Canal Holiday

When the Trant family – plus Welsh collie - set off from Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool, for a holiday on the Staffordshire and Worcestershire Canal, they probably weren’t expecting to be beset by foam of ice-berg-like proportions at one of the locks but they would not have been too surprised to meet the horse-drawn barge. Ion Trant, being a farmer/ecologist as well as a film-maker, notes an early elevator baler in use in a passing field and bird burrows in canal-side mud.

Ion Trant of Dovea Farm in Tipperary, Ireland, studied agriculture in Canada and then joined the staff of the Welsh Plant Breeding Station in Aberystwyth where he met his future wife, Janet Owen of Maesmawr Hall, Welshpool. The Trants farmed at Maesmawr Hall, the adjoining farm Cefn Du, and Esgairdraenllwyn at Llaithddu, Llandrindod, where Janet bred Welsh Black cattle crossed with Herefords. Conscious of a gulf emerging between town and country, Ion welcomed school visits to his farms and also created/filmed the "Country Close-Up" series for children (BBC TV - 1956-62), the programmes often featuring his own three. He was subsequently offered work as a freelance cameraman.