The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Lots of memories of career in livestock auctioneering shared
ONE OF the most important parts of the Scottish livestock industry is the auction market, where pedigree men sell their stock to commercial producers and where breeders sell their store lambs and cattle to those who finish the animals.
Morton Strachan started his career in the livestock auctioneering business in 1944 and is still involved in sales today.
David Andrews caught up with him to go over the changes he has seen and share his memories. Q — How did you get started in the business? A — My father was a dairy farmer at Strathaven, with 120 acres. He and my mother milked 32 cows.
I was the youngest in their family of eight: six boys and two girls, so there was no way into farming.
Local auctioneers LS Smillie & Sons wanted to take a boy to start in the business. I was the third member of my family to join the company as two older brothers had worked for the company before moving on.
Q— So, you started at the bottom?
A— Yes. Initially it was mainly office work but it involved grading cattle. The work also included sweeping up and cleaning the market, and the pay was 15 shillings (75p) per week.
When I was 18 years old I went off to do two years’ national service, mostly in Egypt.
I came back and worked another four years with the company, but I could see I would need to move to get advancement so I joined Bosomworths in Edinburgh to get experience as an auctioneer.
Q— What was it like selling for the first time?
A — I practised in the bathroom with the mirror, but I also went to other markets and watched the auctioneers and how they worked.
It was always what I wanted to do.
Q— You then moved to Fife?
A— Yes. I saw an opportunity in Cupar for an auctioneer for the pigs. I was told I might be too young for the job but I said if I was ever going to do it I was ready now, and so I got the job.
At that time, there were lots of pigs being kept on farms and, once I had built the business up, I was selling about 400 per week.
Before the sale, I used to go around and batch them up to speed up the sale.
Q— Who were your buyers?
A — McGrouthers bacon factory in Stirling took a lot, and in those days we had a whole row of managers from the various cooperatives: Markinch, Dunfermline, Kelty and Leslie.
At that time there were still many working coal mines and they were buying pork, beef and mutton to feed the miners.
Q — Was Cupar quite a busy market then?
A — Yes, because there used to be seven auction markets in the area with two at Milnathort, two at Thornton and a very successful one in Dunfermline which mainly sold dairy cattle.
But, as they gradually closed, Cupar became busier.
The East Neuk of Fife was also well known for feeding cattle and sheep, and it was a great opportunity to get to know many of the well-known Fife farming families.
Most of them had come from the west of Scotland and they knew their stock, which they bought to eat up the by-products of crops such as sugar beet and potatoes
It was not unusual for Cupar to sell 400 head of cattle, 2,000 sheep and 400 pigs in a sale.
Q— Then you moved to Stirling?
A — I was offered the chance to sell cattle at Speedie Bros in Stirling and moved there. That was followed by the company amalgamating with Live Stock Marts and then the building of a new market at Kildean on the outskirts of Stirling.
Q — What were the highlights for you at Kildean?
A — One was definitely selling 1,000 cattle in one day. I was selling them at 150 an hour, but it was still a seven-hour stint in the rostrum and the sweat was running down my chin.
I remember that day, one buyer from Devon bought 260 of the cattle.
I also remember not being able to sleep that night as I still seemed to be selling cattle.
Q — Do you have any tales to tell from those days?
A—
One day when the bidding was slow, a bus load of Women’s Institute ladies came in to see the sale.
When one lady took out her hankie to blow her nose I took it as a bid, but when I asked for the name and address of the buyer, she bolted out the door at 100 mph.
The sale went easier after that. Q — Kildean also hosted one of the big Blackface ram sales, didn’t it?
A — Yes. When it was built it had six selling rings: one for pigs, one for sheep, one for fat cows, one for stirks, one for dairy cattle and one for calves.
They were all needed on the Blackface ram sale day when we had eight auctioneers working.
Q— Any memories from that sale?
A — One man brought some pretty ordinary tups from the north of Scotland. The first two just made £50 each. When the third came into the ring it jumped out and broke a leg and had to be destroyed.
After the sale I offered the seller £50 in compensation but he claimed it was by far the best sheep he had and it would need to be much more.
Q — While Stirling was the main base, you also sold at a number of other markets further west, didn’t you?
A— I sold at Dalmally for 40 years. It was always a very sociable sale. Along with Jimmy Weir (another auctioneer) we used to buy large numbers of cast ewes on behalf of Fife farmers to eat off the sugar beet tops.
The Blackface ram sale at Dalmally received a tremendous boost when Ian Hunter of Dalchirla took his tups to the sale. That was where he broke the breed record with a £90,000 bid.
Now that sale is getting more and more of the top men bringing their rams.
Q— And you also used to go to Tarbert.
A — There was a whole circuit of sales on the islands, and some farmers would spend a whole week going around them buying cattle.
Young farmers do not have the time to do that nowadays.
Q— You have seen a few changes then?
A — Yes. One of them is having a microphone in the rostrum. A long sale used to be sore on the voice. Nowadays if there is a bit of noise you can turn the microphone up a bit.
Q — You have also seen a few markets close. Have you any views on that?
A — I think I have seen 13 small country markets closed since I joined UA, but the fact is that everyone prefers bigger sales.
The Tarbert men closed their market but nowadays bring their stock to the Stirling Agricultural Centre because they know there will be a range of buyers.
Q — Despite being in your 80s you are still a regular at Stirling market. What do you do nowadays?
A — I help out at the bull sales. With all the senior staff busy I help out with the PR.