Bert Verity: No business like show business

At his first attempt at showing, the young Bert won a silver egg cup with his Plymouth Rock bantams. "It meant such a lot to me at the time," he says.

On Monday, he will be back at the scene of that triumph, Pateley Bridge, for this year's Nidderdale Show which traditionally concludes Yorkshire's agricultural show season.

Bert is from a dynasty which was already well established in this field – his great grandfather, who farmed at Ellingstring, won at Masham Show in 1803 with a Wensleydale tup and Swaledale ewe.

Bert was one of Jane and Watson Verity's eight children, but he was not the strongest in the family.

When they upped sticks for another farm, the journey was to prove something of an ordeal. They were moving a short distance from their Nidderdale farm at High Ellington to Nutwith Cote, a farmstead near Masham which had begun life as a monastic grange.

"I was a bit of a weakling as a youngster and suffered double pneumonia which nearly saw me off.

"We moved by pony and trap with all of the livestock being walked. It was only a distance of five miles but a man told my father to get a move on as the day was to worsen.

"By the time we got to Nutwith Cote everything was white over. Six inches of snow fell and it stayed for a fortnight.

"I loved Nutwith Cote. It was my heaven and I never wanted to leave.''

Bert's chosen career path was never in doubt. "My father and my uncle William kept show cattle and sheep and my father was recognised as being a top judge of both. He won with a champion group of cattle when I won with my bantam that first time. I learned a lot from him and William.

"I remember my father showing me how to lamb when I was a young boy. He told me to put on my coat and follow him. It was dark and he brought the ewes into the orchard to lamb. He said he was going to show me how a lamb was presenting wrongly, coming with its head but not with its feet. I was 10 years old at the time and for the past 87 years I haven't missed lambing time once. I have brought thousands of lambs into the world."

All these years later, Bert's love of the place where he grew up is undiminished and he retains vivid memories of it. "I used to go to watch the silent pictures for sixpence in Masham. Those were the Charlie Chaplin days."

His showing career burgeoned and brought him into contact with some of the showing world's most illustrious names, as well as perhaps the 20th century's most famous British politician. In the early 1940s, Bert served on the War Agriculture Committee and was introduced to Sir Winston Churchill at Darlington.

"He didn't mince his words. He told us, 'Gentlemen, I bring you bad news. This week has been the worst week of the war. We have lost an enormous amount of Merchant Navy shipping, but our brave airmen have just won the Battle of Britain. Hitler thought he could bomb us into submission. He has failed. Now he intends to starve us. I have travelled to see you gentlemen to ask you to produce, and do the very best you can to persuade every farmer you know to produce more and more food. I know I can rely on you.'

"And with that he walked out. I often wonder what would have happened if the Germans had realised just how near starvation we were."

Bert moved to farm at Kirkby Overblow in 1950 by which time his approach to farming was clearly laid out. "I've always been determined to produce the best stock. From being a child I was keen on sheep and I bought my first six Masham lambs for five shillings each, selling them for 50 shillings in Masham Livestock Market. I was at the first sale there in 1921 when it opened and I was there at the last sale when it closed six years ago. The directors of the market should be ashamed of themselves for allowing it to close.

"John Barr Liddle was probably the cleverest sheep man that I have known. He lived at Scaife Hall Farm, Blubberhouses after having come from Scotland with nothing. When he died, he owned 1,000 acres."

Bert still maintains a small flock of Texel sheep. But arguably it has been around the cattle sale and show rings where he has made an even bigger name. "Shows and sales have always been my days

out. I enjoy being at livestock sales when there is good stock around. In the back of my mind I have always looked out for

that winner.

"I have found it in different places and in different ways. The greatest thrill would be if I could buy one that others hadn't realised was as good. My approach was that if there was a pen of 10 and I only wanted one, I wouldn't go and ask how much for that one. I would buy all 10, then sell the others and keep the best one.

