It was very like All Creatures Great and Small when we started
Recorded 2 years ago
About this recording
Retired vets Frank Stephen (born 1950) and Sinclair Manson (born 1951) share some stories about their experiences while working for D S MacGregor & Partners, based in Thurso. Their services were in demand throughout most of Caithness and north Sutherland, from Talmine across to John O’Groats and down to Berriedale.
“It was very like All Creatures Great and Small at that time,” Sinclair says. “We worked round the clock. We had one weekend out of three off, we had one night a week off, so we really worked all time. And it was very much a mixed practice, mostly large animals. There were a lot of dairies at that time around the edge of the town.”
Frank adds: “In fact you could fit some of the farmers in Caithness into some of the farming characters in All Creatures Great and Small - the ones who were always awkward, the good ones who fed you well, and then of course there was the local landed gentry.”
Sinclair remembers “flying through the air” and being off work for months after being attacked by a bull. Frank recalls how “if you calved a cow successfully you would get a dram quite often”.
He believes being a vet is “as much a people business as it is an animal business… it is so dependent on good communication”.
As well as potentially being out at all hours on farm work, they ran a weekly clinic for small animals.
It wasn’t all about farm livestock and pets, though. Sinclair recalls abseiling down a cliff at Duncansby Head on a seal pup mission and ending up on the TV news.
Frank talks about the psychological impact of mad cow disease: “It really quite affected the mental health of some of the farmers. There were times when you were going round the county and you almost felt like a social worker as much as you did a vet.”
He regrets the loss of traditional mart days from the Caithness towns and the social contact these brought to farmers: “That was great, because they all got together and they all got chatting.”
Looking back, Frank reflects on the "happy working atmosphere" at the practice and describes being a vet as “a fantastic career”.
Sinclair agrees, saying: “You got the bumps and you just accepted that was part and parcel of the game.”
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