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First lady of the Yorkshire show ring
Bert Verity is rightly acknowledged as Yorkshire's greatest living agricultural showman – but surely Margaret Watkinson must rank as the county's greatest living showlady. She's a good 20 years his junior, so there's plenty of time for her to achieve even more.
But the array of rosettes just from last year's shows in her home at Sessay, near Thirsk, and a 100-strong flock of predominantly show sheep tells you just how seriously she takes the business even now.
Margaret started showing when she was 10 years old. A farmer's daughter from Askwith, near Otley, she showed dairy cattle.
"My father, Frank Saville, had a dairy herd and I used to show the calves. In those days most local shows had Young Farmers classes and they also had different competitions such as preparation of a heifer for showing. Two of you had to wash it, dry it and make it right for show, and you were judged on that too.
"I used to take a Friesian and a Shorthorn. When we had finished haytime my parents and I would class it as our holiday to go around all of the shows in the area. At that time there were shows at Norwood, Arthington, Weeton, Otley, Ilkley and Harewood. There are a lot of little shows that aren't around now, which is a shame."
Most in today's showing world will only associate Margaret with the showing of sheep, which is what she has concentrated on since the 1970s, but she showed cattle for some time, before moving into the world of pedigree Suffolks and Charollais.
"I moved over to Sessay in 1965 when I married Brian. We met at a Young Farmers dance in Harrogate. He was with Easingwold YFC and I was with Askwith YFC, which unfortunately closed a while ago.
"When I came here we farmed in partnership with Brian's parents and his brother and it was more arable-based, along with beef and sheep."
Margaret had a couple of years away from showing just after getting married and admits to having missed it.
"When we married my father had a sale of stock and we bought his best dairy cow as our house cow. She bred for us and we also used to buy-in heifer cows. I would rear and sell them at Otley Bridge End Market. Then we bought beef calves and sold them at Boroughbridge Mart. I used to show the in-calf heifers, but when we finally gave up with them I bought my first Suffolk sheep."
It was to be start of a sheep dynasty that saw Margaret accumulate masses of trophies and rosettes over the next 20 years, but disaster was about to strike the Watkinson household in 1997 when Brian found he had cancer.
"The doctors only gave him three years to live, but he still managed seven. We sold up the farm, on the advice of our accountant, and had to retire more or less. It was a difficult time, but Brian never once complained. He took his illness in his stride and was still cutting hedges in his beloved Fendt tractor on the day he died."
Brian had always supported Margaret's showing and wanted her to carry on with it. "He used to come with me occasionally but he was more of a mechanical man and loved his tractors and doing well in ploughing competitions."
Despite all of her efforts in the show rings around the county Margaret counts her meeting with the Queen at last year's Great Yorkshire Show as by far her most memorable experience.
"That was really the greatest thing for me. She's not very tall you know. The steward introduced me as the champion breeder in the crossbred section. She was looking hard at my home- bred gimmer lamb and I told her its progeny went on to being butchers' lambs. She just looked at me and said 'Hasn't it got a pretty face.' I wish I'd said afterwards that: 'I'm as excited meeting you Ma'am as you were when you had a winner at Ascot' – but you only think of these things a little too late don't you?"
Margaret sold her Suffolks and Charollais at dispersal sales in 1997 when the farm was sold, and has since run a mixed flock of crossbreds and pures including Mules, Mashams, Texels and Suffolk X. She believes that showing is largely down to one thing.
'The most important thing in showing is presentation. That's 99 and a half per cent of it. You have to have the right animal to start with, then feed it well and halter it, but presentation is the key. There is a tremendous lot of preparation before a show. You have to select show stock in the spring then hope that they will grow out the way you want them to.
"If the show is at the end of the week I will prepare it at the beginning of the week and then try to keep it clean during the run-up to the show.'
While Margaret feels the camaraderie at shows is wonderful she also now has a willing team of her own from Sessay.
"I do find that as I'm getting older the sheep are getting stronger. A couple came to the village from Hexham a few years ago, Alan and Helen, and they used to have a smallholding. I just happened to ask Alan whether he would help out if I ever had a difficult lambing and he's been helping me ever since.
"Another couple, Dave and Jan Robson also help, too. Dave helps prepare them, Alan helps with haltering them and Jan provides the food, so I've a right job going on. It's a delight having them all with me."
Margaret is also an in-demand stock judge and was judging at Honley Show last Saturday, but she also had to prepare for North Yorkshire County Show where she was competing the very next day. Her team once more came to the fore when needed.
"Dave fed the sheep, and also looked after my Labrador who has just had puppies. It meant I could enjoy Honley and then come back and enjoy North Yorkshire as well."
So what are Margaret's hopes for this year's show season? She has already achieved much at the Great Yorkshire and around the county after all, and will certainly be at upwards of 15 again this year.
"Well I've only competed at the North Yorkshire so far, as I was ill when Otley Show celebrated its 200th in May. We did all right. I got reserve champion in the crossbreds with a home bred ewe lamb and I picked up the local prize for a ewe and two lambs. Two firsts, a second and two thirds in all."
It looks like that rosette board is going to be full once again this year
Margaret is also a keen bowls player, playing regularly for Sessay, a keen artist painting pictures of sheep and sheepdogs, and took part in local panto productions for 30 years. But it is her showing that has rightly earned her the plaudits.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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