VICKY Furlong’s earliest memories of growing up on her family’s farm seem to perfectly encapsulate the highs and lows of agriculture.

She was only eight years old when the spectre of foot and mouth disease stalked the British countryside and, even though she was just a child, it obviously made a big impression on her.

“I can remember we were off school for about six weeks because we weren’t allowed off the farm,” Vicky recalls.

“And I remember helping fill containers with disinfectant so we didn’t get it,” she adds.

But mostly there are happy recollections of life on Ridley Farm at Bardon Mill, where Vicky’s parents Stuart and Dorothy and brother Edward still hold the tenancy.

“Being in the lambing sheds and sitting on the dairy steps watching dad milk the cows are some of my earliest memories,” Vicky says.

“I used to be strapped to the front of the quad bike in my baby seat while he got the cattle in,” she laughs.

Watching Vicky as she calls her six dogs to heel or summoning the cattle for cake, it’s clear she has a quiet authority with animals that she has evidently imbibed from an early age.

Michael Dickinson, who runs Crow Hall Farm with his mother, Mary, who employed Vicky as farm manager there, observes: “Vicky is very firm and knows her own mind. She’s very knowledgeable for a young farmer.”

This confidence is part of the reason Mary nominated Vicky for the prestigious award she has just brought home from Bristol to Northumberland – the BBC Countryfile Young Farmer of the Year.

Handing responsibility over to a 23-year-old, as Vicky was then, for 120 breeding cattle and their followers and 800 sheep might be seen as somewhat brave.

But Mary, who bought Crow Hall with her late husband Stephen in 1984, had known the former Haydon Bridge High School pupil since she was a baby and was well aware of her qualities.

“Reliability, enthusiasm and determination – the fact that Victoria never gives up – she goes on until she’s got the result she wants,” says Mary.

“I knew her as a baby and I had watched her all the way through. Farming is just in her blood, but she’s a highly competent young lady.

“There wasn’t room for her and Edward on her father’s farm, so she had to go out and make her own road. It was just fortuitous that we needed someone of her calibre and the job was there.

“But for her to have the guts to take it actually speaks volumes about the kind of character that she has.”

Vicky reluctantly had to sell her own flock of 300 Texel cross that she kept on land rented from another farmer in the area, but she doesn’t regret it as she now has a bigger farm than her father’s, which runs 500 sheep and 80 cattle, and which you can see from Crow Hall on the other side of the valley.

In fact, the two of them can keep an eye on each other across the dividing line of the A69 and Stuart has been known to phone Vicky if he’s seen her move her cattle to find out why!

Understandably, he’s really proud of his daughter and was at the BBC’s Food and Farming Awards in Bristol to see her honoured by presenters Adam Henson and Charlotte Smith, along with Dorothy, Mary and Michael.

Stuart, who is chairman of Bardon Mill Parish Council, says there are a number of reasons she deserved to win.

“The scale of what she has taken on, the size of the operation and what is involved and putting her own identity on it. I think she’s done that side of the job really well,” he says.

Managing a farm of this size means Vicky has to be very hands-on and she regularly works 10-12 hour days, but she’s helped by her six dogs – three labradors that she uses when shooting and the collies she bought from trainer, Peter Telfer at Haydon Bridge.

Mary says she has already made a big difference to the quality of the stock at Crow Hall, investing in three bulls – two Limousin and an Angus – that she’s bought to introduce easier calving into the herd.

She and Mary are also in discussion about how to create a wildflower meadow on the land, which lies less than two miles from Hadrian’s Wall and incorporates Muckle Moss, a designated Site of Special Scientific Interest and a nature reserve.

A Shaftoe YFC member, Vicky, was the only young woman in the Countryfile Farmer of the Year final. She had beaten off competition from hundreds of nominations from around the UK to make it into the last three.

However, people who know Vicky will not have been surprised, as she’s already proved her mettle amongst young Tynedale farmers.

At last year’s Northumberland YFC Rally she took home the All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) trophy for the county and was also named Shaftoe YFC’s senior member of the year for 2016.

Vicky meanwhile appreciates how lucky she’s been to find a farm to manage at a time when young farmers struggle to get a foothold in the industry.

“If you’re not on a family farm, trying to get the money to do it on your own is very hard. It’s such a big outlay and you don’t really get your rewards for a few years. So this is a dream come true.”