NOW let's get this straight... The Cornforths are not Catholics, they don't live on benefits, neither do they live in a couple of council houses knocked together.

"But that's the sort of thing people immediately think when you say you've got ten children," says Marian Cornforth.

In fact, the Cornforths are farmers. They live and work on a 250 acre organic farmer at Potto, near Stokesley. This farmer's wife and mother of ten doesn't fit what might be your other mental image either - she's slim, smart and given to mini skirts and boots.

And if she didn't have her hands full enough already with her own ten children, she's just opened a day nursery - to cope with another 40.

"I just like children," she says. Which we'd sort of already guessed.

Marian was 16, from Leicester, when she went on a family holiday in Great Fryup, on the North Yorkshire Moors. She went to the local farm to get some milk - and fell in love with Robin, the farmer's son. They married young and moved in to Goulton Grange.

"The farmhouse has ten bedrooms, " says Robin genially, "so we set about filling them."

Marian was 21 when Oliver was born, followed by Emily, Pollyanna, Clover, Barnaby, Poppy, Charity, Giles, Granville and Jasper. "I've had 21 years of never being without a buggy," says Marian.

For 17 years she was also a childminder. Then, farming being what it is, she decided the time had come to do more. "We had farm buildings which we could convert - this used to be calf sheds - so it seems an obvious thing to do."

The nursery is terrific, big and light and airy, well equipped, surrounded by fields, fresh air and with a stunning view of the hills. But before she could set up in business, the mother of ten had to get a childcare qualification. So she and Emily, 20, spent two years in part time study at Northallerton.

The nursery opened in September and they have 25 children on their books. "She never stops, "says Robin, admiringly.

What both Robin and Marian have in abundance, it seems, is a remarkable amount of energy, a great belief in hard work and also a wonderfully calm attitude. It must help.

"And we have such a wonderful life," says Robin. "When I see parents dashing in here in the morning to drop their children off, then rushing back in the evening to collect them and spending all the time in between in an office in Middlesbrough or somewhere, then I think I'm privileged. I just get up and go to work across the yard. All the time I have wonderful views to look at and my family around me. What more do you need?"

The children, long having been brought up to share, were quite happy when their mother came up with the nursery plan.

Oliver, 21, now helps his father with the farm. Emily runs the nursery with her mother ("She's wonderful, the children adore her," says a proud Marian). Jasper, three, is in the nursery and all the others in between are still at school.

"But they still all have their jobs to do," says Marian. "We wouldn't manage otherwise and it's important for them to learn. "

So one will do the Hoovering, others the washing up, table laying, etc.

"They don't mind doing their jobs because know they have their responsibilities and are an important part of the family," says Marian. "It helps make them more responsible generally."

On weekdays she is in the nursery from 7am until 7.30pm.

"They're long days but very happy. I just love being with the children.

I think it's wonderful watching children, helping them learn, discover things."

Marian cooks for the children there and when her own younger children come home from school, they have their meal with her in the nursery. "Later, I'll cook for Robin and myself and the older ones."

Once the children have all been collected from nursery, Marian goes back across to the house to do the jobs her children haven't managed.

"We have two washing machines that seem to be going full time. And as well as the ordinary jobs, I like to cook. But there's always plenty to do. Luckily, I seem to have plenty of energy."

On Saturdays and Sundays the entire family sit down to meals together round the table. "We enjoy being together. It's lovely. Oliver sometimes goes out with friends, or to meet up with people he was at college with. But he doesn't go in for binge drinking or anything like that, because he knows he has to be home and up early in the morning to do the milking.

"The others have plenty of friends but they're not always wanting to be out because they seem happy to be at home. They like it here."

The family have a computer for the business, but the children don't have their own computers and they don't have televisions in their bedrooms either. "They don't need them or want them. They've got plenty of children to play with," says Marian.

The secret in raising such a large and happy family, she says, is "love and discipline".

"I always believe in strictness but that means children know where they are. And I think when children grow up as part of a large family they learn to be responsible."

And it also includes not giving them too many choices either - especially when it comes to meal times. "These parents who constantly ask their children what they would like to eat... no wonder there are so many fussy eaters," she says.

As Emily is scooping up a toddler nearby, I ask her if she felt deprived by never getting any choice and she just laughs, "I don't think so."

The children are happy and flourishing. Marian and Robin seem calm and content.

And as the only two children working so far have both chosen to work with their parents, it's clear that the Cornforths have got something gloriously right - ten times over.