Marilyn  and  Hugh Sidebottom                                                               

We have had Labradors since 1966 having brought our first black bitch back from our honeymoon in Scotland.  After having been brought up all her life with Welsh Corgis, Marilyn could not imagine life without a dog.  From that time on, we have never been without a Labrador in our lives and they have brought us so much love and joy and the inevitable sadness of loss.

After we had our family we decided to breed from our second black bitch and after two successful litters , we decided in 1987 that we would like to go into showing and purchased our first ever yellow from Nona Brown (Nonairbra), this being our true foundation bitch,  Jessica (or JJ as the children nicknamed her, plus a few more as she was always considering her appetite).  She went on to produce some lovely dogs and her daughter Humaryn Princess Holly At Trewinnard went on to produce several show champions including Sh Ch Trewinnard Bucks Fizz.  She was closely followed was our chocolate bitch, Zoe, bred by Cathy Wilkins, (Ravencrest). Again producing some lovely puppies.

It is obvious that we picked our affix name as a mix of our joint christian names.

Our daughter Kate enjoyed showing with Hugh at that time and had success with the dogs she was showing.  Hugh also had a lot of success with Jessica’s yellow son William, who even at the age of  twelve, still knew where he was when he accompanied us to a show, sadly we have just lost William in December 2001.

Due to various personal reasons, including supporting our son, Simon in his skater hockey sport, who went on to play for the Great Britain men’s squad, we gave up showing and breeding for a few years but could not keep away and in 1997 crazy as we are, decided to return. 

In February 1998, we visited a show in Cornwall and met up with all our old friends, by this time sadly Jessica had passed away and we missed her dreadfully.  We came home that night with a new yellow bitch, Holly, from our friend the late Jean Henwood, (Wolvercote) and we have not looked back since, we owe so much to her for all her encouragement and letting us have Holly.    So now we are hooked again and acquired Rosie from Tony Pascoe, (Trewinnard) who had heard we had returned to the dog world, and gave us the chance to have our old breeding line back, which is so good. 

Penadlake Harvest Moon Over Humaryn has joined us who was bred by the late Jane Gregory. Jane bought a puppy from us a long time ago which was a daughter of Ravencrest Galaxy Of Humaryn and Humaryn Black Magic. (Humaryn Moonglow At Penadlake) and Jess is her grandaughter. 

We  bred a litter from Rosie and  have her son Toby who has sired some nice litters, not shown very often but has his stud book number and is qualified for Crufts for life.

We then welcomed Eve into our family (Thurbajens Chasing Dreams At Humaryn) bred by Jenny Green, she is a lovely chocolate bitch who has done well in the ring winning a reserve challenge certificate and two very good results of reserve best in show.  Many 1st placings at championship show and is qualified for Crufts for life.  nce that we have added several more dogs to our kennels, Langshott Great Chance At Kimvalley who initially we joint owned with Diana Beckett (Kimvalley) but won we now own outright.  He has gained his Junior Warrant and 1 challenge certificate, sadly at the time when he was in line to be made up as a champion he ruptured his cruciate ligament and was not able to be shown for 2 years but when he did his first show at Devon County Agricultural show in 2008  he won best of breed and his son Freddie best puppy and puppy group 2, handled by our grandson Lewis who also handled Freddie when he won best puppy in breed at Bath Championship show in the same year.

Hugh for several years has judged Labradors and several other gundog breeds and is now on the 'B' list for the West Of England Labrador Retriever Club and was chairman of the club for 2009-2011       We are now starting to work our dogs more and Hugh will be shooting regularly season 2012 and  will be training gundogs to sell ready trained.

We live in a rural area of South Devon close to where Marilyn was brought up and surrounded by open views towards Dartmoor National Park and Haldon Ridge.