Last week in Rye News we featured the first part of the story of Roy and Sally Abel’s move to Rye from the Scottish Highlands. They were hoping to bring some very special animals with them too – three beautiful (and very hairy) Highland cattle. Roy takes up the story.
We had found our cottage in Rye, but were no closer to rehoming our three Highland yearlings and the year was growing old.
In desperation we listed their use to Countryside Stewardship. We highlighted how native breeds like Highlands, being more efficient ruminants than “developed breeds” break down a wider mix of grass and scrub, and so foster ecological diversity.
Then one day we learned about Pett Level and the Dunlop family who graze cattle all the way across the marshes right down to the shingle. Some of that land is now owned for public benefit by Pett Level Preservation Trust. We met with a kind reception from the trustees, notably John Newton, and scouted the paddocks.
We could see how grazing animals might benefit the land but we were also hard against the deadline to move them from Scotland.
In early December we set off north in the pickup aiming to spend that night locally,
hitch up my cattle trailer at dusk the next day, and haul them down overnight to reduce stress.
As we drove towards the Cairngorm mountains the temperature started to sink below zero… and kept going down. We logged it a low as minus 11 degrees before reaching a barely heated guesthouse.
The following day we had frosty hours to fill before arriving at the farm at 4pm to find the girls already penned. With a little persuasion we soon had them haltered and loaded.
It was time to leave my Highland home for the last time.
I avoided looking at the herd that had gathered adjacent to the yard.
For a breeder of pedigree animals continuity is key, using “bloodlines” of registered Highland cattle stretching back more than a hundred years. I had spent a couple of decades developing the “fold” – the genetic identity of my animals named Ubhaidh (Uvie) in the Gaelic. With the help of experts and a little luck, two of my animals had won Best of Breed at the Royal Highland Show, and Ruaridh, who was sold to HRH Queen Elizabeth, was voted Champion of the Decade.
So when we rattled away down the frosted highway, we carried not only a precious cargo towards our future in East Sussex, but also part of our identity.
As we drove through that cold night, via roadworks, diversions, and even motorway closures, I steered gently, hour after dark hour, always mindful of our charges.
We arrived at the south coast 18 hours later.
Then the moment of truth – how had they fared?
The girls sauntered down the ramp and casually started cropping the grass at their new home, settling down at once for their first wet southern winter at Pett Level.
Since then they moved to Three Oaks, the result of an encounter with grizzled carpet-trader Phil Newton at the bar of the Waterworks (where else?). Overhearing my standard line “Do you have grazing?”, he nudged my elbow with “Do you have Native Breed cattle?” My mouth dropped open!
So the girls are now assisting at the Maxfield Nature Conservation Trust. Phil even bought a couple of heifers at Oban pedigree mart when I bought Tomag, my sweet-natured tank of a bull.
In the Highlands I had also introduced tourists to the animals. They help humans slow down and project a calm energy. I called these encounters “Meet the Hairies”. Perhaps one day in East Sussex too?
We don’t know if the land they occupy will be sold, whether they will succumb to diseases we had no fear of in the north, whether the pedigree sales at Oban are just too distant.
We do know just that these animals have the knack of contentment, something they share to maintain the herd – it’s a metric of communal and individual wellbeing. Sally and I are part of the herd, and others can be introduced to that history, that presence – moving among these beasts is the nearest thing to pure contentment we are ever likely to know.
Image Credits: Tim Bartholemew , Roy Abel .