You will all have your own personal memories of John Randall. However I would like to remind you of the man I first met 35 years ago and whom I had the pleasure of meeting many times thereafter. John was of slight build and stood ramrod straight. He had the weather wom face and the fiat tweed cap of a countryman. He would be wearing a collar and tie under his well brushed tweed ratcatcher jacket. Below this he would wear breeches, leather gaiters and boots. What struck one most was the quizzical twinkle in his eyes and the amazing high polish on his brown gaiters and boots. John would be about to get into his white van which was not as well polished as his boots and gaiters. This contained all that he needed for his joumey whether it was to London, to judge at a show, visit a market, give advice or any of the thousand and one other matters associated with sheep or heavy horses. John was generous with his time and enjoyed talking and explaining his twin loves of heavy horses and sheep to anybody, ensuring that his expertise was passed on. This was the same approach he used whether he was talking to the Queen, Prince Philip, the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, The Chairman of Youngs Brewery or the Colonel of the Dorset Yeomanry. He would always talk to the young be they at the ring side of a show, the village fete or when he ran his legendry lamb roast barbeque. All his friends needed his advice which he so freely gave. He was at peace with the world, not afraid to express his opinion and very willing to listen to yours and then tell you that you were wrong. So with the help of Dorothy, Carol and Russell who wrote most of what I will read I will try and explain to you how John became the great shepherd he was. John was bom at Beckington, a village to the North of Frome, in Somerset. His father Richard was a carpenter, wheelright and undertaker, his mother Martha a cheesemaker. He was educated at Beckington Primary and then at Frome Grammar School where he excelled at cricket and kept wicket for both the school and village teams. He and his elder brother Stewart had a true rural upbringing with all that included in those days and John was quite inventive. At an early age John showed a keen interest in farming, working holidays and week ends for Russell Frankes a local dairy farmer. He left school at 15 and moved to Salway Ash to be with his Uncle Bert and Aunt Rose who had Cursey Farm. This was where John’s passion for sheep started. A neighbour, Percy Warren, had a flock of Dorset Homs. It was here too that John met Dorothy and romance blossomed. John had saved his pennies and had a car but, so that he could take Dorothy out, he need extra cash and this came from rabbiting at which, as with so many other things, he was a dab hand with purse and long nets as well as his trusty 12 bore and not forgetting Fido bred by Mr Coombes here in Litton. No rabbit was safe. One Boxing Day he and a mate went to Colmers Hill and after 52 shots between them retumed with 53 rabbits. The dog caught one. Time went by and in 1951 John and Dorothy were married at Netherbury Church and the following year David arrived followed three years later by Russell At this time John’s love of sheep expanded and his shepherding career took off. After various jobs he went to work for Charles Borough at Manor Farm, Halse near Bishops Lydeard once again in Somerset. Dorset Downs of course and all went well until the bitter winter of 1963 when he left after a disagreement as to whether the sheep or the cows should have the best food. John then retumed to Dorset as Head Shepherd to Bill Hooper at Winfrith Newburgh where the sheep did take priority over most other things. John wanted to further his career and took a job managing a mixed farm, sheep, beef and corn, in East Sussex but the sheep were Romneys. Then back to Dorset as shepherd for Rex Loveless at Piddlehinton and so onto the Dorset College of Agriculture at Kingston Maurward which he described as quite an eye opener more so for the lecturers and students than for John. After the DCA sold their sheep flock John temporarily changed tack and looked after a show team of Shire Horses, his other great passion, breeding, breaking and showing the horses and very narrowly missing out on qualifying for the Horse of the Year Show at Olympia in London a couple of times. In 1982 John moved to Litton and back to his fïrst love sheep. This time he worked for himself contract sheering, trimming and whatever else he was called to do. About a year after his move, whilst in deep conversation with Walt Borough, he said that it would take 5 years to start a flock and breed a champion. So the gauntlet was down, John bought 5 ewes, rented a few acres and started the Bride Valley flock of pedigree Dorset Down Sheep and, during the fifth year, a Championship Prize was won. From then on the flock grew and Champions were bred and very high prices paid when these animais were sold. By this time grandchildren were on the scene and all were roped in to help whether they wanted to or not. Stephen, more commonly known as Nipper, was a little different. He was always ready to go especially when he was big enough to open gates and fetch and carry. Of course the