Produced by deaf students of the North East Media Training Centre (NEMTC), a documentary about two inner city farms around Tyne and Wear, the Byker City Farm at Newcastle and Bill Quay Farm at Gateshead. The film follows some of the volunteers who work on these farms showing them going about their day-to-day business looking after and feeding the many animals who live on these estates. Some of these volunteers are also interviewed by presenter, Linda Clark with the assistance of two...

Produced by deaf students of the North East Media Training Centre (NEMTC), a documentary about two inner city farms around Tyne and Wear, the Byker City Farm at Newcastle and Bill Quay Farm at Gateshead. The film follows some of the volunteers who work on these farms showing them going about their day-to-day business looking after and feeding the many animals who live on these estates. Some of these volunteers are also interviewed by presenter, Linda Clark with the assistance of two sign-language interpreters, about both the work they do as well as the importance of outreach especially with local children who have little experience of seeing or handling animals. Traffic speeds past across the Byker Bridge in Newcastle, in the distance a Tyne and Wear Metro train crosses the Byker Viaduct. As a second Metro train cross the viaduct, beneath it the Byker City Farm. A sculpture of a large cockerel atop a post near the farms entrance. Presenter Linda Clark asked a question of Derek who works on the farm. Standing beside him an interpreter who translates her question for him, he also signs back Derek’s response. The first question asked is what is the farm? In a shed or barn lambs feeding, next to them a goat and a calf in their own pens. Outside two domestic geese and a Vietnamese Pot-bellied pig. Derek is asked how long he has been working on the farm? From the Byker Bridge the city farm below with a voiceover providing details on what city farms are. A third question for Derek who is asking if he likes it on the farm? He replies it’s a great combination of working with people and animals. Inside one of the animal sheds Derek lets out a goat from its pen and begins to milk it. A small girl rushes along a path and chases after two Mallards and a domestic duck. Derek gives the girl a small chicken to hold and pet. She shows it off to both the camera and her grandmother sitting nearby before putting it back in its pen. Inside one of the sheds a herd of sheep, nearby the small girl looking at a rabbit in a hutch. Derek comes over and gives her a Guinea pig to hold, she strokes and cuddles it. With the assistance of Derek, she goes into the pen and begins petting some of the sheep. Derek herds the sheep outside and along a cobbled road. A mural on a wall reads ‘Bill Quay’ change to Susanne Hills sitting in an office at a high desk reading a pamphlet. Linda Clark and her now female interpreters comes in and begins asking Suzanne questions about Bill Quay Farm and her role there. Susanne makes a phone call from a handset inside one of the farm buildings. She then begins to clean and fill a chicken feeder with water. Back in her office she is asked what qualifications she has in farming. A large mural featuring various farm animals decorates the walls of a barn. Susanne walks over and helps two colleagues attach a trailer to a tractor. She then fills and weighs buckets of animal feed, standing beside her a young man watching. Back in the office Linda Clark ask who did the farm’s artwork? Painted sculptures of animals decorate the sides of the entrance into Bill Quay Farm, nearby a large wooden sculpture and a model of two goats made from scrap metal standing on a wall. Other artworks around the farm feature before returning to Susanne Hills who is asked what kind of people visit the farm? A second young girl and her mother feed chickens with bits of bread. Susanne shows the girl and a small boy a hen sitting on eggs inside an old blacksmiths furnace. She picks up the two eggs from the nest giving them to the children to show how warm they are. They are then encouraged to stroke the chicken. Susanna takes the children and their mother past other pens where an older woman is feeding a calf. Back in her office Susanne is asked what her job is on the farm? She is a Stock Attendant, and she looks after the livestock. In its pen Susanne brushes the fur of a large goat using a special brush. She leaves, heads across the farmyard and proceeds to check a chicken coop for eggs. In a large metal shipping-container, she measures out a special feed for the animals into buckets using a set of scales which are then taken away by a colleague. Another rides a tractor pulling the trailer through the farmyard reversing it into a barn. A large pig stands on its front legs looking out from it sty as Susanne mixes its feed with water in a large bowl. She tosses the bowl into the sty and the pig eats happily as well as other animals around it in their enclosures. Outside in a field Susanne fills a trough with food for the farms herd of sheep, they race over and eat hungrily. Back inside one of the barns she fills another trough with water, in a sty a sow and her piglets feeding on her. In another pen a calf and its mother waiting on Susanne to fill its trough with water. Having been fed and watered the piglets go to sleep. Outside the sheep resting in the field that overlooks the River Tyne below. Back at Byker the Tyne and Wear Metro again crosses the Byker Viaduct and traffic speeds past along the Byker Bridge.