While lambs around the country are dying because of the unseasonably-cold spring weather, one sheep owes its life to David Cameron.
The prime minister became the hero of the hour when he plunged waist-deep into a swamp to save a ewe that got stuck in the mud.
Cameron was on his way home from visiting a neighbouring farmer near his house in Chipping Norton when he heard a sheep bleating at around6pm
He discovered the ewe immersed in the muddy swamp, after she had followed her two lambs in to save them, both of whom drowned.
After alerting the farmer, Cameron waded into the swamp, together with his two armed police guards, and proceeded to push the ewe out of the mud to safety.
“When I got there, David was in the swamp, waist-deep in mud, along with the two police, who had all gone in there to help drag this sheep out,” said farmer Julian Tustian.
“He was brilliant, pulling, pushing and shoving. He was covered in mud, he looked a mess.
“It’s nice to see, really - the police didn’t have to do that and neither did David Cameron.”
The ewe, which has since been nicknamed Swampy, has now fully recovered from her ordeal which happened on March 1.
“She’s very happy,” Mr Tustian said. “She’s got no kids now so she’s having a summer off.”
Mr Tustian, 43, said the prime minister often liked to visit his farm during lambing, having grown up with sheep himself.
"If I'm lambing, he will often pop in," he said, adding that it gave the prime minister a chance to get away from it all: "He likes to get away from the real world."
Cameron had spent 30 minutes in the lambing shed with the farmer and his partner Shen Paget before heading home for the evening. Mr Tustian then got a call from the prime minister alerting him to a sheep he had spotted in the swamp with two lambs.
“I got there and the three of them were pulling this ewe,” he said. “I thought they would be on the bank pointing at the sheep.
“He [Cameron] was concentrating on getting this sheep out. He was covered in mud.
“I was glad he was there doing it, not me. It was very wet weather and getting dark.”
Mr Tustian said the death of the two lambs had been “the start of a bad year, with the snow. It was a bad time”.
“We have had a bad time this winter with the snow and lost quite a few lambs.”
This isn’t the first time Cameron has given a sheep a helping hand, after he was drafted in by Mr Tustian to aid a ewe struggling to give birth to two lambs a few years ago.
Mr Cameron acted as the farmer’s assistant for 15 minutes until the lambs were born, even volunteering for the task of pulling out the lambs himself as he had smaller hands than the farmer.
Mr Tustian's pedigree Texel ewe Patsy was giving birth to twins, which then became breached.
Although one of the lambs later died, the survivor was named David after the man who helped save him.
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