Herd mentality delights spectators

Oct 11 2011 by Denis Brown, Perthshire Advertiser Tuesday

SPECULATION that vehicles could be damaged in a potential stampede of Highland cattle in Crieff on Saturday proved groundless.

Police had asked residents not to park cars on King Street so TV personality Griff Rhys Jones and a crew could herd cows on the final leg of a BBC documentary about 18th Century drovers’ routes from Skye to Crieff.

But the four diminutive and placid beasties were on their best behaviour and safe passage was negotiated by the drovers, with a beaming Jones also in fine form, smiling and waving at spectators en route.

Departing from Market Park, the pint-sized entourage meandered up King Street to James Square, where they were piped in by the Ardvreck School pipe band and greeted by an enthusiastic crowd.

The crew’s finale coincided with the annual Crieff and Strathearn Drovers’ Tryst, which celebrates drovers’ journeys from across Scotland in the 1700s to converge on Crieff each October with about 30,000 livestock for the great Michaelmas week fair.

After filming a series of stand-ups in the square, one involving inquisitive Ardvreck School pupils, Jones and his crew reconvened to Comrie Croft where final footage was filmed at a celebratory ceilidh.