THE Raider's iconic cartoons conjured up by Wull, otherwise known in the real world as Jim Oswald, have come to an end with the 'final' retiral of our talented cartoonist.

These have been an integral part of this column for decades and will be sorely missed by readers. They have raised a laugh each week and caused some red faces, but always without malice.

We at The SF had been in the habit of looking forward to them each week and former editor, Alasdair Fletcher, who appointed Wull as mischief-maker in chief, commented: "One of the best decisions I ever made when becoming editor in 1994 was asking Wull to provide a weekly cartoon to accompany the weekly Evergreen musings.

"Not once did he ever disappoint and the moniker, Wull, became a farming household name in the years to come. One of my proudest possessions is a caricature he presented to me on my retiral in 2017. I can only wish him ‘all the best’ in his retirement!"

Over the years, Wull has also provided many cartoons to those that were the subject of them and he said that he had lost count of the number of private commissions that he had undertaken as a result.

If any of our readers have a favourite cartoon or two in mind, then please let us know, sending any ideas to ken.fletcher@thescottishfarmer.co.uk and we will try and produce a tribute page for Wull in a forthcoming issue

On behalf of all staff at The SF, we wish Jim a very happy full retirement. We asked him to provide us with one of his choices of the best cartoons of recent times and he has come up with this:

At considerable risk of being sent to The Tower, mart officials refused entry to HM The Queen's two Highland bull entries for annual Oban sales, recently, because they did not have a ring in their noses.

And quite right too. The rules are in place for health and safety reasons and as a requirement of insurance. The Raider understands that an offer to ring the bulls there and then by a vet was taken up by others in the same boat, which would have solved the stooshie.

That said, we hope that order has been restored and the message received by all loud and clear – and that goes for all breeds. If anyone was ever in charge of a wee Jersey bull – another of HM's favourite breeds – then you will know that a ring was the only way to control these feisty wee beggars!