Meet the couple living the Highland life on their Yorkshire farm
Living his farming and showing dream through Highland cattle is clearly evident when you meet an effervescent David Booth who, together with his wife Nancy, were showing at the Great Yorkshire Show for only their second time earlier this month.
David’s background is littered with agricultural involvement, but he’d never kept nor bred his own livestock until Nancy mentioned having a Highland cow and whether their neighbouring farmer would let them keep one on his farmland.
“I’m from Rotherham and my family didn’t have a farming background at all, unless you go back several generations,” says David. “My father kept horses. I plucked turkeys years ago as a lad and worked as a farm labourer.
“I went to Askham Bryan College after working on a pedigree Friesian dairy farm in Wentworth. That farmer knew about farming, but back then he had no parlour and we milked on old pipelines. It was a mixed farm. He fattened bull calves, had laying hens and a few sows.
Tractor driving on building sites followed as the money was better before David found a career in calling on farms to sell the spreading of sewage on land as fertiliser and then moved on to French fertiliser company, Timac and ICI as a seedsman, selling grass seed in South Yorkshire before his gardening and landscaping career took over which saw him travel all over America and Europe working on massive projects.
“I’m still doing some of that today,” says David. “But it was Nancy who got us started with the Highlands.
“We both love Scotland and animals and one day, in 2011, when we were there watching these wonderful Highlanders Nancy said ‘How much do you think Kev would charge us to have a Highland cow on his land?’”
This was all the encouragement David needed.
“We live in an old tied-cottage on Red House Farm in Scholes Village, near Wentworth. Kev is dairy farmer Kevin Tinker who I’ve always helped out by going out to feed his cattle. Kev said, ‘I won’t charge you owt Dave’. Next day he phoned me and said you can’t have one, you need two.
“One thing led to another and we all went to see well-known Yorkshire Highlanders Fold breeder Keith Gascoigne at Flockton. Kevin came to make sure they both had four legs, and we bought two cows. We’ve blossomed from there.
“But we didn’t start showing until 2017. Nancy and I immediately enjoyed it then Covid came along and spoilt everything. So, we are still really in our early days of showing what is now The Scholes Fold.
“We’ve 23 Highlands, with six breeding cows and then all followers. We’ve had numerous bulls.
“Keith took a really nice bull to Nidderdale Show that we really liked and we bought him. He’s Rory of Balmoral. It’s great when you look at his passport and you see he is bred by HM The Queen.
“He's a beauty and a big lad. We’ve nearly finished with him. All his daughters that are here are a real credit to him. I’ve bought a new bull that I’m now not sure about, so we might keep Rory for another year.
“He’s not been off-farm while with us, so we might take him to a show this year. We might take him to Emley Show next Saturday (August 3). We’ve had a few champions at shows around here, like Emley and Honley, and for the last two years we’ve had best cow at Kilnsey and reserve at Malham.”
David says he’s pretty competitive in the sense that he always wants to win, but he’s also realistic about his lack of experience and smiles at his own failings.
“Nancy will tell you. I’m sometimes shocking if I don’t win. We didn’t do quite as well at the Great Yorkshire Show this year as we did last year, when we got a fourth place with a bull I sold to Mainsgill Farm, but we did get one placed again, taking fifth in the pairs out of 15 in the class with our two red two-year old heifers.
"We’re just beginners and have probably started too late really, but if I can get another 10 years doing it, I’ll be made up.
“Selling a bull to Mainsgill from having shown at Harrogate was an over the moon feeling and we just sold another to them at this year’s show.”
David has continued investing in his breeding stock too. He’s enjoying the cut and thrust of the buying and selling world.
“We bought this cow Sidonia VII of Balnobriach. She had been Reserve Champion at Oban, but we weren’t there at the sale and I thought I’d missed out.
“I shoot on a big estate in Scotland and Alex the head stockman had shown me two cows he was taking to Oban, one of which was Sidonia. I’d liked her then and he had said I could have her there and then for £2500. I’d said that she was too much for me, only a poor gardener. We didn’t go to Oban that year, as I was working elsewhere.
“She made something between 3000-4000 guineas, but later my phone went and it was Alex again saying the buyer had reneged on the bid and he asked if I was still interested and that I could have her at the reserve price.
“I rang the boss (Nancy) up and got permission from her, but even then we didn’t see her here until September as Covid started, but since then we’ve won all sorts with her. She’s been brilliant, but she has an attitude!”
The Highland sale at Oban is now one of David’s favourite events and he has been a steward at the last two sales.
“This time I bought a young yearling bull from Oban, it’s the one I’m still a little unsure of at present. He comes from a fold near Loch Lomond. We’ve just put him in a field with two bulls we have bred. We’ll see how he goes.
“The first heifer I ever bought at Oban was also from the Balnobriach Fold, which is between Pitlochry and Blairgowrie. When I took a look at her in the field, months before the Oban sale, I’d told Alex I liked her, but at the time he’d said she was not for sale, so I know what I’m looking at.
“When we went to Oban for the first time Alex walked into the ring with her, and by then she was twice the size I had seen her, she was halter trained, and I only paid £200 more than he’d wanted in the field seven months back.”
David and Nancy are enjoying their breeding and showing.
“We enjoy trying to find homes for surplus heifers and we have sold bulls off for breeding. The shows are great because it gets our Scholes Fold out there.”