bag of sweets in the van always helped. John and his mate would go off to do the sheep and retum when it suited them. One moming Carol told John that Nipper had to properly exercise his dog, a black and white Border Collie of course, whilst they were out. When they retumed Carol asked John if they had exercised the dog. Oh yes said John followed by a big grin. It tumed out that Nipper sat in the back of the van with a piece of rope as a lead, so with the back doors open and John driving the dog ran behind. This tumed into a regular event. John carried on shepherding for many years and eventually gave up in 2003 but he did not lose his love and enthusiasm for sheep. He did not give in. He carried on with the Dorset Downs Sheep Breeders Association, helping to organize the annual breed show and as a committee member until 2015. The telephone was his lifeline with people ringing for a chat or advice. Over the years John achieved many things of which he was proud. He met most of the Royal Family. He was presented to the Queen. He met the Duke of Edinburgh and The Prince of Wales many times. He served on the Royal Smithfield Show Committee with the Princess Royal as President. He was on very good ternis with Lady Aldington and acquainted with Lord Whitelaw selling him many a ram. John had a long association with Young’s Brewery in Wandsworth because, of course, their mascot was a Dorset Hom Ram called Ramrod who had to be trimmed several times a year to keep him looking good. This meant regular visits to the Brewery and these always ended in the Sample Room. At Christmas he would take a ewe and lambs to the Brewery for their Christmas crib which raised money for the local children’s home. Again a visit to the Sample Room and a good sélection of beer for the retum joumey. John also had a fine relationship with the Dorset Yeomanry who are now the Wessex Rifles. Their mascot was also a Dorset Hom Ram which meant visits to Bovington Camp and of course a detour on the way home via the Officer’s Mess. John served on various judging panels and judged at many of the major and minor shows both as a breed and an interbreed judge. Dorset Down Sheep were his overriding passion and over the years he won countless prizes, Many many Champions, Supreme Champions and Interbreed Champions. John wrote two books and made a video on how to show sheep and how to trim their feet. He appeared on télévision including with Chris Evans on Zig and Zag. As well as his love of sheep in general, and Dorset Downs especially, John will be remembered for the help and advice he gave to many to help them on their way in the sheep world, and of course his britches and highly polished boots and leggings lovingly prepared for him by Dorothy. Finally John enjoyed an ample dram whenever the occasion arose. Thank you John for enriching all our lives.

Hugh and Gareth

‘My father’s family had a business at Beckington, near Frome, where they were carpenters/joiners and wheelwrights. After he’d left Frome Grammar School, father came to Salwayash to stay with his uncle who ran Lower Kershay Farm, which is where he met Mother. At that time Father’s passion for sheep was inspired by neighbouring farmer Percy Warren who kept Dorset Horns. The business at Beckington has been going for generations; Father’s mother was a cheesemaker and farmed in her own right, as were his aunts. There are two trades in our family: carpenters/wheelwrights/undertakers, which often went hand in hand, and farming. Father’s uncle, who he worked with, was actually born here in our house in Litton Cheney, where his father rented land locally for dairying. And I’ve got an older brother, who followed in Father’s footsteps and went shepherding. As soon as I was able to carry half a bale of hay I had to go and help Father feed sheep. All his life, the topic of conversation with him was either sheep, heavy horses or farming, in that order. At 13 I was driving tractors, haymaking and harvesting, and helping with sheep work. Father’s work took him all round Dorset, and beyond. He worked for Charlie Borough’s at Halse in Somerset, then for Bill Hooper at Winfrith Newburgh, with Pedigree Dorset Downs. He went to Sussex looking after Kent Romney ewes, then to Rex Loveless’s at Piddlehinton with Dorset Downs again, then to Kingston Maurward to work with the college’s Dorset Horn flock, until they were sold. That was an old flock, a good one, and when Father was showing them he was giving Fooks’s at Powerstock, famous Dorset Horn breeders, a run for their money and occasionally beating them. He was a familiar sight at agricultural shows and markets, probably known to most Dorset farmers at the time in his flat cap, collar and tie, britches and highly polished brown leather gaiters. He had met members of the Royal Family, including HRH the Queen, the Chairman of Youngs Brewery and the Colonel of the Dorset Yeomanry, all of whom he advised about sheep, and would generally listen carefully to what you had to say about a farming matter before politely telling you how you were wrong. In 1982 after being made redundant from Kingston Maurward, he had the chance to rent a bit of ground in Litton Cheney, so we moved back here and he started his own small flock of