If anyone can be said to have a strong farming pedigree, it would be John McCulloch from Crocketford.
The 23-year-old stockman at Auchengibbert has worked with and presented some of the finest cattle in Scotland, as man and boy.
He arrived in Galloway from Perthshire in 2017 after his mother Maureen and father George, also a great stockman, moved south from Perthshire to Yorkshire for work.
John, I suggest to him, has a surname far more strongly associated with the south west than the foothills of the Highlands.
So it’s not exactly a surprise when he tells me that George hailed from South Ayrshire – while his mother came from Stranraer.
“My dad is originally from Barrhill – my papa John McCulloch and his family came from there,” John says.
“My nana Agnes McCulloch was originally a Welsh from Barholm Mains near Creetown, which was a family well-known for sheepdog trialling.
“The family moved from Barrhill to Hollybush in Ayrshire in 1963 and then in 1975 moved to Stirling, where my papa was head yardsman Caledonian Marts until his retirement in 2001.
“My nana Agnes also worked at Caledonian Marts – she had the franchise for the market cafe with which my mum, then Maureen Farroll, helped her.
“That’s where my mum and dad met, probably over a bacon roll!
“On my mother’s side, my granny Margaret Farroll is 86 and still has a small flock of sheep at Leswalt just outside Stranraer, which she lambs and works with mostly herself.
“When I was wee I used to go for two weeks at Easter and help her with the lambing.
“My grampa Ian was a cattle dealer and my gran used to help him with the cattle and sheep.
“My mum used to drive his lorry with cattle to the various markets, so it was a family affair!”
John, it turns out, has won more than 60 young handlers competitions across the country, including Reserve Champion Beef Young Handler at the Royal Highland Show in 2012 – the very first year competition was held.
Aged 15, he came second in the Scottish Association of Young Farmers Clubs’ Junior Stockjudging at the Royal Highland, was Champion Beef Young Handler at the Great Yorkshire Show and was National Young Stockperson of the Year at the Royal Smithfield Festival in Peterborough.
Listening to John, it’s clear that working with cattle is in his blood and he takes great pride in how his father, from humble beginnings, became one of the best stockmen in Scotland.
“To begin with my dad was driving a lorry for Macmin delivering feed to farms.
“Then after my parents were married he started working for the MacGregor family at Allanfauld at Kilsyth, below the Campsies.
“He was the stockman and looked after pedigree Charolais cattle.
“He showed them and in 2005 won reserve champion in the Charolais section at the Royal Highland Show with a Charolais bull called Harestone Tadorne.
“My lasting memory of that show was walking out behind the bull into the parade with my mum.
“I was only four or five and I remember it was pouring.
“My dad’s friend, Danny Wyllie, pulled me aside and took me upstairs into a viewing gallery so I could watch the parade – while my mum and dad got soaked”
“That’s where it all started for me – I was always going about the farm and that’s where my interest was sparked.”
Success at shows, John explains, was no guarantee of continued employment and the McCullochs were hit with a jolt in 2006, when John was six.
“My dad got made redundant and we moved to the Stirling area to work for the Dicks and at the Throsk,” he recalls.
“He looked after a herd of Limousin cattle – we were there two years but things didn’t quite work out and we moved again to north of Dunblane to work for a guy called Murray Lyle, a farmer politician who ended up as provost of Perth and Kinross Council.
“I would be eight or nine when we went to Mid Cambushinnie.
“This time dad was stockman for a herd of pedigree Charolais cattle and that was the first time I was able to get involved with the cattle and help get them ready for shows.
“I would help dad after school with washing the cattle and halter breaking calves so they would be used to being on the halter and behave reasonably well in the ring.
“I started doing young handler competitions at local shows, the first being at Stirling when I was only five or six.
“Mum was secretary of Stirling Show for over 10 years and we used to show at Dryman and Braco shows as well.”
By that time, John tells me, he was old enough to begin to know what Scotland’s agricultural showpiece, The Royal Highland Show, was all about.
“Mum, dad and I would take the caravan down and stay for a week on the showground so we could be close by the cattle,” he says, smiling at the memory.
“I have always been fairly confident around cattle and was always happy to go and work with them.
“There’s a big satisfaction in knowing that when you have an animal that does not want to walk on the halter, if you persevere, you can go to a show and do well with it.
“But what people don’t see is the hours and days of work that goes on behind the scene before cattle can be led safely round the show ring.
“As I got older I helped my dad a lot. But in 2011 he got made redundant, which was a bit of a shock because everything was going so well.
“One minute you are showing cattle then all of a sudden, from being quite settled, your dad has to find another job.”
John was preparing to enter secondary school but his father’s new work wasn’t too far away, Blackford in Perthshire, which meant that John was still within the catchment for Crieff High.
“Luckily there was an estate, Blackford Farms, looking for a stockman,” John recalls.
“I was right at the point of finishing at Braco Primary School and because it was only two or three miles away it meant I could still go to Crieff, where a lot of my pals were going.”
“It was not until dad went to Blackford Farms that we got involved in shorthorns.
“Up until then it had just been Limousins and Charolais.
“Dad had a lot of success withe the shorthorns and won the Shorthorn National Show at the Great Yorkshire Show at Harrogate in 2015.
“We had one of the finest shorthorn herds in Scotland.
“Dad put a lot of work into genetics to get the best blood lines.
Don’t miss part two of John’s story in next week’s Galloway News.
