When it comes to farming families, their histories can span back centuries. Here, Ewan Pate speaks to three brothers who are all in their 70s and show no signs of stopping.
Few families can have served the agricultural community as well, or over such a long period, as the Campbell brothers from Aberfeldy in Highland Perthshire.
Tommy, 79, Hamish, 75, and Kenny, 73, have accumulated 172 years of work between them, on only four farms. That is not, however, a final tally, because Tommy still works part-time at Ballechin where he has been employed for 52 years.
It is a remarkable record of service to agriculture from three men whose family history in the Aberfeldy area can be traced back into the mists of time.
Campbell is the clan name for the fiefdom of the Marquess of Breadalbane whose base was at Taymouth Castle just west of Aberfeldy. The Campbell brothers family folklore recalls a forbear losing a tenancy of a farm because he failed to attend the church prescribed by the Marquess of the time. A chance meeting with the Marquess who claimed not to know of the eviction, did, however, result in the family being granted the next tenancy which became available.
Tommy, Hamish, Kenny and their sisters Violet and Evelyn were brought up at Croftness Farm on the Moness Estate just south of Aberfeldy. Following his marriage their father had moved from a job at Ballechin to help his two aunts who, as tenants at Croftness, were continuing a series of leases which had lasted seven generations and date back to 1811.
It was here in their youth that the Campbell brothers honed their farming skills and developed their undoubted work ethic. Apart from the farm chores such as feeding hens and collecting eggs, the brothers recall potato gathering. There was also grouse beating work to be had in Glen Lyon for the princely sum of 1.25 per day.
Memories
The abiding memory from that is spending the days with wellies full of water after battling through knee-high heather.
Tommy says: We never shied from work. It just came as second nature."
The family, says Kenny, were very religious and strong churchgoers.
Our great aunts were Congregationalists, he says.
I remember once we were all putting up hay beside the road and the minister stopped to speak. He thought he should show willing and help us out, but my sister Evelyn who was only five or six and working with a specially shortened fork, was not long in telling him in no uncertain terms to get out of her way when she was working.
The family went on to pick up the tractor driving and livestock skills which were to serve them and their employers so well in later years. The brothers great aunts both died, and the 99-year lease came to an end around the same time, bringing a long tenure to an end.
Tommy worked at Croftness for 12 years in total before moving further down the Tay Valley to work for the Honeyman family at Ballechin where, after 52 years, he still helps present owner Ian Michie and his son Fraser.
During his time working for Ms Elizabeth Honeyman at Ballechin it was home to one of the top Aberdeen-Angus herds in the country. In 1965 she famously sold the bull Erisco of Ballechin for 40,000gns. Tommy was, however, mostly involved with tractor work and is still doing most of the ploughing on the farm.
Tommy says: When I first went there, I had to teach myself to drive the combine, but I got on fine with it. I just had to."
Hamishs working life has all been spent with the McDiarmid family at Mains of Murthly, just above Aberfeldy and at Castle Menzies a little further up the Tay valley. These are more diversified farms with livestock, soft fruit, seed potatoes and cereals, and Hamish worked seamlessly between the enterprises including looking after a high health elite pig breeding unit at Mains of Murthly. Senior partner John McDiarmid still has a note of Hamishs first wage packet. In January 1964, Hamish was paid 5/6/6 (5.32), not per hour but per week.
Hamish was, however, well paid compared to his younger brother Kennys first employment as an agricultural trainee at Frenchton Farm, Logiealmond.
Kenny says: My first weeks wage was 2 paid in two new Clydesdale Bank notes. I still have one of them. I also still have a ten shilling note which Tommy sent me with a note telling me to try and not spend it all on fags.
Hamish, who years later happened to be stone separating land for potatoes at Frenchton, ruefully remembers an unrolled and half buried sheep net wrapping itself tightly round the webs of the machine. He still suspects Kenny of abandoning the net, a claim which Kenny hotly denies.
Pride
To hear the three brothers swapping these old stories in the warmth of the tasting room at Aberfeldy Distillery on a wet winters day is somewhat a real privilege. Even the venue brought back memories. All three over the years have often been sent to collect trailer loads of draff to take home as cattle feed. Kenny, who went on to work with David Buttercase at Lurgan, only half a mile from the distillery recalls being called late at night to go down with his boss to collect draff in an emergency because some plant had broken down.
The distillery managers were so grateful that the pair were rewarded more than amply with liquid refreshment straight from the still.There is pride too in the distillery itself, and the fact the Dewar family who founded it and went on to build a whisky empire were originally from Aberfeldy.
Kenny stayed at Lurgan until the Buttercase family sold the farm and then he moved down to near Perth to join Alistair Ritchie at Huntingtower and Bertha as a tractor man.
As the brothers settled into these long-term employments so their experience grew. Asked if it had been difficult to keep up with the speed of change, they all agreed that it had been a gradual process and that they have simply adapted to new technology as it came along. The greatest benefit had come from the improvement in tractor cabs from the rattly sheet steel or wooden cabs of their earliest days to the quietness and warmth of a modern safety cab.
An interest in ploughing has been a constant thread and marked by a unique achievement. Over three consecutive years in the mid-1980s each brother won the championship at the well-contested Atholl and Breadalbane Ploughing Society annual match.
Hamish, who was first in 1986, says: I remember it well because my tractor, a David Brown 1490, caught on fire on the way there. There was nothing for it but to pull out the whole wiring loom and carry on. It cant have put me off too much because I won all the cups that year. Tommy won the next year and Kenny the year after that.
Tommy still competes either with the farm tractor and plough or with his own David Brown 880. He also still judges at many matches including at the Scottish Championships.It is easy to see that retirement is more of concept than a reality for the Campbell brothers. All have their own hobbies, but all equally have farming running through their veins, and in all the brothers have, without fuss, made a tremendous contribution to farming life in Perthshire.
John McDiarmid of Mains of Murthly, who filled Hamishs first wage packet 57 years ago says: A more honest, genuine and dedicated trio of brothers would be hard to find.
Asked if they would follow the same path if they had their time again Tommy, Hamish and Kenny replied as one.
We wouldnt have done anything else. It had to be life in the open air for us.
