books that aren't big on the action, but books that are soft as I read them and transport somewhere where I could (metaphorically) put my hands in the mud. Horatio Clare weaves a tale of truths and sheep in this thought-provoking story of his youth. Intertwining growing up with caring for sheep and lessons learned from his mother, the pacing of this book remains slow and even, steady as she goes.
December 20, 2018
Where did i hear of this book? Can't remember, but the library had it. Not my usual cup of tea, though mountain wilds and some beautiful wording compelled me to read it through. Reminder of how people and systems barrel along as important bits and heart are shredded awayside. We silly hoomyns will still suckle at the boob tube after a proper feral rearing. What weird wiring. i find it all: the hardship of love and relationships, husbandry, housekeeping, health of people, animals and land, depressing. And wonder how kinship culture might have grown a different, less mournful storyline here...
December 19, 2017
A well-written memoir, Horatio Clare explores the title of the book - growing up on my mother's sheep farm in Wales. Clare loves his mother absolutely without any reservation, and the story is encapsulated in that love. This reader however would question some of that mother's decisions. If you enjoy reading about the rigors of rural and isolated life in Wales, and the subject of sheep raising, this is your book. Me, I found myself skimming some of it.
March 29, 2018
An autobiography that puts paid to the myth of giving it all up and going to live in the country. Horatio’s parents buy a sheep farm in Wales, and it’s where he spends much of his childhood. But it is brutally hard work, and leads to the end of his parents marriage. The beauty and wonder of living in the Welsh hills is contrasted with the tough life and difficult work of a sheep farmer, on top of the constant struggle to make ends meet. It’s an honest, funny and engaging story.
September 2, 2018
Beautiful, poetic writing, with vividly described scenery and people. I lived every moment with Jenny and her boys, feeling her fear and her love for the farming life, her determination for her boys to have a country upbringing. Simultaneously, Horatio's narrative was clear and insightful, a poignant description of his thoughts and observations from his childhood. A wonderful, lyrical book. I loved it,
September 1, 2019
Sumptuously written, gloriously evoking the delights of being a free spirit in the hills of South Wales but also conveying the struggles of being an outsider, and child of idealistic parents who separated. Clare tells his moving story without sentimentality but with an amazing talent for communicating his confusions but most importantly his love for wild places. The best book I've read for quite a while.
March 19, 2021
Awarded an extra star because I liked his mother so much. She learned country ways quickly and her diary entries are the backbone of the early parts of the book.
This is a memoir about growing up without a father on a tumbledown Farm in Wales. The scars of his father’s abandonment deeply affected the author although he never admits it as such.
The courtship of his parents is beautifully written but while his mother grows within the pages his father remains a distant though interested figure.
This is a memoir about growing up without a father on a tumbledown Farm in Wales. The scars of his father’s abandonment deeply affected the author although he never admits it as such.
The courtship of his parents is beautifully written but while his mother grows within the pages his father remains a distant though interested figure.
August 16, 2020
A moving book about Clare's upbringing in the welsh hills, and the struggles of holding a family together that moves from London. Some great descriptive passages, with a strong and gripping sense of place.
January 1, 2022
Beautiful memoir of a single mother bringing up her two kids on their sheep farm in South Wales, written by one of the (now grown up) kids. Sheep are a fucking nightmare. So are two small boys. So is living on a mountain. So is a falling down cottage that you live in. And yet…
July 11, 2022
First class reflective story of a life lived in the hills of Wales, of a mother living differently following her own path and her children with her trying to make sense of it all whilst living an extraordinary life amongst the creatures and climates of sheep farming. Beautifully written.
September 5, 2022
Enchanting. Chock full of love. I once had a drunken* conversation with the author about his autobiographies (*well, I was). “The first one’s sheep, then drugs,” we agreed. ‘Sheep’ doesn’t do this wonderful book justice.
August 10, 2023
This memoir has stuck with me over many years. As a knitter and someone who always loved the romance of raising sheep, this book shows a bit too much of the reality of sheep farming. Good writing, beautiful scenes, enough tension.
June 30, 2017
An enjoyable read; very well written. Hmm, they were "poor" but never so much that they could not afford private education. A bit like a real life "Railway Children", with sheep instead of trains.
February 3, 2018
Wonderful!
December 31, 2018
Darkly atmospheric and full of beauty.
January 12, 2019
Some gorgeous writing and profound insights, lightly – almost casually – delivered. This book signals the arrival of a prodigious talent.
June 16, 2019
Masterfully written
Clare’s writing is beautiful, mesmerizing and hypnotic. I couldn’t put this down. It was pure pleasure spending an entire day immersed in this world.
Clare’s writing is beautiful, mesmerizing and hypnotic. I couldn’t put this down. It was pure pleasure spending an entire day immersed in this world.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 58 reviews