A FRIEND recently loaned me three little books called ‘Glory Hill Farm – First, Second and Third Year'.

They were written in the direst period of British history when Nazi Germany was threatening invasion and describe the venture into farming by Clifton Reynolds, a furniture manufacturer. Glory Hill farm was only 100 acres and was, after the tough times in The 1930s, in poor shape.

Good labour was hard to find due to enlistment to the military and foodstuffs and fertilisers were in short supply because of the U-boat blockade. The main enterprise on the farm was a dairy of about 20 cows of mixed breeding – Friesians, Ayrshires, Channel Island breeds and mainly Shorthorns.

Clifton Reynolds, acting on advice from a helpful War Ag advisor, recorded the milk yield of his cows carefully. He soon realised that this, for a variety of reasons, was a waste of time.

The main reason was that, in those days before artificial insemination, a young bull would be used for a couple of seasons. When he matured, he would invariably become dangerous and difficult to handle.

The farm staff, with some justification, as penning was poor and the bull often ran with the cows, were scared stiff of him. The bull would be culled and another young bull would be bought in his place.

So, by the time the breeding value of the bull through the production of his daughters was realised, he was long dead.

No doubt, in the larger pedigree herds recording would be practised and the bulls could be safely kept until their daughters entered production, nevertheless progress was slow.

It was some time after ‘Glory Hill Farm’ volumes, one, two and three were written before milk recording was universally accepted.

It took beef breeders much longer to accept the concept of performance recording. Pedigree breeders either dismissed it is a passing phase or, suspecting that their own show winners might not perform so well in the pasture, opposed it.

Unlike dairying, where improvement is primarily about milk yield, beef performance incorporates calving ease, growth, carcase quality, milking ability and fertility in a natural environment. Again, unlike in dairying, results are visually apparent in both sexes early in the life of a bull's offspring.

My own experience was that, when performance recording started, improvement was dramatic. After the concept became universally practised, progress slowed. That said, it was cumulative and over a period resulted in a better product in the commercial arena.

Now, as weights and scanning results are available in huge numbers and computer power to process them has increased massively, identification of genetic recessives, disease resistance, parentage verification and beef quality can be identified through the genome at an early stage in the animals’ life.

Beef production is in a good place and getting better. Hopefully, our political lords and masters will recognise this and allow us to make a profit.

When I went to the tiny primary school at Longformacus, in 1952 – a dairy similar to that at Glory Hill Farm and thousands of others throughout Britain operated in the village. The buildings were out of date and the farmer, to everyone who knew him, was unforgettable.

Elliot Scott kept, at various times and apart from the dairy, some beef cows of various cross breeds, a Landrace boar called 'The Salmon on Legs', Wessex saddleback pigs with holes punched in their lop ears so they could see out, Muscovy ducks and their cross-bred offspring which occupied the crown of the road through the village, sheep breeds varying between Lincoln Longwoods and ‘the auld Herdwick yowe’ and two dogs, Paddy and Dick. One of those growled but didn’t bite and the other bit but didn’t growl.

Elliot’s tractor was an ancient Case which originally came from America under the wartime Land Lease programme. Due to its intermittent burbling noise, it was known locally as ‘The Messerschmitt’.

Elliot kept a Jersey bull. When he was being moved up through the village, we were all kept inside the school. As a wee boy I remember looking out at the bull roaring, pawing the ground and scattering any fowls on the road while farm staff followed at long way behind glancing around for bolt holes if the bull changed his mind.

Elliot was wonderful raconteur whose tales, told with a straight face, could reduce a listener to helplessness. Decades later, I visited him long after he was retired. I asked him if he remembered the Jersey bull. “Aye, fine,” he replied.

He had bought him as a small calf. At that time many farmers and shepherds kept a cow to provide milk for the house. Often, they would be bred to the farm bull, usually an Angus, Shorthorn or Hereford, and any heifer calves would enter the suckler herd.

If a replacement house cow was required, the cow would be sent to a dairy. Elliot’s bull was the only dairy bull in our neighbourhood, so his services were in constant demand.

One evening, a neighbour brought a cow to be served. The bull was chained up in a stall in the byre. Elliot barricaded the next door stall with a heavy gate tied up with thick ropes, then reached over and let the bull off the chain.

It never looked at the cow outside in the yard and flew at Elliot. It got its horns tangled in the gate and it snapped the ropes like they were lint.

Elliot scrambled up into the rafters. The bull, the gate stuck on its horns started jumping up at him. Every time it jumped, the top of the gate touched an oil lamp hanging from a nail. Straw was all around.

“The Tilly lamp started yon pop, pop, poppin’ and I wasnae sure whether I was going to be killed by the bull or roasted alive," he told me.

Luckily, the bull eventually lost interest, disentangled the gate and wandered back to his stall. Elliot dropped the chain over his neck and secured him.

That bull became so dangerous that soon after he was shot. He was out in a field and a 'posse' went to do the deed.

They were armed with a shotgun loaded with No 1 cartridges. These contained a single ball and had been issued to the Home Guard in the war to shoot down enemy aircraft.

When he saw them, the bull charged. The knacker man missed with the first barrel. A local man, Jock Davies, grabbed the gun and dropped the bull at their feet with the second.