A young farmer from Kent has written her name into the record books by shearing 370 sheep in eight hours.

Our reporter Rhys Griffiths spoke to Marie Prebble about the record, why she has become hooked on shearing and what makes this highly-skilled part of rural life so special for those who take it up.

"It becomes quite addictive," Marie says when asked about how shearing became such a passion. "It's just the sort of skill that you just want to get better and better at because you're constantly learning."

Part of a family that has worked land in the Kent countryside for centuries, skilful and efficient removal of heavy coats has always been part of life on the farm where she breeds Romney sheep.

But in recent years Marie has found a calling in the close-knit world of shearing, which sees expert cutters travel the globe to ply their trade wherever there is wool.

"I've always called myself a sheep farmer who does a bit of shearing," the 34-year-old from Swingfield, between Folkestone and Dover, said.

"But actually I've tried to become more of a sheep shearer now and sort of qualify myself as that by working for different contractors.

"You can travel the world with it, you can take it as far as you want to once you've got that skill and as you get better at it."

"I think the best part about the job actually is the people, because it is such a globally-connected community. You've got that skill you can pretty much travel with anywhere and everyone really supports each other.

"I feel like this is almost the beginning for me in terms of how far I could take it, because it's something you can always improve on, you can always learn more and always get better at, so it's like any sport I suppose."

There is no better way to make your name in the game than by writing your name into the record books - but although Marie shears day in and day out, it still meant months of preparation.

"I've been sharing for 10 years but I've not done very much in that time," the former Simon Langton Girls' Grammar School pupil said.

"So this last couple of years I've really made it my mission to get as good as I can in that time available, which means being around the right people and going to work for certain contractors and travelling off the farm quite a bit more.

"Since the since the start of the season, which was the end of April here, I've pretty much sheared every day. So that's the physical preparation in terms of it being the job that you're doing every single day, you're making your body and mind resilient to doing that job.

"But also to train for something like a world record I was in the gym pretty much every day doing a lot of mobility, some strength training, following a training plan and eating right. Just keeping my mental focus on the task at hand."

No existing women's record stood prior to Marie's attempt in Cornwall on August 25, so in many ways the battle was with herself.

With an eight-hour window in which she had to shear as many sheep as possible, the goal for her and her support team of around 30 people was to reach 400. In the end she managed to set the world record benchmark of 370.

"We were setting a record rather than trying to break an existing one," she said.

"It was a big thing to organise and obviously involved quite a lot of preparation and planning and training.

"It's all adjudicated by the world shearing record society, so I had judges there from Australia and South Africa and Wales, there's a lot of rules you have to abide by in order for it to a qualify as a world record attempt.

"It's not just like any other shearing day, the sheep had to have an average fleece weight of three kilos, the quality of the sharing is assessed, and from an animal welfare perspective you have to make the whole job as good as you can possibly get on the day."

Shearing has already taken Marie around the UK and the world, and who would bet against more records tumbling in the future.