Trials and Tribulations Keith Erlandson A retrospective view.  by Graham Cox Taken from an original article in 'The Field' 1992.

A coon skin hat would have sat well upon him, for Keith Erlandson had the air of a mountain man. His puckish features mirror the cragginess of their environment and he had dedicated himself to infusing his spaniels with the remorselessly elemental quality of the winds and rains which drive into the Berwyns. He had been ensconced on his mountain top high above Froncysyllte, near Llangollen, in north Wales for nigh on 40 years. In a bygone age, doubtless his exploits would have been inscribed upon some elaborately decorated runic monument alongside others raised to chronicle forays against the Saxons. Those reading the rune stone would have learned of wondrous achievements, by 1990, a record number of spaniel field-trial champions made up, a never before or since equalled run of three successive wins with the same dog in the Cocker Spaniel Championship, and much more. Keith Erlandson was born in 1931 at Huddersfield. His father was Swedish and, as a boy, Keith spent two brief periods in Smoaland. Though he was mild mannered the phlegmatic Swedish temperament is conspicuous by its absence. He confessed to being impetuous. But though he had "always done rash things", each impulse had invariably been underpinned by an acute insight borne not only of peerless experience but also of his link with the great names of an earlier era, Joe Greatorex (who lived close by in the early years), John Forbes and John Kent who all had a real "feel" for a dog. Their ability to see the flashes of quality in an otherwise raw youngster, to see its potential for greatness, is a gift he had inherited. That gift was a hard earned acumen which does itself a disservice by misleadingly presenting itself as mere "hunch". Whatever its provenance it had served him well and had made his career in gundogs the stuff of myth and legend. "A pure Trial dog that is no shooting dog is, to me, no dog at all " he said. Anyone reading Keith Erlandson's Gundog Training, first published in 1976, will not be surprised by such a statement, the book is an elaboration of that priority which allows of no compromise. Gundog Training is dedicated to Walter Rumbelow, Headkeeper on the late Lt-Col Sir Hugh Cholmeley's Estate near Grantham, who did much to enthuse Keith early on. But Keith's keepering career did not begin in Lincolnshire. On leaving Kingston High School, Hull, he went to Tollard Royal in Wiltshire, the site of King John's Hunting Lodge and hard by Cranborne Chase. But a position as Headkeeper on a mixed shoot in Lincolnshire beckoned. A small quantity of birds was reared to supplement the stocks of wild partridge and pheasant and he acquired the skills which enabled him to take a position as beat-keeper on the Cholmeley estate. Walter Rumbelow undertook some gundog training, his clients included Major Hugh Peacock, who won the International Gundog League Retriever Championship three times in the Fifties with his Greatford Labradors. Keith was encouraged to train and trial and it was with a retriever, a golden bitch sired by a litter brother to June Atkinson's 1954 Championship winner Mazurka of Wynford, that he won his first award on the 16th of October, 1956.

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© dog'n'field / Graham Cox 2004