'Welcome to the Welsh Family'

I'm Jock ,I have been a shepherd all my working life, as have four of my five brothers. Anton, Jimmy, Wullie and Andy. Geordie, the fifth brother,left Scotland,family and the sheep behind and emigrated to Australia where he and his wife Anne still take a keen interest in how we are all doing on the trials field. Oh! and I have four sisters, Nettie, Margaret, Agnes and Babs.

I have been married for over forty years to Christine and are the proud parents of three sons, grandparents to six grandsons and one grand-daughter, thanks to daughters-in-law Helen,Jan and Marie.

Two of our sons work on the land, Billy the eldest is a full time shepherd at Lochurr Moniaive, Dumfriesshire. He now rents some ground of his own which gives his son John employment, his younger son Wullie is now employed with Ovibreed. Glen is stock manager to the'Seawell Charolais' and Saler herd of cattle in Northamptonshire. Frazer, our youngest chose a different path into electronic engineering, although I suspect his heart is still in his roots as he now has a small herd of Dexter cows.

Sheep, and sheep dog trialling is a passion that runs throughout the family, not only our son Billy has followed in the  family footsteps, also nephews,Wullie, Lindsay,Tony, and more recently Anton's grandson Robbie,(10yrs, 2005). Unfortunately Anton didn't live to see him take to the trial field, he would have been a very proud man!

Grandson Wullie is the latest in a long line to take to the trial field making 3 generations in the one family trialling ie. Papa (that's me) son Billy, and grandson Wullie (I wonder if this is one for the record books?)who incidentally was the only one who qualified for the Nursery finals in 2009

 In all, three generations of the Welsh family are competing against one another most Saturdays throughout the year.

I have had the honour of judging at both National and International Trials, have twice been to America to judge where Christine and I were greeted with great hospitality and have maintained contact with many new friends. It was there we met Anita who we unofficially adopted as our American daughter! Billy and his wife Helen have since been and judged, and were met with the same friendship with and outwith the sheep dog trialling fraternity. More recently I was judging in Belgium. I am not the happiest flyer and this short hop suited me better.

For  16 years I managed the farm at Ballantrae and lived there until my boss rented a farm near Ayr, as an extension to our rearing programme. The farm at Ballantrae has recently been put out to rent, and the lease at Ayr has finished leaving me more  time in my retirement for my dogs and trialling.

If you happen to be at one of our trials in Scotland and you look in the catalogue and see all these Welsh names taking part,I'm the one with the Blackwatch tartan bunnet.Come and say Hello!

e-mail           jockscollies@btopenworld.com