17/09/2025
Two years now and sadly missed - but not forgotten. I'm sharing some old photos from the 1950s that have emerged of dad, Harford Logan, as a young man with his precious dog Nell.
Having to fight for an entry, Harford won the Ardee trial at his first attempt with Nell (10656) in 1956, with 49.5 out of 50 points and then the celebrated Bangor trial in 1958 in County Down. It was the Bangor trials that were considered to be the early Irish nationals.
"Before 1961 Irish Nationals were organised by the Northern Ireland Sheepdog Association. In 1961, when the organisation was taken over by the International Sheepdog Society, they allowed only three dogs with the highest points to go forward to the International Championships. By 1965 we had a full all-Ireland National including handlers from Eire and the Isle of Man and were making a much bigger impression. That dog Nell and I had been together since she was a pup of only eight weeks old and she went on to win trials all her life, winning her last at eleven years old."
Other early Irish trials were the Swords sheepdog trial which Harford won five times, winning the trophy outright, and the Royal Dublin spring show which was an invitation trial. Harford won the Dublin trial five times, with Nell twice, with Cap once and twice with Jim between 1950s and 1970s. Dad went on to win the Irish National title on six occasions and the Scottish National when he moved to the Western Highlands.
Finally a little extract from his book 'Over the Hills and Far Away" which I think sums up dad and his passion for his dogs and trialling more than anything I could say.
"Like my father, I had a keen interest in showing sheep and horses from a very early age. As a boy on Saturdays in the winter, I would bring a foal into the yard and teach it to lead. When no one was around I would wash its legs and get some sawdust as if I was getting it ready for showing. I would do the same with any Border Leicester lamb which I thought could be a champion. I would sneak the sheep shears out of the barn and dress it up as if I was getting it ready for a show. As far as I was concerned I had always picked the winner.
But it was the sheepdogs that were my real heroes. When my class was asked by the school master to draw what we would like to be when we grew up, my friends sketched themselves in the kind of jobs which were familiar to them during those war years – doctors, school teachers, ambulance drivers.
My head was somewhere else entirely. I drew a picture of me walking over a hill with the aid of a well-made crook, a fine flock of sheep ahead and the best dog in the country at my side. “Nice drawing,” says Master Curry, “but where’s your ambition boy!” giving me a sharp clip round the ear.
Maybe he didn’t appreciate that in that simple drawing I had included a champion sheepdog. Or maybe he just couldn’t see how anybody could be content to devote a lifetime to shepherding.
He probably remained unimpressed when in a few years time that drawing was transformed into a picture of me and my dogs on the front of the Belfast Telegraph after I was a surprise winner of a major sheepdog trial. But then everyone has a different idea of success and what it takes to be happy. Mine’s always been fairly straightforward and even now, given the chance to go back to that classroom, I wouldn’t change a thing on that drawing."
