Year End

Umm, end of January sees Shep's financial year end, that means books need sorting and sending to the accountant, Umm....

Never have been fond of paperwork, in fact not at all fond of anything that might tax the brain and especially so if it involves being stuck in the house. Now I do believe some folks are tremendously well organised and do their books, weekly, monthly or some of the more lax do theirs quarterly. Umm.....

I do send bills out, try to do it monthly but then some folks I'm working for overlap the month so it runs on until another month, but they do get sent out eventually and when I get down into town they get paid into the bank.

I keep all my receipts in an unorganised fashion. There's a file of course, then there's the mantelpiece, kitchen bench, car foot well and a hundred and one other hiding places for these important little bits of paper.

Oh Lord! Guess I'm going to have to try and find them all and make some sort of sense of them coz the accountant will be in touch. I'm not quite as organised as those who do their books weekly, monthly or for that matter quarterly....... annually?!!!

Now Shep was fairly idle for the first couple of weeks in January, lean times. Inclement weather does not suit a self employed shepherd, services aren't required when the weather is lousy, only eight full days pay in three weeks. What an ideal opportunity to have sat down and sorted up my book work, except the weather was too nice. I say it was too nice, it was snowy, cold etc but it was not piss wet and horrible so there was absolutely no incentive to barr myself up in the office and knuckle down and if there had been any incentive it was soon lost coz it was so blinking cold in the house.

That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!!

So now I'm in the position where I really ought to be getting the job sorted, except everyone has got so behind with their seasonal work that Shep's services are required and that old saying 'there's no peace for the wicked' comes into play.

Saturday saw me in a whirr, away from home in the dark to assist with a pregnancy scanning, then off to feed stock for someone on holiday before heading into the next valley to gather then feeding someone else's stock on the way home. By the time I returned at night I hardly knew which way I was heading!! Thrown in for good measure was a landrover to use which you have to hit with a stick to get the diesel pump to work........ I sure don't lead a 'normal' life!

Am I complaining? - No not really, the deficit of work had to be made up somehow. I do have a living to make, this is what happens when the weather holds the job up. Sheep needed coppering, fluke dosing and then the scanning season commences and we're still all chasing our tails. That's life - there's nowt like a challenge!

But then there's the challenge of doing my books........ Umm.....

I dare say we'll get some miserable wet days before lambing time, the accountant seems to be an understanding sort of guy, after all I'm far too busy!!! More scannings, still covering for someone on holiday, then have to cover for someone getting an operation, have vets appointments to keep (dog down), more sheep to dose, more sheep to gather, some stone walls to rebuild if the weather will ever co-operate, Oh! and some blood testing to do for the vets, then it'll be time to innoculate....... Ach, there'll be some wet days before long........

Bellingham Auction Mart - THE LAST MART

Shep has been informed that the book The Last Mart covering the last three sheep sales held at Bellingham Mart which closed in 2004 is no longer available from the author.

Copies can now only be acquired from the publishers website on the following link : http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/806982

Apparently a unique, one off will be available by auction on 28th November at Tarset Village Hall when a fundraising event will be held to raise funds towards the printing costs of the Tarset News (the local newsletter which is sent free to every household in the parish).

The signed copy of the book available is a hardcover image wrapped version which not only contains double page spread photographs but also a collection of photos taken in the Cheviot after the last sale. It also has the correct date on the cover. A true collectors piece. It is expected sealed bids will be taken details of which may appear on the Tarset website.
http://www.tarset.co.uk/community/events/index.cfm/event/1/page/2

The DVD launched at the same time has also been selling like hot cakes with a further print run having been done. It is available at the Bellingham Heritage Centre. Click on the following link for a taster of the DVD http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=keZltCFQAlQ

Unusual request

Shep has received an unusual request. I don't lead a normal life so really there is nothing unusual about an unusual request.

Could I advertise a book and a DVD? Always willing to oblige (if caught in the right frame of mind), I thought it a good idea, whether anyone is likely to read this is a different matter but here goes:

THE LAST MART.

Bellingham Auction Mart October 2004

by Helen Brown

It is 80 pages, 200 plus photos black and white and colour covering the last 3 sales held at Bellingham mart with a brief history.

Published by Blurb Publishers
To be launched at Bellingham Show. Saturday 29th August after which it will be released and available direct from the blurb website http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/806982

Retailing at £17.00 softcover, £24.00 hardcover.


Back Cover reads: "Bellingham, Northumberland has been the home of livestock auctions since the 1860's. However the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001 and the subsequent livestock regulations slowly brought about the demise of Bellingham Mart. October 2004 saw the last livestock to be sold by auction in Bellingham.

