How NSA Welsh Sheep began
12th May 2023
The first NSA Welsh Sheep was held in 1976 at the home of Clwyd Hughes and family, Llangwyfan Farm, Llandyrnog, Denbigh.
The original programme shows that the venue was chosen ‘because of the very high standard of management’. It highlighted the integration of hill and lowland breeds on a part upland, part lowland farm. A subsequent event was held at Cwm Risca, Bridgend, in 1978.
A memorable event was in 1993. Glandon Lewis clearly recalls it held in Mid Wales at the legendary John Gittins’s farm on 10th June 1993. And he says the event only narrowly missed a tremendous rainstorm that flooded a nearby farm, one of the most noted in the Banwy Valley.
He says: “I remember going to help John Gittins at Ystum Colwyn at about 5 o’clock in the morning, to prepare some sheep and help to take them up to the event up at Cefn Coch.
“The evening before my then business partner, Chris Sheppard, and I toured around the improved hill land to prepare our commentary. It was quite a sight and his work so impressive.
“Ystum Colwyn and the farm at Cefn Coch were probably about ten miles away. I can see him there now, cigarette in his mouth, and he held this sheep and he’d be trimming there with his hand shears.”
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