Dorset Downs. I went in the other family trade direction and have been a carpenter joiner all my life, and we do some wheelwrighting. From a young age I wanted to be a carpenter. With a piece of wood, a hammer and some nails, I was happy. After I left school I got a job in Dorchester with an old building firm called CE Slade’s, based down in Millers Close. That was in the days when there were some decent building firms in Dorchester, like Cake’s, Ricardo’s, Angell’s, all very good builders with their own joinery shops. I started in 1970 with Slade’s and soon got into the joinery side of it. I did my apprenticeship there, stayed on a few years, and left in 1978. I’d got married in ’77, like Father to a young lady from Salwayash, Carol, and then went to work for CG Fry’s down the road here in Litton Cheney. I was foreman joiner for them for about 8 years, then left and started on my own in 1986. Father could always remember his father making wheels, and his brother who was older was involved, but basically the war killed the trade. That was because there were so many rubber-tyred wheels left over from the military which could be reused, tractors were becoming much more common, and when the wooden wheels on the old wagons got shaky they didn’t get replaced. I got interested in making wheels probably 40-odd years ago, and today we both repair old wheels and make new ones. There are still enough old farm wagons in preservation, horse-drawn traps, hand carts, trolleys, etc to provide us with an interesting sideline. To make a new wheel, you start by turning out the hub on the lathe, and that’s always English elm. Then you set out the spokes, always an even number, and fit the iron stock hoops to the hub and drive them on tight. Having morticed the hub for the spokes, you then make them out of English oak, shape them, and fit them by driving them really tight into the hub mortices. There’s never any glue involved. Next job is to cut the felloes (pronounced fellies) out, always English ash. These are the curved sections of the wheel rim, each one joined to the next one with a dowel. The different timber species are used for good reason; the elm is tough and stringy, resistant to splitting even though much of the hub has been removed to take the spokes. Oak is strong, to resist the impact of the weight on the wheel riding over bumps, all of which is on one spoke as it reaches the lowest point of the rotation; and ash is springy, to absorb the weight as the wheel turns. Each of the spokes is cut to length with a “tang” or round tenon on the end, and fitted to holes drilled into the felloes, two to a felloe. There has to be a small gap between the felloes, and in the length of the spokes, so that when the hot bond, or iron tyre, is fitted, the gaps will squeeze up tight as it cools and contracts with enormous force. We do all that ourselves, building a fire round the bond to heat it up before fitting. On the joinery side, we’ve done some interesting projects. We built a complete horse-drawn hearse once, for Mac Kingman in Weymouth, which he used regularly for many years. There’ve been a few canopies for steam engines, too, and repairs to thrashing machines, including a total rebuild of one, and wooden parts for old farm machines like binders, and years ago a lot of con-rods for the old finger-bar mowers, for Lott and Walne in Dorchester. If it wasn’t for fools like us, and the fools who still have these old machines, it’d all be gone for ever, and it’s part of our heritage; most of the modern machines have simply evolved from these old designs. We’ve also made big Georgian staircases with endless strings, or handrails, which curve in different directions, the last one in Winterborne Keynstone, and spiral staircases too. A helical staircase in a round building was an interesting project once. Our business is very traditional, and that’s because I’m a bit old fashioned about the way building is done today. Everything has to be done in such a tearing hurry, using products which enable things to be built quickly, as a result of which it often doesn’t last very long. I was taught by some very skilled tradesmen, the sort of people who are hard to find any more, when things were made in tried and tested ways, which for many years had stood the test of time. I still work on those lines, which sometimes leads to arguments with clients and architects, and occasionally I will refuse to price a job if they insist on building something in a way I know won’t last. Traditional ways of building and joinery are done for good reasons, and Chris and I take great pride in what we do. That extends to the tools we use, still sharpening our own saws rather than buying another one with a plastic handle as most carpenters do. Carol and I have 3 boys, and Christopher decided just before he left school he wanted to follow me in my work, the 6th generation in our family to take up the trade. It was difficult to find a good apprenticeship place for him, so at the time slightly against my better judgement he came to work with me, and has been here ever since. He’s the same as me, in that the work’s got to be right. Nothing leaves the workshop until we’re happy with it, even if we have to spend another day on it.’