This book is a photographic record of that last sale and the two sales held in 2003. A look back through history."

Flap reads: "Feet traipsed the pens and alleyways of Bellingham sales for over 100 years. The auction in it's many formats survived two world wars, afforestation throughout the Borders, the swamping of the Upper North Tyne by Kielder Reservoir and a decline in stocking rates due to Farm Stewardships.

The odds were stacking up. Throughput of stock was declining. Eventually regulations following the 2001 foot and mouth outbreak helped bring about the inevitable - 'The Last Mart'

Hexham and Northern marts reproduced the 'Bellingham' ring at their Hexham premises and life moved on.

Memories hold strong. Tales will be told for many years to come and hopefully this photographic essay will ensure Bellingham Auction mart and all it stood for will never be forgotten.

Back flap reads: Helen Brown has lived and worked near to Bellingham in the Northumberland National park for the past 27 years and is a shepherd, in recent times a contract shepherd, who carries a camera whenever she can. She managed to record the last sale at Bellingham Mart even though it is unnatural for her to point the camera at people, preferring to catch the flora and fauna that surrounds her every day life.

Helen adds:

"This wonderful collection has been three years in the making. Taking the pictures was the easy part, given the wealth of subjects available and the affinity I have with the mart, researching the history and editing them proved to be the hard part. The photos were taken because Bellingham mart has always held a place in my heart, the people and livestock, the atmosphere and the conditions made it a very special place. I hope that this affection shines through the pictures and is shared by many farmers. Uunfortunately, due partly to foot and mouth and increasing drifts of red tape the mart became unviable and we lost it.

I have tried to capture the personality of the place and show the farmers and mart workers as the characters they were. I have included everything from birds eye views of the pens to the cobwebs in the mornings covered in dew. Many people have said since they would love to have a collection of my photos, therefore I've produced this book. It is self funded, digitally printed and self published with me having purchased 250 copies"

A friend adds: "The Last Mart has been self-published by Helen Brown of Tarset, Northumberland. Helen is a shepherd and is well-known and well liked in the farming community. The Last Mart is a triumph for Helen - a busy shepherd working in remote areas at the height of the summer sheep season who uses an American company to self-publish a book, printed in the Netherlands, about the past in this corner of Northumberland."

“The Last Sheep Sale” – a new DVD Launched by
Northumberland National Park & Bellingham Heritage Centre

The poignant, last day of the North Tyne’s historic sheep mart is captured for posterity in a moving production on DVD and launched on Saturday 29 August.

“The Last Sheep Sale” retails at £12.99 from The Heritage Centre, Bellingham and
online from Northern Heritage http://www.northern-heritage.co.uk/

It was the end of an era for the hill farmers of the North Tyne and Redesdale, but fortunately the last ever sheep sale at the historic mart in the market town of Bellingham, Northumberland was captured on film for posterity for Northumberland National Park in 2004. On Saturday 29th August 2009, a new DVD using this footage becomes available to the public, with the moving last moments of an event that has taken place for hundreds, maybe a thousand years.

“The Last Sheep Sale – a local tradition gone but not forgotten” will be launched by Northumberland National Park and the Bellingham Heritage Centre at the town’s annual agricultural show next Saturday. From the same stable as “The Last Horsemen” and “The Last Fishermen”, the sensitively-produced DVD lets the voices of the community speak for themselves. They talk about the mart’s importance for the continuity of a traditional rural way of life; for the memories of generations, and above all for its vital role as a social centre for an industry that is both remote and solitary.

In its heyday, Bellingham Mart’s second lamb sale was one of, if not the largest, sale days in all of England, with lambs and sheep from this centre sold as far afield as the South Coast. The closure of the mart in 2004 was a great blow to farmers and traders across a wide area of Northumberland. It not only meant that farmers and livestock breeders have to travel further to sell their animals – to Hexham or Wooler, but the town lost a lively event that brought welcome business to local shops, cafés and bars. It was the end too of a great social gathering where people met friends from far and wide. The Bellingham Mart closed because it was affected by reduced income following the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in 2001, and the cost of complying with new government regulations was beyond its means.

Bellingham is an ancient settlement located at a key point in the great network of drove roads between Scotland and England that were once vital routes in the process of fattening and selling cattle and sheep, and it is likely that the Bellingham Mart grew out of this old cross-border trade.

Production of the DVD was made possible by sponsorship from Northumberland National Park Authority and a donation from Hexham and Northern Marts.