Or’eira, Llanfacherth, Dolgellau, 12th June 2009
To Dolgellau for the cattle market. A slow start with a few small trailers bringing in sheep – lambs, rams and hoggets. Selling starts at noon.
Auctioneer and his assistant stroll across the yard ringing a hand bell. They climb up onto the metal platform around the sheep pens (there are no cattle today) and start immediately – a rapid patter in which numbers and the word ‘pound’ ring out, but the detail and logic of it are obscure. They move quickly from lot to lot, selling in variations from single animals to single pens of several sheep to groups of pens. The bids are imperceptible (to me).
I start to take photographs, no one takes much notice.
An elderly farmer looks at me, smiles and asks, ‘Are you from Private Eye?’
I explain, ‘No I just like livestock markets and there are none where I live.’
‘Where’s that?
‘Cambridge, East Anglia, it’s all arable.’
‘Very true; and the markets are getting fewer and fewer everywhere.’
‘How are prices here?’ I ask.
‘Down this week, £25-27; last month they were up to £37. It’s difficult at these prices. Last year a load of winter feed cost £450, this year it is £980 and concentrates have doubled. We get less and the inputs cost more.’
He gives a resigned smile and adds, ‘The wife finds the same in the supermarket.’
I move forward for a close-up of some rams.
‘Have you photographed these?’ he asks. ‘See the different ear markings. They have to have the ear tags punched in here at 16p each, that’s £16 a hundred – it all adds up. Now they want us to have electronic tags that cost 60p.’
I move off to take more pictures and he catches up with me.
‘Do you have local magazines at home where you can use these?’
‘Yes, there are some.’
‘There are some good character faces here – see that one over there with no teeth! Those two, the tall one and the bigger one, they are dealers from up north.’
The auctioneer moves on. I follow finish the roll of film and leave.