BORDERS SHEARER UNA CAMERON TAKES WORLD RECORD
Una Cameron smashed the world sheep shearing record this week with a total of 517 sheep clipped in nine hours. Cameron, 51 and from St Boswells in the Scottish Borders beat the previous record by 59 sheep in a feat described as like running two marathons back to back.
“l feel like I’ve been run over by a tank,” said Cameron the morning after. “My body hurts in places I didn’t know I had.” She celebrated the achievement with a beer and a Curly Wurly.
Cameron has been a professional shearer for almost three decades, but even with her skill and experience she had to train for a year before taking on the record attempt,. She started at 5am to work on cardio, weight-training and mobility exercises – and then she went to shear sheep for eight hours!
“Sheep are not small, and they’re not cooperative,” explained Cameron. “Once you’ve done that 517 times, by the time the 517th one you’re like: ‘OK, I’m done.’”
Among her 40-strong support team – filling the pens with hundreds of sheep, keeping them warm, taking the fleeces away and keeping her hydrated – was a masseuse, who worked on Cameron intensively in each of her four breaks in the nine-hour period.
Cameron got into shearing while studying agriculture as a school leaver, and found it was the part of the course she most enjoyed. At the time there were few female shearers, but today there may be more young women than men coming into the industry.
Last year she spent three months shearing in New Zealand and Cameron’s world record attempt took place on the farm of Matt Smith, a New Zealander who now farms with his wife, Pip, near Launceston, in Cornwall. He is also the men’s nine-hour world record-holder, at 713 sheep.
