For farming families one of the most difficult conversations can be succession. Rugby player Stafford McDowall says it’s a weight off his mind to already have had that conversation.
He admires his father, Fergus McDowall, for always being upfront that running a dairy farm was “his dream” and putting no pressure on his son to follow in his footsteps.
Stafford had his name down to study agriculture at Newcastle University as an 18-year-old, but he deferred the place while he tried to break into the professional rugby ranks, juggling training sessions with farm jobs. The chance to make rugby his livelihood did come knocking during that gap year out and Stafford headed for the bright lights of Glasgow and a life away from the family farm which stands a stone’s throw from the Irish Sea at Kirkcudbright, in Dumfries and Galloway....
