The Rellim story... by Jack Miller

THE RELLIM STORY


By Jack Miller


I was introduced to the S.B.T.in 1949 by a seventeen year old girl who was eventually to become my wife. Therse, was always known by Terry by her friends . We used to take a bitch, Killingworth Bell for walks; she was a bit of a character and we both fell for her. Eventually she had puppies and Terry aquierd a red bitch that we named Terrys Nell.



There was in those days a North Eastern Bull and Staffordshire bull terrier club and although we were not members we were persuaded to show Nell at there open show, the judge on the day being Mr Gerald Dudley (this was about 1952). Nell did very well and we were determined to continue showing and perhapseven start breeding Staffords.



By know by reading the dog press we relised that Gerald Dudley and the world famous Wychbury kennel were connected. Since we had met him at our first show we decided to buy a dog puppy from him. It took six months before Terrys Pip arrived. He was a black brindle with an immense head. Unfortunately he went undershot. Although useless for showing he was Terries special Stafford until he died at 13 years of age.



Terry and I were by now very interested in everything to do with the Sbt, and read everything we could find about the art of breeding dogs, infact the breeding of any stock. We studied pedigrees of winning stock and read many books on genetics. Everything pointed to the necessity to obtaining a very good and well bred specimen of the breed.We decided to contact Gerald Dudley who had the leading kennel at the time to see if we could purchase a well bred brood bitch. I well remember Terry running back from the phone box to say she had been offered CH Wychbury Midly Girl (Queenie). In due course Queenie arrived , she was a beautiful black brindle- three years old.
The Wychbury kennel was being disbanded and Queenie’s half brother CH Wychbury red riband was sold to Dr John Silvera of Newcastle. This was the mating (Midly Girl to her half brother Red Riband) that all our our reading had pointed to and after contacting Gerald and been given the go ahead we went ahead with the mating. It was however the second mating that produced CH Rellim A’Boy



A’Boy was the first to carry the Rellim affix and he did cause a stir within the
Stafford world. Much has been written about this dog and he was consided to be an exceptional specimen for that point in time. His nature was always a puzzle to us at home he was a true gentlemen but out of the house he was very aggressive a kind of Jekyl and Hyde character. Having read reports on temperament we thought he had real Stafford character. Rellim A’Boy (Roger) was a good stud dog but had very few bitches . Transport was problem in





those days and people would not travel. However a keen fancier called Sid Craik traveled over from Ireland with his bitch Fury of Drugade. Fury was mated to Roger this line produced Ken Bailey’s
CH Benext Beau. Tom Winter used him on a very good bitch but lost the litter . Maurice Ramshaw from Kelloe mated his Chestoinion bitch to him and this produced CH Rellim Ferryvale Victor
sire of five English champions and many overseas. About this time the kennel took a terrible blow with the death of CH Rellim A’Boy after a short illness..

We had been involved with Staffords for about eleven years by this time. It would be about 1960 when Terry was invited to judge a sanction show at the Scottish Staffordshire bull terrier club in Hamilton.
We were invited after the show to see Abe Harkness’s kennel. His famous bitch Senkrah Sabella had a litter of puppies and Terry was taken by a bitch puppy . This little pup in Jarrow in a really bad snow storm having been brought from Scotland by Mr. A Metcalf of Darlington. This bitch was
CH Senkrah Sabuteau (Tammy) who gained her tittle within two years.




Many of you might be wondering how we managed to keep so many dogs at one time infact we never had more than six dogs at any point in time. The Champions dates housed at Rellim were 1951,57,60,62,65,68. Ther were four brick kennels outside and four inside kennels, we had a rota every dog spent some time in the house with the family




Eventually Tammy and Victor were mated and we produced CH Rellim Warpaint. There was also a very good bitch in the litter and she was named Barrington Rellim Regina. This bitch produced a very good bitch in CH Barrington golden Toga. Another from this litter was Barrington wild Rose who was the foundation bitch of Alec Waters Ashstock kennel. By this point in time we had lost Midly girl and her brother , however we had a very good bitch who was by Warpaint who we mated to Victor and this produced CH Rellim Saratoge Skiddy.the first home bred bitch champion.



We are now into the early seventies the kennel was full of pensioners and we had contented our selves to visiting and judging the odd show. About this time Rellim Crackling Rosie was born. She went out to the States and became an international champion . We exported Staffords to many countries and many of them did very well. They were CH Rellim battle of Britain, CH Rellim Kate of Terreco, CH Rellim brother love as well as many other good one’s. The year is 1975 and a year I will never forget. Terry had been ill for some time but on the 13th of September she suffered a severe heart attack and died instantly. She was only 43 years of age. That same year the kennel was greatly reduced , good homes were sort for many of the dogs. Little breeding was done, infact only three litters were bred in the following eleven years.. My purpose was to keep the Rellim line available should I decide to rebuild the kennel again.