Selkirk company gains Royal stamp
Richard McGill of Game and Country in The Cow Shed, Dunsdale Road, Selkirk with his Royal Warrant documents.
A SELKIRK businessman said he has kept his Royal clients because he and his staff work hard to be competitive and get things right for their customers, writes Sally Gillespie.
And on Christmas Eve, Richard McGill, who owns Game and Country, learned it had paid off. For he was awarded a Royal Warrant and is now entitled to put “By Appointment to Her Majesty The Queen” on his gamekeeper supplying business.
Mr McGill said: “We are very excited about it. It gives a certain credibility.”
The company sells the tools and clothes gamekeepers need to do their job to the Sandringham, Balmoral and Windsor estates.
Mr McGill, 52, said: “We have been supplying the Royal estates for about 10 years now. One of the people we deal with suggested we could apply for a Royal Warrant. We started the process in April and got help from a local firm.
“We were audited, which was a bit scary, then we heard on Christmas Eve that we had been granted the Royal Warrant in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee year, which is exciting.”
The warrant means Mr McGill can display the Royal Arms and put ‘By Appointment to Her Majesty The Queen’ on the company’s premises, stationery, in advertising, on vehicles and on packaging.
Mr McGill said: “We do have some export customers and if we are putting the Royal Arms on to our catalogue, it adds a certain kudos.”
He said staff regularly check they are getting the best deals for the Royal family.
“If we weren’t doing our job properly and competitively we maybe wouldn’t have lasted as long in supplying the estates,” he said.
Born in Yorkshire and brought up in Africa, Mr McGill was a ski instructor, latterly in the Pyrenees, before, in 1990, becoming a gamekeeper on the west coast of Scotland for five years.
He moved to the Borders, starting with Game and Country founder Martin Edgar in 1995, before buying out his former boss around the year 2000.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Selkirk
Saturday 25 May 2013
Today
Sunny
Temperature: 5 C to 17 C
Wind Speed: 10 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 6 C to 15 C
Wind Speed: 15 mph
Wind direction: South west
