Although retired, Roy Paterson still regularly attends pedigree bull and tup sales.
During his 40-year working life with the Department of Agriculture and its successors he would buy more top bulls and rams than any other person around the ring.
He spoke to Courier Farming about what was an unusual task for a civil servant.
Q Why were you buying bulls and rams at those sales?
A It was an integral part of a Livestock Improvement Scheme aimed at upgrading cattle and sheep in the Highlands and Islands. The scheme was first started in the 1940s for a push to get more home-produced food.
In my time there was an EC-funded pilot scheme for the Western Isles, where crofters and farmers were paid a premium on home-bred improved heifers and gimmers.
This led to increased demand for bulls and rams under the schemes.
The Agricultural Development Programme was then introduced to the rest of the Scottish islands, including Orkney and Shetland, for another five years.
This increased the demand for bulls and rams from the department because the scheme involved using approved sires.
Q And it was part of your job to buy the bulls and rams?
A Yes as part of the Livestock Unit buying team.
Q When you were buying sires what did you look out for?
A The bulls had to be easily handled, correct in feet and legs and have good conformation.
Production figures were used on the terminal sire side so that crofters had good calves to sell. The maternal side was looked after by the breeds selected.
We bought as many bulls as possible in the autumn so that they were in their ‘working clothes by the spring’.
Q How many rams and bulls were involved in the scheme?
A In the early 1980s, just over 1,000 rams went out to crofts and farms every year.
But once the development programmes kicked in, this went up to 1,800 rams along with 180 bulls each year to crofting townships from Shetland to Islay.
Q Where were the bulls and rams kept when they were not out in townships?
A The department owned working stud farms around Knocknagael outside Inverness.
Q What breeds did you work with?
A In the sheep it was around 50% Blackface and 50% Cheviots.
In the ’80s Hereford bulls dominated before Simmentals were introduced and then Limousins.
By the ’90s Limousins provided the biggest number requested by the crofters, and we had about 80 at that time.
The Aberdeen-Angus beef marketing scheme helped increase demand for that breed as well.
Q Where did you buy the rams?
A Blackfaces were bought at Perth, Stirling, Lanark and Newton Stewart, and hill North Country Cheviots at Lairg and Dingwall, with South Country Cheviots at Lockerbie.
Park type NCC’s were bought at Thurso and Hawick/Kelso.
It was mostly shearlings that were bought along with privately sourced Cheviot ram lambs from breeders in the north which were then brought on at Knocknagael.
Q How many could you buy in one day?
A It all depended on demand, but at one Stirling Blackface sale I remember us buying 125 shearlings and 40 ram lambs.
Overall buying had to be within a budget.
Q How did you get into the business?
A I was born and brought up on the family farm at Little Kilry at the foot of Glenisla.
My father was a well-known producer of suckled calves for Kirrie market, and he also kept 250 Blackfaces.
I always had a soft spot for the Blackies. As a 14-year-old boy I bred a tup lamb that took second prize at the Perth sale and sold for £48.
After school in Kirriemuir I studied for a BSc in agriculture at Aberdeen, followed by a one-year diploma in farm business organisation and management.
Q You then joined the Department of Agriculture, I believe?
A I was an assistant lands officer in Stirling, where I worked for five years doing estate management including smallholdings, forestry and providing agricultural reports on proposed routes for the construction of dual-carriageways and motorways.
I was then promoted to lands officer in Shetland, where I learned about crofting and managed field work for the Crofters Commission.
Then I moved to Aberdeen, where the work included the sale of smallholdings in Aberdeenshire and Kincardine as well as reporting on the dualling of the A90 and the controversial public inquiry into the Laurencekirk bypass.
Q And then you moved into the livestock world?
A In 1982 I moved to Edinburgh to join the specialist Livestock Unit. By this time the department knew of my special interest in livestock, and the main part of my work involved inspecting and licensing bulls for AI as well as buying at the sales.
In 1992 I was promoted to principal responsible for the livestock and poultry units including the staff at Inverness and Knocknagael until 1996-97, when the schemes were transferred to the Crofters Commission.
Q The ram scheme is no more. How did that happen?
A The schemes have always been under review. In 1993-94 a survey showed that 70% of crofters’ cows were being put to department bulls but only 10% of ewes were served by department rams, so ram hire was stopped.
Sir Hector Monro was the Scottish minister in charge at that time and he still wanted a scheme to make a contribution to the sheep sector, so we introduced the Ram Purchase Scheme where shearlings were sold on at a subsidised price to townships.
Most of the stock was bought as ram lambs and brought on as shearlings at Knocknagael, with top-up numbers added at the sales. About 500 rams were provided.
After 1997 I and other department staff still helped out at the ram sales until the scheme stopped in 2003.
Bulls are still supplied under the Crofters Cattle Improvement Scheme operated by the Scottish Government, where the modernised stud now comes under control of the principal officer in Inverness.
Q You are now officially retired but you still attend the pedigree sales. Why?
A I suppose it is because I like the livestock sector and I am still ‘steeped in Blackies’.
After I retired I was brought back to draw up guidance on the purchasing and selection of bulls, and also to help with staff training.