Who Am I?

The Friesian Islands and Friesland are on the north west corner of The Netherlands. Schleswig-Holstein is the extreme north of Germany, between Hamburg and the Danish border. These two regions are those from which the first black and white dairy cattle were imported into UK in the late 19th and early 20th century. Curiously, some of the most influential early strains of the breed originated in Friesland but came to the UK via breeders in South Africa

Breeders came together in 1910 to form an association and establish a pedigree herd book, with a central database (not called that, I'm sure!) of named individuals and family trees. My grandfather established a pedigree herd in 1922; my cousin has maintained it throughout his career, but has all but extinguished it as he moves into retirement. I have childhood memories of sketching the black and white markings of new-born calves on to cards pre-printed with the outline of a cow, to send off for registration with the society. Digital images today, I assume

The breed was spectacularly successful and, by mid 20th century, had almost entirely replaced the dairy shorthorn breed that had been predominant for centuries. For an industry that is often resistant to change, this was a remarkable revolution

Over the years the breed society flipped and flopped between the names 'Friesian', 'Holstein' and 'Holstein-Friesian' (I feel a little sorry for Schleswig). Eventually, they settled on 'British Friesian'. However the same Dutch/German black and white cattle were exported to North America in the 1850s, where they were called Holsteins. Some descendents of these were taken back to UK after WWII and over subsequent decades, with a major impact on modern British cattle. The name has recently flipped once more time to Holstein

Mrs M and I have both served time "tied to a cow's tail" so, when we encountered a herd of a couple of hundred grazing the river meadows beside the upper Thames path this morning, there was a certain feeling of meeting old friends. A healthy herd of well-fed dairy cows, on a sunny spring day, radiate contagious contentment, so we left with lifted spirits

I remember my grandfather's herd had cows called both 'Rose' and 'Moss-Rose'. At the time they were both indesputably British Friesians, but I guess that by any other name they would have been as sweet