| A BRIEF HISTORY By
a strange quirk of fate I was born in the Cotswolds yet brought up in
the nearby Vale of Evesham. When I was fourteen years old my parents gave me my first collie, a sable and white Shetland sheepdog, called Shep. This was followed by another “sheltie” a tri coloured bitch called Jenny purchased from Miss Bushby from Upper Slaughter. Both remained in the family right up to the time I left to pursue my agricultural career abroad. Then came a period spanning the globe working with ICI agricultural division in North America, Australia and Africa and a life style that enabled me to travel through over fifty countries as a world traveller. I returned home during the late 1970’s due to my father’s poor health where I found it very difficult to adjust back to life in England again. It was in this period during a lunch break from my agricultural work, browsing through a newsagents shop in Worcester that I picked up a dog magazine where a most beautiful photograph of two rough collies standing together caught my eye. They were May Young’s champions Ugony That’s my Sheila and Ugony Fair Dinkum. On the same page there was also a picture of a lovely blue merle international champion called Incredibly Blue di Cambiano advertised by Hazel Hunt who I contacted. Hazel was instrumental in introducing me to the world of showing rough collies. Soon after I purchased two sable and white puppy bitches from May Young and a tri coloured bitch puppy from Vanessa Cronk. It was during 1986 that I first discovered Stumps Cross Cottage situated at nearly 1,000 feet above sea level and on one of the highest points of the Cotswold escarpment, nestled amongst the rolling downs and dry stone walls of the Cotswoldway. I doubt whether a more idyllic spot could be found for raising rough collies.
It was shortly after arriving at Stumps Cross Cottage with my three collies that I fell upon hard times. A brief marriage, that failed and proved very costly and poor financial advice, from a so called friend, had put me on the brink of Stumps Cross Cottage being repossessed. Whilst I did not feel the marriage was worth saving I did feel Stumps Cross Cottage was. This brought to a sudden end any ambitions I may have had of showing rough collies. My three collies together with two other collies I had from Hazel on breeding terms stayed either at my Mother’s or at Stumps Cross Cottage as pets. Besides my agricultural work I started doing bed and breakfast for groups of walkers, walking the Cotswoldway and also, mainly through word of mouth, I started boarding dogs. Within a couple of years I started to get established and after five years I was able to completely turn around my financial difficulties. This was best summed up by my bank manager at the time who told me I had dug myself out of an almighty hole. The second five years at Stumps Cross Cottage were easier with surplus profits from the bed and breakfast and dog boarding. I meticulously set about refurbishing Stumps Cross Cottage, new Cotswold slate roof, en suites in bedrooms, central heating, flooring, conservatory and even getting into antiques besides taking the opportunity to travel to far corners of the world to visit old friends from my ICI days. I doubt whether I would have got involved with showing of collies again if it had not been for an event during 1999 when Bill and Glenis Shaw contacted me to see if I was still interested because they wanted to reduce their kennel numbers for health reasons. I purchased Mindy a tri coloured Tonni Black daughter together with a blue puppy dog and a tri coloured puppy bitch. Mindy was mated to Champion Samhaven Addiction and in August 2000 Cotswoldway Crown Jewel and Cotswold Precious Jewel were born together with their litter sister Ruby Tuesday, who Bill retained. Ruby Tuesday has since returned home.
It was not until 2001, some fifteen years after the purchase of Stumps Cross Cottage, that I was finally able to campaign my first home bred litter of collie puppies. Jessie and Jewels were tremendous fun, always in the top places at most championship shows they attended. I always knew before leaving home for a show that one of them was likely to be very highly placed. It gave me such a thrill when Jewels was first undergraduate bitch at Crufts in 2002 and again in 2005 when she took the reserve ticket at Windsor championship dog show. Jessie seemed to dominate the post graduate classes at championship shows coming first at five championship shows in a row with sometimes as many as 23 collies in the class and also being placed at Crufts two years in a row. Jewels’s offspring Cotswoldway Diamond Locket was campaigned during 2006 taking two best puppy in breed awards at Richmond Championship dog show and Welsh Kennel Club Championship dog show together best puppy in show and West of England Collie Society Open Show, with firsts at Bath and Three Counties Championship shows and one of the Runners-up of the 2006 British Collie Ladypark Trophy.
2007 has been taken up campaigning, Ruby Tuesday’s daughter Cotswoldway Diamond Lil. Ruby was mated to Ingledene All That Matters (Marco). Lily has made a very promising start to her show career, winning minor puppy bitch at Three Counties Championship Show, first junior bitch at the Smooth Collie Club of Great Britain championship show and first junior bitch at the West of England championship show.
It is planned to breed from Lily during 2008.
Telephone: 01386 584362 |
