On Whistledown Farm with Nicola Baker

The real Dales farm behind a fiction series for eight-year-olds

Nicola Baker and her husband Matt spent years as broadcasters before swapping television schedules for a working hill farm in the Yorkshire Dales, a move Channel 4 has followed across several series of Our Farm in the Dales alongside their children Luke and Molly. Whistledown Farm, her fiction series for readers eight and up, draws directly on that life: ten-year-old Ava is sent to live on a working farm while her parents work abroad, and has to learn animals, mud and a routine she didn't ask for.

This is a Shipston Bookfest date run with Shipston Library, built as a conversation rather than a straight reading. Baker talks through how a farming diary turns into a plot, what from the real farm made it into the books and what she invented for her fictional heroine Ava, and where the series goes next. Illustrator Rachael Dean has worked on both books published so far, Finding Hope and Rescuing Ruby, with two more due.

Good for any family who's watched the Bakers get up before dawn on screen and wants to hear what farming actually taught her about telling a story.

Free entry, booking essential.

Sunday 20 September 2026 · St Edmund, King & Martyr, Church Street, Shipston-on-Stour, Warwickshire CV36 4AH · Starts 2:30pm