I should know better

Again getting ready for a big show and a horrendous bus journey to Bath, in the hopes that Young dog, Tomato or Demented will strike a chord with the judge. Can`t think why......

I notice that an ad for "sheep handling devices" has ben added in the banner. In my sheepy days, the sheep handling devices were provided by Old Jocky and his sons, who promised to move anything anywhere, be it a few ewes to the market or the whole flock to be dipped.

Dipping was a major probem. I didn`t do it here, and the whole bolshie bunch of woolly renegades had to be rounded up and moved eight miles to an obliging farm, where they would be immersed in the toxic brew with the farmer`s much bigger flock. Dipping was a riotous event, supervised by whichever two unwilling coppers their sergeant had seen fit to victimise that week. It was de rigeur to ensure that these two were "accidentally" soaked in the organophosphorous poison as often as possible during their supervision.

I`ve always wondered if the imbecility of sheep was due to being submerged twice a year in poison, and as to the police......well,you might wonder, but I couldn`t possibly comment

Anyway, for me the hard part was geting the sheep there. Jocky and his sons would arrive, and then the fun would start.

Have you seen ONE MAN AND HIS DOG? Forget it. Real-life sheep moving bears the same resemblance to that as COME DANCING would to the local mosh pit. Jocky`s dogs were trained insofar as they were keen to run about a fair bit. My sheep had never been allowed to watch television, and had utter contempt for dogs. They were supposed to bunch together and move obediently up the field. Instead some hid in the bushes, many ran in circles, and Big Aggie and Shitty, the two senior ewes, got their horns down and went straight for the dog. The dog would end up exhausted, cooling off in the water trough, and sheep would be brought in by a number of people shouting, linking arms across the field and flapping feed bags. The odd straggler would be wrestled in by hand.

Then Jocky would provide the transport.

Have you seen SCRAPHEAP CHALLENGE? Jocky and his family could have lived in that programme, and all their vehicles appeared to have originated in it. Once he arrived with the remains of a small horsebox, evidently once used to cary a peculiarly vicious kicker, with all the holes in the sides mostly covered by planks nailed on, and the whole body mounted on the back of a flatbed pickup, further secured by ropes to inspire confidence.

Well, we shoved and struggled and eventually got all but one in. We studied the rickety vehicle , bulging and heaving with confined and angry sheep, legs and heads sticking out of the holes in the planks, and just couldn`t see another space.

"Nae problem," said Jocky. He opened the passenger door, picked up the amazed ewe, and sat her firmly in the pasenger seat, upright on her fat woolly bottom, and fixed the seatbelt tightly under her front legs. And off they went.

I don`t know how many accidents were caused on the main road south that morning by the sight of an oncoming rickety vehicle driven by an old man in a bunnet, with bits of sheep sticking out of holes in the sides and a four-horned ewe wearing a seatbelt in an advanced state of shock sitting bolt upright in the passenger seat, glaring at the oncoming traffic.....

So it goes.