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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 at Upper Slaughter. They remained in the family as loyal and affectionate pets right up to the time I left to pursue my agricultural career overseas with ICI. Working with ICI the world soon became my oyster for beside holding down three responsible positions with them in North America, Australia and Africa, it enabled me to travel through over 50 countries as a world traveller. A most wonderful chapter in my life. 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. Initially I lived in Worcester before I found a 17C cottage in the picturesque Cotswold village of Blockley. It was here that I made my first real step to settling back in England again by purchasing two Rough Collie pups from May Young after seeing a most beautiful photograph of her two Champions,That's my Sheila and Fair Dinkum in a dog magazine one day, quite by chance. Soon after I met Hazel Hunt who was instrumental in introducing me to the world of showing collies. With the advent of more collies arriving at my tiny cottage for showing purposes it became evident that I would have to find somewhere more suitable. It was in September 1986 that I found Stumps Cross Cottage. Situated at over 900 feet above sea level on one of the highest points of the Cotswold escarpment,with the Cotswold Way footpath just a few yards from my front door.. This situation has enabled me to ensure that all my collies get plenty of exercise - usually between 4 to 5 miles each day.
In March 1987 the Kennel Club granted my request for the use of Cotswoldway as my affix. The recession of the early 1990's hit me very hard. Besides a brief marriage, that did not work out and proved very costly;poor financial advice relating to the purchase of Stumps Cross Cottage had also put my finances in a very serious state. All showing activities had to be suspended. The two collies I purchased from May Young together with the two I had from Hazel Hunt stayed either at Stumps Cross or at my Mother's property as pets so I could address my financial difficulties that were far more pressing if I wanted to remain where I was. Whilst I received help through my agricultural position in getting my mortgage payments back up to date this was not nearly enough as I had large borrowings with the bank. To address this I started taking in walkers for Bed & Breakfast. A simple sign outside my property started it all off. After my first season word got around and it went from strength to strength. I also started Boarding dogs, offering home comfort boarding and walking them twice daily on the Cotswold Way. This also proved to be very successful as I had discovered a niche market....all done by word of mouth. By the mid 1990's I had cleared off all my debts with the bank and through the healthy income I had generated at home I was able to undertake major improvements to Stumps Cross Cottage that has transformed it into the very fine Cotswold property it is today. Whilst at times it all became very challenging keeping my agricultural position going, cooking for up to 8 walkers a night and walking up to 15 boarders twice daily. But all my hard work paid off. I may not have ever bothered about showing collies again until one day during 1999 fate palyed a hand when Bill Shaw of Troydon Collies rang me to see if I was still interested as through health problems they were cutting back. I purchased 'Mindy', a Tonni Black daughter, together with two puppies from Bill & Glenis. Mindy was mated to Ch Samhaven Addiction JW and produced three lovely bitch puppies, Jewels [Crown Jewel] Jessie [Precious Jewel] and Ruby [Ruby Tuesday]. Bill & Glenis kept Ruby but she has since returned home.
So it came to be some 15 years later than I had first envisaged that Cotswoldway Collies finally got off the ground with my very first home-bred litter to campaignh around the shows. What a wait!!! Jewels and Jessie were tremendous fun. Always in the top places at most shows entered and they had plenty of admirers. Jewels winning her class at Crufts in 2002 and a Reserve Ticket at Windsor in 2005. Jessie, on one occasion winning post graduate classes at championship shows five times in a row sometimes with as many as over 20 collies in a class.
Jewels was mated to Emryks Look Again and her daughter Cotswoldway Diamond Locket won 2 Best Puppy in Breed awards during 2006 at WKC and Richmond Championship Show, BPIS at the WECS Open show also in 2006 together with 1st at Three Counties and Bath Ch. Shows and was one of the runners up in the Ladypark Trophy all in the same year. However, it is probably Ruby who has inherited the better breeding potential out of the three sisters from her mother in producing Cotswoldway Diamond Lil [Lily]. This
mating to Champion Ingledene All That Matters has, we believe, produced
our finest collie to date.
I realise that Cotswoldway Collies' achievements to date have been pretty tame. For so many years fiinancial security has had to be put first; there was no choice. At heart I am very much a Cotswold man and I would not have liked to have lost Stumps Cross Cottage. However, things are changing. We are now finally starting to put things together with the collies and with my agricultural career now finally drawing to a close it will allow more time for us to focus on raising Rough Collies here in the Cotswolds to establish their show potential/
David Abbott Telephone: 01386 584362 |
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