The birth of Samuel Richardson

Dec 12 2006 By The Journal

There's been a very special delivery at a well-known Northumberland dairy farm.

Tom and Lucinda Richardson have added a son, Samuel, to their family at Wheelbirks Farm in Stocksfield, Northumberland.

Samuel was born at Hexham General Hospital, where Lucinda works as a midwife.

The couple have two other children - Katherine, four, and three-year-old Lara.

Samuel arrived on November 21, weighing 8lb 14½oz.

Tom said: "I am pleased to have another man in the house. It was getting a bit female!"

The family lives in the main farmhouse at Wheelbirks which Tom co-runs with his brother Hugh.

Wheelbirks, noted for its high quality products and Northumbrian dairy ice cream, has been home to a pedigree herd of Jersey cows since the 1920s and has been owned and run by the Richardson family for five generations.

Lucinda has decided to take a year off from midwifery to spend time with the three children.

Tom managed to take two weeks off work. He said: "When Kate was born it was the harvest and with Lara it was lambing season.

"Looking back on the two weeks I have just had, I am sorry I couldn't have stopped work then.

"I've really enjoyed this time off; getting to know the children's routines and being together as a family has been really good."