In the 22 March 2015 BBC Radio 4 programme On Your Farm—about a sheep farmer in the Shetlands*—the journalist commented to the farmer that the cost of transporting the sheep to markets anywhere must be very high, thus adding to the price of his sheep.
This reminds me of another Shetland sheep story reported in the newspaper some three decades or so ago. Because their farms were so remote, Shetland sheep farmers could get a discount on the ferry if they were transporting sheep. One (or more?) such farmer would take a sheep with him in the car when he went shopping in the nearest town on mainland Scotland so that he would qualify for the discount.
Around the same time that this story came out, or a bit earlier, shops in the UK were not allowed to open for business on a Sunday unless they were selling vegetables. A furniture store started selling carrots for something like £300/lb. (0.4536kg), giving away a “free” sofa with the carrots. (I’m not sure how long it took the authorities to catch up with them and close the loophole.)
*Shetland Islands |ˈSHetlənd| (also Shetland or the Shetlands )
a group of about 100 islands off the north coast of Scotland, northeast of the Orkneys, that constitute the administrative region of Shetland; pop. 21,800 (est. 2009); chief town, Lerwick. Together with the Orkney Islands, the Shetland Islands became a part of Scotland in 1472.
DERIVATIVES
Shetlander noun
(UK, early 1980s)
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