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It s been a hard, but exciting road South Cumbrian farmer John Atkinson and his partner Maria Benjamin have trod since we featured them in Farmer three years ago. JOHN Atkinson, born and bred in the Lake District, and Maria Benjamin, who came for work and stayed, are knowledgeable and interesting, passionate and sometimes controversial. John Atkinson’s family has moved just three miles in 600 years, farming in the Crake valley south of Coniston in the Lake District National Park. John, 60, is the sixth generation at Nibthwaite Grange Farm. The family had always been tenants until his parents bought the farm, prompting John to take over from his dad Bill when he was 21. “He had to sell all his livestock to pay for it and still says that was the worst day of his life,” says John, who is joined on the farm most days by his ‘retired’ dad, who is in his 80s. ....