"I used to have a lot of customers who would rely on my judgment and get me to buy cattle on their behalf. I used to buy hundreds and hundreds. Another legend in the showing world was Joe Hutchinson from Derby. He was a remarkable man who won 40 cups outright and I don't quite know why but he really took to me.

"He would ring and ask whether I was going to Carlisle at the weekend. I'd say yes and he would ask me to buy some good bullocks. I'd buy 20 for him and there was never an argument between us over stock. I knew what he wanted and he had confidence in me. You have to have a lot of faith in someone to do that."

Bert exhibited at Smithfield Show for nearly 40 years and judged there in 1976. "That has to be my proudest moment. To be invited to judge at what was the greatest show in the world was a real honour. I had a lot of success at Smithfield and I would meet the Queen Mother regularly. She always asked for me." He has met other members of the Royal Family, including The Princess Royal at Malton Show.

"I judged every year at Scots Gap and Tow Law in Northumberland and County Durham. I used to go up to Reston and Perth in Scotland and I've judged as far north as Oban, as far south as Sussex and Kent, and as far west as Anglesey and right across to judge sheep in Northern Ireland. One of the most interesting trips I ever had was when I visited the Isle of Texel, a reclaimed island in the North Sea. It's 14ft below sea level off the North West coast of Holland."

Bert is also pretty much part of the fixtures and fittings at the Great Yorkshire Show and is constantly concerned with how the cattle side can be improved. "Frank Abbey, Frank Chapman and Leslie Caley were the three wise men who I believe were the most important figures for the Great Yorkshire Show. They were all around when the site at Harrogate was purchased.

"It's all to do with organisation and management. Since the Great Yorkshire Show came to Harrogate I've been to every one and it is excellently run and probably the centrepiece show in Britain. Frank Abbey came to me one year and said: 'Bert, we've a lot of empty stalls in the cattle sheds, have you any ideas what we could to fill them?' I said: 'Would you take commercial beef (non-pedigree stock)?' He said: 'Would they come?' I told him yes, as long as there was prize money. And that's how it started. There has been a commercial cattle section ever since.

"It's time the cattle buildings were looked at. They need refurbishing. It is too low at present and gets too hot inside in hot weather. I'm also getting a bit concerned with the amount of clutter there is when you walk through. There were bales of hay, straw, show boxes, settees and furniture of all description all over the place this year. It looked a mess.

"What concerned me about the judging of this year's commercial cattle was that I felt they had been judged as if they were all going to be slaughtered the next day. I felt that the judge should have been looking at their potential, their show points."

Along with the three wise men, Bert also has fond memories of another wonderful Yorkshire showman, Cliff Hopwood of Grimston, near York. "He gave so much of his time to the progress of the commercial cattle section and he was a tremendous competitor in his own right."

Bert lost his first wife, Jenny, who came from Middleham, to pneumonia. During the war he married Marjorie. "'Marjorie was a townie girl and she got me to leave Masham and come here so that she was nearer to Harrogate." They drifted apart and Bert's third wife Olive, a widow, died of cancer 20 years ago. The disease also claimed Bert's daughter Jane.

He has three sons – Peter, who is retired and lives abroad; Robert, also retired; and Mick, who still keeps some Texel sheep and continues to show stock. Mick is always on hand for Bert.

On Monday, Bert will be back where it all started for him at Pateley Bridge and at 97 he is looking forward to it. "I've had a pacemaker fitted now so I do find that I can't do everything these days, but Nidderdale Show is the most outstanding one-day show. The Nidderdale Agricultural Society has improved it considerably over the years.

"The one thing that spoils a show is if you let the horse people take command. That must never happen otherwise you end up with a horse show rather than an agricultural show.

"I may not be around for too many more years but I would like to think that agricultural shows will continue to be just that."

Personality also plays a part in a show's success, of course, and Bert still has plenty of that. "I've met so many characters during my lifetime and I believe that to be a showman you have

to be a character."

YP MAG 18/9/10