The other day I took a stroll down memory lane, and don’t mind admitting, struggled to clear the lump that came into my throat. With no one else around I let myself into the old Dingwall Mart, which this week held its last ever sale of livestock.

All around me were the stage and props of a drama which has been not far from me since early childhood.

I was raised by a grandfather who founded one of Dingwall’s two auctioneering companies and whose life, though long retired from the rostrum, still revolved around buying, selling and dealing with livestock. From an early age I came to know the auctioneers, yardmen, farmers and dealers who frequented both marts.

My grandfather was obsessive over a number of matters, in particular the crucial importance of being able to rise early. His frequently repeated mantra to his grandchildren was, ‘He who rests, rusts’, and he led us all by example.

Winter or summer the old man would rise at 6.00 am, go through to his large bathroom and start up a primus stove to boil a kettleful of water to fill a shaving mug so that he could set to work with his cut-throat razor.

My bedroom was across the corridor, and each morning I would awake to the sounds of the primus stove being regularly pumped, and my grandfather sharpening his razor on the leather strop which hung from a bell pull.

As soon as he had shaved, his routine was to make a large pot of tea. He would then bring cups to all the adults in the house, meanwhile summonsing all the children to his bathroom where he would make us sit around on the sheep’s fleece carpets. This was his opportunity to hand us all a cup of tea, delivering at the same time some pearls of wisdom which he had garnered over a long and successful life.

Another thing about my grandfather, which my beloved claims I have inherited, is that he strongly objected to the younger members of his family sitting around doing nothing. He would always find something for us to do, and in my case this often involved travelling with him to the mart to act as his ‘go-for’.

Through time this developed into driving sheep and cattle to the sale, collecting his various purchases into the lots he required and then either walking them to the livestock loading bank at the railway station or to a field on one of his farms.

Of course I was always accompanied, when cattle or sheep droving on the highway, by one of his shepherds with their collies. How none of the dogs or sheep was not killed by motorists was a miracle, as amidst much screeching of brakes there were often some narrow misses.

Although we no longer have sales of pigs through the auction mart, things were very different 50 or 60 years ago. In those days a large number of farms in Easter Ross and the Black Isle kept a boar and some sows. Most of the weaners and some in-pig gilts would be sold at a special monthly sale in the Dingwall Mart.

It was not uncommon in the late 40s and early 50s for as many as 1,000 pigs to come under the hammer in one day, with Harold Paul, Munlochy, regularly winning the awards and gaining top prices.

For several years after starting farming I kept two or three Large-white x Landrace sows, and our twice yearly sale of weaners provided us with some much-needed cash.

Until the early 60s, the other farmyard animal sold at special sales in the marts was the horse. Even although, by soon after the end of the Second World War, the tractor had largely taken over the cultivating and transportation roles of the Clydesdales and Highland Garrons, most farmers were not 100 per cent convinced that the horse would not continue to play an essential role. Indeed, one of the regular debating topics at Young Farmers’ speechmaking competitions would be ‘Will the day ever come when the tractor displaces the Clydesdale?’

The top horse breeders would take a tremendous pride in the way they turned out their two- and three-year-old fillies and colts, trotting them to and fro so that buyers could assess their potential. A number of horses would have one or more faults and it was intriguing to what lengths sellers would go to disguise these.

One of the favourite tricks of the trade, to make an inactive horse come alive, was to stick a fingerful of ginger up its buttocks just as the nanimal came into the sales enclosure. This would certainly make the poor brutes lift their feet high, as they were trotted to and fro. No doubt it brought a few tears to their eyes at the same time!

Most horse dealers were well worth the watching, but there were exceptions.

Among the horse dealers who sold regularly in the Dingwall marts was a Johnnie Williamson from Cradlehall, just outside Inverness. He was one of the few horse-traders who relied on his reputation for honesty to ensure customers returned regularly to buy from his consignments. Johnnie, like many dealers, was a well-built, couthy individual, who constantly sported a pork-pie hat. He knew everyone and everyone knew him.

His name cropped up recently in a conversation about the Dingwall mart worthies with 82- year-old Sutherland farmer, George Murray, Morvich.

“It was quite amazing how many well-kent characters about the mart had their own idiosyncratic way of dressing, particularly their headgear,” George told me.

“For instance, there was your grandfather, old ‘PW’, who was given the nickname ‘Hard Hat’ because throughout his business life he wore a black bowler hat, and was instantly recognisable.

“Then there were the two old fellows who came down regularly to sell stock from the islands of Skye and Raasay. There names were Douchan MacPherson and Donald McCallum, and both gentlemen could be relied on to turn out, in all weathers, dressed in full length yellow oilskins and sou’westers.”

I told George that I had happy memories of both these islanders. Many years ago, at the time of the Skye autumn cattle sales – which took place at various stances around the island – Douchan had invited several of us to his home, just outside Portree, for an evening’s hospitality. There we met his distinguished wife and large family, some of whom support the mart to the present day.

My memories of Donald McCallum concern his interest in the marketing of Highland Cattle and Blackface sheep. Donald usually went around with a white West Highland Terrier, often tucked under his arm.

A mystery man, no-one could ever understand where Donald had made his reputed fortune; certainly it was not out of the grazing he had on the Island of Raasay. He was an expert on the natural history of the Inner Hebrides, a subject in which I also have long had an interest.

On one occasion he told me he had three volumes of Cassell’s Natural History sitting at home and if I was interested he would take them with him, for me to have, next time he came to Dingwall.

I gratefully took him up on his kind offer and to this day I have cherished the three first edition books, with their magnificent colour plates, which would have been state-of-the-art etchings when the books were first printed in 1889.

Another ‘larger than life’ dealer who each week shifted a lot of stock from the Dingwall mart was J T Sinclair, Wick, widely known as ‘Skink’. Indeed there were some sales where Skink would buy up a large percentage of the livestock on offer. He was admired by farmers for putting a solid ‘bottom’ to the trade, but like many dealers he was a gambler and would occasionally come unstuck.

On such occasions the tough wee company secretary of Reith & Anderson, Campbell ‘Lugs’ Mackay, would impose tight restrictions on the amount of credit available until previous liabilities had been cleared.

In the lead-up to the opening of the new mart I hope to give a few brief sketches on other characters who frequented the Dingwall marts half a century ago.