Looking after 620 ewes taught me as data centre looms on hill farm

It was exactly 60 years since I, as a teenager, had herded the hirsel over the dyke. Not if, but definitely when I needed advice, I had a bank of some of the best shepherds in the Borders to call on.

Albert Melrose at Kettleshiel, Tom Anderson at Bedshiel and Campbell Rogerson at Evelaw, which ran with Wedderlie, were my mentors. Because he had been involved in the tup trade, Campbell, from a well-known Northumbrian herding family, was probably the best known. Although he suffered from a severe speech impediment, he was an ardent conversationalist and would often be waiting for me at the march dyke for a blether.

I remember the conversations well.In one discourse, he told me that he was leaving and going to The Arks, a large hill farm south of Jedburgh long since planted with trees.

I said that it was reputed to be rather remote, to which he replied: “It hash a road, mind you it’s no the M1.” (The M1, our only motorway then, had opened a short time before.)

The previous incumbent at The Arks, Jimmy Murray moved the opposite way, to Johnscleugh in the Lammermuirs. Years later, he told me that, a few days before flitting, Campbell had come to see him at The Arks for Jimmy to show him how the sheep ran.

There was a large hummock on the farm which, because of its shape, was called ‘The Tattie Pit’.

Jimmy told Campbell that if you whistled, the sheep would run up to the top of it and ‘ee could gether them wi’yin hund o’a dog’.

Campbell replied that ‘it musht be some hund’.

In 1966, my hirsel on Rawburn, the Southside, was the smallest in the area but carried the most sheep. It was stocked at a ewe to 1.5 acres in contrast to the higher hirsels which needed another acre per ewe.

Unlike them, which were totally heather, the Southside was mixed heather and grass so was little valued for shooting. I had 620 ewes to look after, which was considered in those pre-quad bike days a large number.

Shod in tackety boots with turned-up toes which, once broken in, were remarkably comfortable, I walked round the sheep twice daily.

The hefts on the Southside had no natural boundaries such as streams, woods or gullies, and weren’t fenced, so the sheep had to be regularly herded so the hefts would remain clearly defined. This was particularly important at tupping to ensure that we knew which ram had sired the lambs on each heft.

My dogs wouldn’t have done well in a trial but served my purpose. One had a very wide gather and could be left by himself to raik the sheep down in the morning and back to the top in the late afternoon.

The other was quicker. Once I pointed a sheep out to him, he could catch and hold it so I could administer treatment.

Lameness was a persistent problem. Along with other medications, I carried a tin of foot rot ointment, which consisted of tar and copper sulphate, which was made by Hilstons of Lanark.

For many years, the Southside, like Kettleshiel next door which I managed, has been empty of sheep except for a few used as tick mops. Rawburn had no ticks on it during our tenure.

My father told me that the only farm in the Lammermuirs that had ticks was West Hopes on the north side of the range. He suspected they had been introduced by the owner moving ewes from an infected farm with which they shared a ram.

In the 20 years I managed Kettleshiel, ticks only appeared in the last two. They didn’t seem to harm the sheep or the grouse.

The Southside is now the proposed site for a data centre. Everything I had previously read was against data centres so I went to the consultation at Longformacus to learn more about them.

Data centres use huge amounts of electricity and, as they generate heat, require water to cool them. The potential for visual intrusion is high if incorrectly sited.

The Southside Data Centre would be sunk below ground level and would be surrounded by an earth bank, which in time would resume the surrounding vegetation.

Electricity from the wind farm about two miles away is at present not being used because of a poor connection to the grid. The electricity forgone is nevertheless paid for through our electricity bills.

This could now be connected directly to the data centre. In the winter months, the Watch Water reservoir, about a mile away, is full to overflowing so could be tapped. The data centre is far from any population centre so would have little human impact.

Over the three decades I have written Farmer’s View, a repeated concern has been the abandonment of Scotland’s hill areas. The Southside Data Centre is ideally placed for the Lammermuirs to play a part in the nation’s future, as it did in the past.

My association with Wedderlie went back a long time before my herding days. The present farmer, Marion Tilson’s grandfather, and my grandfather were brothers. When I was a wee boy three generations of the family met at Wedderlie for Christmas dinner.

We weren’t allowed to bring our new toys so I found the party pretty boring. For all that, the family dynamics were interesting. Uncle Andy was, as usual, very late so lunch was delayed and the ladies fretted that the food would spoil.

The men folk took full advantage of the extra drinking time and little niggles crept in and the atmosphere became a little charged.

When at last we sat down, our hostess proposed a toast to the family, ‘and how nice it was to see everyone together’.

Uncle Walter, well oiled, was heard to murmur: “Elsie you won’t go to heaven.”