Reindeer hire firm boss heads for Arctic Circle

George Richardson, 42, is taking his powerful Mitsubishi 4x4 and the largest towable cattle trailer he can pull and bringing back 10 females and two bulls from northern Norway to his site in the appropriately-named Cold Hesledon, County Durham.

The garden centre owner started six years ago with three reindeer and has bred a herd of 15 which are a major attraction every Christmas. He rents them out to shopping centres, fetes, Christmas tree barns, schools and museums.

Mr Richardson, who has loved reindeer since childhood, is bringing fresh stock in to improve the herd’s blood lines. He has befriended Sami reindeer herders living beyond the Arctic Circle who have herds which are kept for meat.

Mr Richardson is taking a truckers’ ferry from Immingham to Gothenburg, then up Sweden, across Finland and into northern Norway, setting out on Friday. He said the trip had taken six months planning with vets. “Father Christmas doesn’t have all this hassle,” he said.