Mel

 I started off with rabbits at the age of 11 and my father has been waiting for me to grow out of it ever since. My first rabbit was a brown grey dutch called Judd what a beauty he turned out to be. I went on to collect an English, a New Zealand and a Giant of some sort, that was it, hooked line and sinker.

I had a break from rabbits when I went to University to study genetics, and animal behaviour where I worked mainly on the Mongolian gerbil, oddly enough one of my reference books was Lockleys private life of the rabbit. I eventually moved back up to Yorkshire in 1980 and ended up teaching some rural studies which was great, one project was to breed and measure meat rabbits, so when a parent offered me a New Zealand white doe I went visiting, this led me to Kathy Forth and her husband Tommy. I spent many a lunch hour at their house which backed onto our school carpark, as a result Kathy sorted some whites out for the students and we went showing, not wishing to be left out I got some blacks, blues, and eventually reds. It was about this time that I met Norman at Doncaster Excelsior, I remember an ermine rex squirting straight up his sleeve, my did he smell nice. So there was this big bearded bloke with equally big rabbits, and me with new zealands enjoying our showing and becoming firm friends. I started a rabbit club in school and we took lots of different breeds out, such as silvers, dutch, havanas, new zealands, dwarfs and lops. I have tried several breeds and currently have apart from british giants mini rex, sables normal and rex,[thanks Walt] dwarfs, mini lops, mini lion lops, tans, not forgetting sallanders and thuringers which we show under Normel stud. The formation of Normel stud was a strange twist of fate, both of us had stopped showing rabbits for a year for different reasons, mine was divorce and a house move, having a team of racing pigeons I decided to just keep a few pet rabbits which I kept in my barn, at this time I met Norm on selby market and went down to his house the following week for a good chat. I noticed a beautiful rew giant which I eventually took home as I had rejoined the BRC and started to show him, every time he won I would phone Norm and bit by bit tempted him until we had a conversation where I would show and Norm would breed them. Within a year we were both working on projects and both exhibiting, we just went from strength to strength and now we have between us all recognised colours of british giant. He is my best mate, we argue like an old married couple and generally keep other on their toes, it’s great to bounce ideas off each other and our expertise complements the others. We love our giants they often have strange names like benchmark 007, and crazy horse but I am really pleased with the way they are developing, we like to help people and if they beat us with our stock then it makes us more determined to improve. We really enjoy meeting people and have some great friends, for example we went to Dave Pounders who Norm has known for ages to pick some bunnies, as usual we didn’t agree on which rabbit to take so Dave said just take them both. I look forward to this next year as we always plan a year in advance, that’s rabbiting for you always the next show or the next year what a great life eh?

Norm

Norman Grantham

Bitta history o missen

Yorkshire born n bred and proud onnit.

 Got me first rabbit when I was eleven cost me 6d (2 1/2p), which was 46 years ago. Over the years I’ve kept rabbits for various reasons: commercial, pet trade and just for the joy of it. So I reckon by now I can tell one end from the other.

About 1978/1979 a colleague challenged my knowledge of rabbits and dared me to show em, when I saw the British Giant at the famous Bradford and Northern show I was in love, and I’ve been with them ever since, even though I’ve kept various other breeds as well over the years.

My mentor of showing Giants was Joe Anderson of York (god rest his soul).

In the early 80’s the blue giant was a recognised colour, but there were none anywhere so Joe and I decided to resurrect the colour, unfortunately Joe died before they got really going, so in honour of a good friend I carried on breeding them, whilst perfecting the colour I had loads of opals but I didn’t really like them but I friend of mine in Kent did, and she went on to perfect the opal.

So over the last 25 years of keeping and showing giants I have been there, seen it done and got the t-shirt

A lot of people know me as that fat bloke with the beard who keeps giants, tup in Yorkshire, tha knows Norman what’s his name, yes that’s me love me or hate me I’m me.

With my good mate Mel who I’ve known for the last 25 years we make a good team, under the stud name Normel stud (mind you if tha knows us tha knows there aint nowt normal about us) we’re doing well and with god’s grace will do so for years to come