By Rod Minchin/PA

A FARM in Arlingham had a special visitor today with the Duchess of Cambridge spending the afternoon hearing about its work.

The Duchess met a baby lamb called Stinky during a visit to the Farms for City Children – a charity set up by children’s author Michael Morpurgo to teach inner-city children about farming.

Stinky, who is six weeks old, is being bottle-fed as he fell ill shortly after being born and had to be taken away from his mother and hand-reared by staff.

Farm manager John Goodman explained how Stinky – a Lleyn breed of sheep who was born on the farm – earned his name.

“He got a bit of a stomach infection and he had diarrhoea and he was a bit smelly. The children said he was stinky and the name stuck,” he said.

“We had to take him away from his mother and siblings and bottle-feed him and the children were not allowed to touch him. It’s too late to return him to his mother so he will be bottle-fed. He has got back to full health now. Stinky is a twin and his brother and sister are still with their mother.”

The Duchess had arrived at the farm for a private lunch with the children and staff.

She then joined a storytime session led by Mr Morpurgo, who founded the charity with his wife Clare in 1976.

The Duchess was then taken on a tour of the farm where she helped children from London pot vegetable plants and plant onions in the allotments, as well as tending to the chicken coop.

While helping to plant the onions, the Duchess asked: “Do any of you like onions?”

One child replied that they made their eyes water and the Duchess said: “They make things nice and tasty. You can put onions in curries.”

She also saw a “super wriggly worm” and asked the children: “Have all of you held a worm before?”

The Duchess then tried her hand at ‘pig weighing’ - which involves corralling a pig into a pen to be weighed.

The Duchess’s visit was rounded off with a short tea party.

Speaking afterwards, Mr Goodman said: “It’s been good fun. The Duchess is really hands on and really good fun and brilliant with the children – she has a rapport with them.”

The organisation, which now has three working farms, welcomes around 3,200 children and 400 teachers a year.