HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
•
NOVEMBER
2012
•
ILLUSTRATIONS BY PETER OUMANSKI
21
WINTERBOURNE, ENGLAND
NORMA CHANDLER PATERSON
is making slow progress over a
squelchy field, made slower by
Christanley, who keeps standing in
her way. A 3-year-old llama whose
name was inspired by the vet who
delivered him, Christanley mistak-
enly believes Paterson has come to
the field to play with him. He seems
crestfallen when she attaches a
rope to another llama, a cream-
colored 2-year-old named
Grey, and heads off for an
afternoon stroll.
Paterson is a
trim, no-nonsense
“
retired housewife”
with a flyaway white
bob and well-worn
galoshes. She has
been raising llamas for
almost four decades,
ever since her
daughters decided
that boys were far
more interesting than
the horses the family
once kept. Today,
she tends a herd of
20
llamas and other
camelids in the fields
around her home
in Winterbourne, a
fetching little village
in southwest England. “It’s a useful
animal,” Paterson says when asked
why she owns llamas, “and it’s not
dangerous, like a lion.”
Paterson’s not alone in
embracing llama husbandry.
Tim Crowfoot, chairman of
the British Llama Society, says
there are maybe 500 people
in the U.K. earning a
“
back-pocket income” from the
animals. Their uses, he says, range
from guarding sheep to pulling carts.
“
And they have good dung.”
But raising llamas isn’t merely a
livelihood for Paterson. She’s been
known to make her own llama
ears to wear on special occa-
sions, and tends to speak of
her animals as if they were
people. She is at her most
pointed, however, when
discussing alpacas,
another South Ameri-
can camelid favored
by Britain’s amateur
farmers. “They are not
as elegant [as llamas],
in my opinion,” she says.
“
And they’re boring.”
With this, Paterson
gently tugs Grey away
from a hedgerow he’s been
nibbling and leads him
homeward through the wind-
ing streets of Winterbourne.
The sky is the color of damp
fleece, the air thick with drizzle.
Passersby stop to watch her
walking the gangly creature as if it
were a Labrador. Both woman and
llama, however, seem oblivious to
anything but each other.
“
Come on, sensibly,” Paterson
coaxes as Grey strains at the rope,
suddenly intrigued by a nearby
wedding. “No dashing about!”
LLAMA SOCIETY
A li le bit of the Andes in the English countryside
BY HANNAH STUART-LEACH
GLOBETROTTING
