Steven Nesbitt is a fourth-generation farmer. His grandfather lived to 96, and his father is 93, so he was confident his healthy lifestyle of exercise and fresh air would see him through to a ripe old age. That was until April 2025, when, to his astonishment, he was diagnosed with heart problems and told he had to change his lifestyle immediately. “I thought I was fine; it turned out I wasn’t,” Steven told me, explaining that the doctors had told him he needed to change the way he exercised and his diet. “I was working 14 hours a day and snacking rather than eating proper meals. Sometimes you just grab whatever you can without stopping what you are doing, so it was a lot of biscuits and snacks,” Steven explained. All that had to stop, and he was told he needed to exercise in ways that would increase his heart rate and then lower it again. “Apparently you need to warm up your heart; who’d have known that?” he said.

After his diagnosis, Steven wanted to give something back. “The doctors and nurses, along with 6 tablets a day, have helped me enormously, and I wanted to return the favour,” Steven explained.

Alongside farming, Steven and his family run holiday lodges at their working farm, Alwent Hall, which can be booked through Sykes Cottages. He wanted some metal animals to line the driveway leading to the cabins, so he attended a village fair and enquired about the cost of making some metal sheep. Being a Yorkshire farmer, he baulked at the price and decided to go home and make his own. After two or three days, he had made the sheep. Then his niece asked him to buy a Highland cow. Steven said he wasn’t buying any more animals, so he made her a metal one instead. This was where the idea to fundraise using a bull came from, and when one of his friends joked about it, Steven took them up on the challenge.

Steven set to work on a full-size Charolais bull. As the current President of the UK British Charolais Cattle Society, he found the bull an obvious choice. It took Steven about three to four months to produce the bull, named Rusty, and he has received requests from various country shows to take it along to raise funds. “People are ringing up all the time, offering the bull pride of place at their shows,” Steven explained with obvious pride.

Steven took Rusty to Jeremy Clarkson’s Diddly Squat Farm on 10th and 11th June to raise funds for his chosen charities and was asked to take Rusty to Jeremy’s pub, The Farmer’s Dog, at the end of June, where it will stay for a month.

Despite his health issues, Steven is a busy man. Alongside farming and raising money for charity, he also works as an embryologist at Castle Vets in Barnard Castle, specialising in IVF treatments. He has served as chairman of the UK British Charolais Cattle Society twice and is currently its president. “I got my first Charolais when I was in my twenties,” Steven explained. “I have had the honour of judging all over the world, including Brazil, Mexico, Sweden and France. It is great to see the world while doing something that you love,” he enthused.

Steven lives in the foothills of Teesdale on a farm that has been in his family for generations. “We will have been here for 100 years this year,” he told me. “Well, not me personally; I just feel like it!” he says with a chuckle.

Steven is fundraising in several ways, and all donations will be split equally between the British Heart Foundation and the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MND), in honour of a dear friend, Cath Muir, a campaigner who lives with the disease.

In addition to shaking buckets at events, there are competitions to win £200 by guessing the weight of the metal bull and the number of metres of chain used to make it. The fundraising campaign ends on 18th October, when the bull will be auctioned at Sterling United Auctions, with proceeds going to the two charities.

If you would like to donate to these amazing causes, Steven has set up a Just Giving page which can be found here https://www.justgiving.com/team/charolais-bull-tour