SHOULD Hampshire farmer Gillian Gray ever need to calm down her sheep or cows, she'll know exactly what to do. She will sing to them.

Gillian, who farms 300 acres near Alresford, combines farming with teaching music.

She said: "Most of the time it's fun but when I'm getting stressed about one thing I can do the other. When I'm getting uptight about the music I can go and stamp around the sheep and come back feeling much better. It is a great stress buster

"My singing pupils love coming here and seeing the cows and the sheep."

She is now considering offering stress management lessons through singing.

Gillian is the third generation to run Scrubbs Farm which sits on downland close to Bishop's Sutton.

The mixed livestock and arable farm has fields of wheat and barley as well as 60 Hereford beef cows and 90 Suffolk sheep. But it barely supports one person so Gillian has had to diversify.

The farm is being refurbished and her Appledown Centre now offers 'Music in the Countryside', a place for singing lessons and music workshops.

She had considered opening the farm up to schoolchildren but the health and safety demands and cost of insurance were prohibitive.

Instead Gillian is diversifying into offering short courses and work experience for 'hobby farmers'.

"So many people are buying large houses in the countryside with five acres and ten sheep."

She hopes to get planning permission for a log cabin

Gillian said the diversification would not undermine the essential fact that "whatever we do mustn't compromise the farm as a working farm."

Another opportunity is presented by the fact that the Battle of Cheriton was fought on Gillian's land in 1644. A two-day reconstruction involving 600 members of the Sealed Knot society attracted more than 3,000 people this year. Next August the Sealed Knot hopes to attract 10,000 people for the two reconstructions.