SHEPHERD boy at seven - son of a man who brought up eight children on an income of 12 shillings (60p) a week - married himself on a wage of 11 shillings and sixpence (57p) and father of seven - shepherd’s son and shepherd’s father - that was the life story of “Father” Bennett, doyen of the Hampshire Down shepherds.

Wherever the Hampshire Down breed was known, there you would hear tell of Harry Bennett, of whom there was no shrewder judge of sheep and no better shepherd.

An acknowledged master among “these craftsmen of the downs”, Harry’s life was a romance of a rise from shepherd boy to flock-master, but he remained a shepherd for all that.

Harry won 1,000 prizes with Hampshire Down sheep, which he tended for 68 years.

Here, in two or three of his sayings was the secret of "Father” Bennett’s success.

“A good shepherd will always set his sheep before himself," he told the Daily Echo in 1934, more than eight decades ago.

“It is the man who always does the extra little bit who comes into the front in the show ring.

“A shepherd’s life is seven days a week, and for six or seven weeks night and day, too, in the lambing season.”

Often found busy hoeing out roots beside his hurdled sheep, he had a hale and hearty appearance after 75 summers.

“This is what I attribute my health to - always being out of doors,” he said.

Except for two brief attacks of flu, one 48 years previous and the other 42 years earlier, Harry had no other illness in half a century. He was a member of a friendly society since he was 12, but had never been ill long enough ever to want to “go on the club”.

Even in his birthplace Harry found an indication of his destiny. He was born in 1859 in the Turnpike Cottage at Sheeprock, a mile out of Whitchurch, on the KIngsclere Road.

His father was shepherd to a Mr Lunn, and Harry recalled how toll was taken from all travellers on the road outside his home, and shepherds on the way to market had to pay a farthing, a UK coin, withdrawn in 1961, equal to a quarter of an old penny, a head for their sheep.

When he was seven he used to help his father mind his sheep in the early mornings, and then go to school, which he attended until he was ten.

As a head shepherd, his father earned 12 shillings a week, and it was not until his elder brother was “earning money” - a wage of sixpence (2p) a day - that his father could put him again to school.

“I learned chiefly when I went to night school three times a week at Cliddesden, near Basingstoke, when I was 11, and we used to pay four pence (1p) a week for that,” said Harry.

“When I was 12 I had to finish with school, for I went to work for Mr Barton, of Hackwood Farm, near Basingstoke, to look after his tegs (a sheep in its second year or before its first shearing) for four shillings and sixpence (22p) a week.

At the age of 23 while working at Nether Wallop, where his father was head shepherd, Harry was married and his wife was one of a labourer’s family of 11.

Unexpected good fortune enabled Harry’s father to take up farming on his own account, so his son took his place and was “lucky enough to secure a wage of 14 shillings (70p) a week”.

Back in those days, said Harry: "a good shepherd could command at least £2 a week, with his cottage besides".

From Nether Wallop, where he won 224 show prizes, he moved to Cholderton where he stayed for 18 years working with flocks of Hampshire Downs with which he won a further 428 awards.

Harry toured all the fairs in the south and the Midlands. He recalled that back in the late 1800s it was normal to have 90,000 sheep at the Wilton Fair.

He later went to work for Lady Hulse at Breamore and showed her sheep for six years, taking 68 prizes and winning outright the Hampshire Down breed cup at Britford Fair.