Warm welcome for Percy

It is time to start planning for next year’s lambs and ensuring that the rams, who have spent a lovely summer chilling out eating grass and enjoying the sunshine, are in top condition. It is also the time of year when a lot of ram swapping and selling goes on, as breeders seek to introduce new bloodlines into their flocks.

There was much excitement in our house last weekend as we awaited the result of an auction in York where a good farmer friend (a fine judge of sheep and chair of the Northants Rare Breeds Survival Trust group) of ours was looking for a new tup for our Ryeland flock.

My mobile was red hot as calls went to-and-fro during the auction – and it was a great relief when I got the news that our favoured animal had been secured, and for a bargain price too.

If you have never been to a livestock auction it is worth going even if you don’t intend to buy anything. The sights and sounds make for great entertainment.

The ram – Ruslin Persil White or Percy for short – is two-years-old and comes originally from an award-winning Ryeland breeder. According to his pedigree certificate he also has some Australian blood in his veins.

Percy is a handsome chap and I am really looking forward to seeing the results of his labours next spring. However, after a wet week in our field, he is not quite so Persil White any more.

He also has yet to be introduced properly to our coloured ram, Valentine, although they have met through the fence. As they will have to live together for part of the year I am hoping a pecking order will be established swiftly without too much head-butting.

Ram sales are still a highlight of the farming year – and Oxford used to host one of the largest.

The Oxford Ram Fair is a vanished feature of Oxford life according to Oxford historian Malcolm Graham. He told me that, according to the Victoria History of the County of Oxford, vol. 4, a ram fair was first recorded in august, 1902, and held in St Thomas’s parish. But, in 1927, when around 7,000 sheep were sold at the fair, the event was said to have been established 40 years previously.

In 1918, the fair attracted around 600 Oxford and Hampshire Down rams as well as nearly 3,000 ewes, theaves (first year ewe lambs if you have been paying attention) and store lambs.

The event was originally held in the Oxpens, but, as that area was developed between the wars, the fair was moved to a field north of the bridge over the Bulstake Stream in Binsey Lane.

When Malcolm interviewed the late Charles Gee, of Binsey Manor Farm, in 1998, he said the fair continued to be held annually in Binsey until the early 1960s.

You can find some fascinating film footage of the event from the 1930s on the British Pathé website (www.britishpathe.com). It is a fine reminder of Oxford’s agricultural heritage.