When Ulrike Hirsch and Craig Sherratt met at a jive-dancing weekend in Southport, little did they know that within a few years their lives would be fundamentally changed forever. Ulrike, who worked for a housing company, and Craig, a gas fitter, both lived in Manchester. Keen equestrian Ulrike is the daughter of teacher Elke and pharmacist Christian Hirsch, both of whom emigrated from Bournemouth to Canada in 1997 to run a horse ranch in the ‘wild west’ of British Columbia’s South Cariboo region. Ulrike was “getting fed up with working in an office, going from house to car, car to office and back again.” Even the horse she shared was a 30-minute drive from where she lived. “Often it was dark by the time I got there.”
As the romance between Ulrike and Craig Sherratt blossomed, the couple began thinking about their future together. “In 2006, Craig and I talked about our lives in England, the fact that we were both getting fed up with the rat race, and how much we both loved my parents’ ranch,” says Ulrike.
“Talking to my mum, she said, “why don’t you both come to work here?” The four of us would work together, and then my parents would start retiring. I told mum it was a really lovely idea but that I didn’t think Craig wanted to move to Canada.”
Over dinner one night, Ulrike jokingly revealed to Craig, “my mum has offered us a job.” Much to her surprise, Craig, who had missed out on a major contract he had been promised, had also been thinking about the ranch.
“I knew Ulrike’s heart was here,” he says. “I liked Manchester and my job, and knew that gas fitting can be well paid and that eventually we would have been fine, but having seen the place I fancied the lifestyle. The more I thought about it, the more I warmed to it.”
Ulrike and Craig married in May 2007 and moved to Elke and Christian’s Red Willow Ranch in June of the following year after they had been granted a work permit. Tragically, Ulrike’s father, Christian, died the same month. “It was very sad and unexpected,” says Ulrike.
Read the full article in our November 2009 issue.
