Just over four years ago, I decided to make cheese from the milk produced on the dairy farm where I live. A dairy farmer takes great care of his herd of cows but the product he creates remains anonymous to him – he never knows where and what form it is being sold and never sees it consumed by the customer who buys it maybe as fresh milk, as yogurt, butter or cheese. The milk goes off in a lorry never to be seen or heard of again.

By making cheese from the milk of our cows, initially in my kitchen, I wanted to give this milk an identity and the farm a connection to the people who would eventually consume its product. My position is slightly compared to most cheese makers as, although I do not own the farm where I live, my husband manages it and so I still know about all aspects of it; I know the cows, what they eat, and how they are looked after.
 
I get the milk for my cheese in the morning by helping to prepare and milk the first batch of cows. Their milk is collected in a specially designed milk tanker that I take home, 200 yards down the road, to my cheese dairy while it is still warm. The cheese making process is then started immediately by pumping the milk into the cheese vat (a large heated pot) and incubating the milk with cheese bugs (lactic acid bacteria). Rennet is later added to coagulate the milk and turn it into curd and whey. After cutting the curd, whey is released and eventually drained off. The processes for the resulting cheeses are slightly different for each variety that I make. After draining in their moulds to give them their shape The Original is brined and usually ready to be consumed after two days in a maturing fridge. St. Aldhelm Blue has its salt added to the curds and is matured in a specialist cheese room for a minimum of 8 weeks during which the blue veining develops.
 
We are situated right on the edge of the South Dorset Coast where the young cows graze above the cliff top. This windblown situation above the sea inspired the name for the cheese company. I don’t know whether our coastal environment has a specific impact on the flavour of my cheese, but I have never found any other that tastes like mine. The company has grown up since it has started in my kitchen into an award-winning cheese business. But it is still essentially a very small operation with all cheeses carefully hand-made by me and with help from the farm team: my husband Robert, Justin the herdsman and, of course, our black and white girls who work so hard to produce their lovely creamy milk.