© John Zawadzki 2000

John Zawadzki is a writer and photographer who publishes THE CLYDESDALE, a quarterly journal dedicated to the celebration of clydesdale horses. He travels the length and breadth of the UK and overseas taking photos of these horses. This photograph was taken in 2000 at the Clydesdale Horse Society's 'Working Day' at Wester Kittochside Farm, East Kilbride. It features Jim Thomson of Moniaive, Dumfries, with a Massey Harris binder and his Clydesdales Ben, Pride and Barry. This photograph is one of John's images in the 'Gentle Giants' booklet which accompanies the CD of the same name.

The Clydesdale horse originally came from this part of Scotland as the name suggests, though they became the standard draft horse throughout Scotland during the nineteenth century. They played an enormous role in the development of transport and in the agricultural revolution. Without their powerful contribution the industrial revolution (the cradle of which was also in Lanarkshire) would not have been possible. Many thousands of them were exported around the world.

They were eventually replaced, of course, by the tractor on the farms and lorries on the roads but not before they had slipped firmly into the folklore, the folk memory and the affection of the whole nation.