The Farmers Mart Oct-Nov 2019 - Issue 65 | Page 27

COLDWELL FARM 27 • OCT/NOV 2019 ‘ This past winter I started feeding fodder beet a lot sooner than normal and the result was we had some lambs at 16lbs that took some getting out. The ewes milked better for being on the fodder beet longer ’ here unless the grass is growing. I’ve started reseeding and it has made a heck of a difference with the grass growing a lot better.’ ‘We get rid of anything that is not up to scratch as store or fat lambs at Holmfirth livestock market. I look to sell somewhere between 8-10 Grits and Lonk tups each year at the breed sales that are both held in Clitheroe; and also Whitefaced Woodland tups at Holmfirth’s breed sale.’ ‘Our first show in the summer season is at Harden Moss. It’s then Great Yorkshire, Halifax and Hope with the Lonk breed show at Holme in Cliviger. That’s the one you want to win as it’s where all the top boys show.’ CHe also took reserve in the Lonk classes. At Halifax Show he had both champions in Grits and Lonk classes and reserve interbreed. Clive’s dad George was more of a sheep- dog man. Michael Hoyle & Co. Ltd - Clitheroe AGRICULTURAL MERCHANTS 01200 425 422 ‘Everyone at Michael Hoyle & Co. are pleased to be associated with Clive Mitchell of Coldwell Farm.’ CLITHEROE AUCTION MART Clitheroe, BB7 1QD ‘It’s all he had in his head. If there was a sheepdog trial it didn’t matter what was happening elsewhere, he was off to Wales, Scotland, the north of England. He was on the BBC series One an & His Dog. I keep a dog to keep my sheep in, father would keep sheep to train his dogs.’ Until his heart attack Clive had also kept Charolais cattle. ‘We had ten cows. It was a pedigree herd, but my son Joe said I should get rid of them and so they’ve gone.’ Clive married for the second time 27 years ago. He’s married to Susan. They have two children – Joe and daughter Jamie – and two grandchildren – William and Olivia. ‘William is 11 and he’s farming mad. He has his own Herdwick sheep.’ Clive is also renowned for his singing and auctioneering prowess at the Pennine Foxhounds gatherings, weddings and harvest festivals, but it is his sheep under the Coldwell prefix that take centre stage most of the time. He recalls some entertaining moments from show days over the years and travel- ling with his sheep. ‘This year’s Great Yorkshire Show results were one of the tops for me but I remem- ber winning with a Gritstone years ago and my mate Ewan Brown, now sadly no longer with us, who used to like celebrating. The night we won he took the tup out on a halter around the showground leading him about like an old dog. He came back about three hours alter as drunk as a monkey with the tup walking behind him, but without its halter on. It had followed him everywhere.’ ‘I had an old Land Rover with a canvas roof and when I went to any shows all the sheep would normally ride in the trailer, but I used to let down the back of the Land Rover and the same tup would stand in there with his head over my shoulder.’