Mike Eckley and his sons Tommy and Teddy have now won the last nine Royal Welsh Championships to celebrate the Court-Llacca Clun Flocks’ 90th Anniversary at the 2026 Royal Welsh Show.

The Court-Llacca Flock is the oldest Clun flock in the world and was first exhibited at the Abergele Royal Welsh Show in 1936.

The most recent 2026 win was the Eckley family’s 20th Championship and their ninth in the last nine shows attended.

“It was an amazing feeling to win our ninth Gold Championship Medal in nine shows in our ninetieth year competing, but to share it with my family made it an incredible memory,” said Mike. “My wife also won a Gold Medal with her bother Liam in the Horticulture Section. It was a double gold celebration for us.

Katie and Liam's wellbeing garden impressed judges at the Royal Welsh Show.
Katie and Liam's wellbeing garden impressed judges at the Royal Welsh Show (Old Railway Line)

“The flock has been a constant in my life from early childhood and to have my sons with me has given me a new renewed enthusiasm to carry on with Tom and Ted helping me to prepare the sheep for the show.”

Mike’s love from childhood had been the Clun Forest Sheep and some of his earliest memories are of spending time with his grandfather, Tom, going around the sheep and leading the show tups down and back up the lane at Court-Llacca.

The family has also won the Club Championship at Malvern in June, so the Ram called Goldust is now a double champion at the Three Counties Show and The Royal Welsh Show.

Mike has recently released a book on the history and journey of the Clun Forest Sheep, and his tragic story that inspired the book.

Mike was a fourth generation farmer at Court-Llacca, Felin Fach and a night in 1998 working as a police officer changed his life forever.

“In the early hours of 30th August 1998, our lives changed forever when my brother Phil and his friend, Rob Owens of Wernddyfog Farm, were killed by a drunk driver as they travelled home from a night out. It was a hammer blow for everyone concerned and it turned the lead-up to the sale into an incredibly difficult time full of grief and sadness instead of happiness and hope,” said Mike.

“I had been on duty at Hay-on-Wye Police Station that night, and by an incredibly cruel turn of fate, my colleague, the late Colin Finch and I, were the first to the scene, and I found Phil dead in the passenger seat.”

Mike said he now understands that he suffered PTSD from this trauma and it was this PTSD that has directly led to the writing of his book. One of the many symptoms, outside of nightmares and anxiety, is becoming obsessive over certain things.

“Some people drink excessively; some exercise obsessively. For me, it was gathering an archive on the Clun Sheep I had loved since childhood,” said Mike.

His book ‘Triumph & Tears: Clun Forest Sheep & My Family’ sold out in two weeks when on sale at the Old Railway Line Garden Centre and hopes to have it restocked in autumn of this year.