Most people have significant milestones in their lives – one of the most significant in mine took place 30 years ago this week when we moved from the hill farm of Rawburn, to Roxburgh Mains, near Kelso.

Apart from my great, great grandfather’s younger brother, James, who farmed at Duncrahill, in East Lothian, in the 19th century, of the many farmers in my extended family I became only the second to farm inbye.

When I was a teenager, I asked my dad why my great grandfather – who had expanded from an upland farm of 1200 acres in Selkirkshire to more than 200,000 acres of all hill or upland, some owned, some tenanted, in Selkirkshire, Berwickshire, Midlothian, Dumfries-shire, Sutherland and Easter Ross – had never taken an arable farm.

The answer, obvious in retrospect but not so much at the time I asked, was that there was more money in hill farms then. Indeed, Rawburn, where I was brought up, had a rent of £1400 in my great grandfather’s time which was the highest, hill or arable, in the County of Berwickshire.

My father told me that when my great grandfather looked over the farm of Rutherford, on Tweedside, however a hill farm in Sutherland came up at the same time and he opted for it.

In 1902, my great grandfather looked round Rawburn with a view to leasing it. His offer was capped, however the tenancy came up again in 1946.

The farm that got away had been described in the family as 'Naboth’s Vineyard', so my father was delighted to get the tenancy after his demob from the Army.

As a result of the Depression, the rent had been reduced to £1100 and was reduced by another £150 when the Watch Water Reservoir was built in the middle of the farm. On the passage of The Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Act in 1949 the tenancy became secure.

In the late 1980s, my landlord, the Duke of Roxburghe, wanted more control over the management of the heather moorland and offered me other hill farms in exchange for Rawburn. I told the factor that if I was offered an arable farm I would consider moving.

To my surprise, in 1991 he told me that the tenant of Roxburgh Mains was retiring and that a secure tenancy, the same as I was giving up, was on offer. My father knew the farm well as his best man, George Rogerson, farmed it from 1935 to 1967 and was very much against the move.

Despite his disappointment, we moved almost exactly 30 years ago on May 28. I retained the seasonal grazing lease on the two highest hirsels on Rawburn which required me to remove the sheep through the winter.

In addition to my new venture, I managed the hill farm of Kettleshiel and increasingly helped my father on his farm of Bothwell, which was also in the Lammermuirs.

When we moved the difference in climate between Rawburn, which was mostly over 1000 feet above sea level, and Roxburgh Mains was demonstrated with dramatic effect.

The snow which fell on May 14, 1993, was the worst day in May that I could ever remember. It was no light covering. We had drifts several feet deep at Rawburn and roads were blocked. At Roxburgh Mains, it was merely a day of heavy rain.

Lambs by mid-May were strong enough to survive, but at Kettleshiel the economic impact was immense.

We had for some years let out the grouse shooting which contributed about £30,000 to the profit of the farm. This was important as the only other sources of revenue were 1100 Blackie ewes and 20 cows. The grouse had just hatched and every chick perished. Our grouse income for the next decade never rose above £10,000.

I, my wife Joan and children, Debbie and John, who were both at school, moved in on May 28 together with 70 cows and 120 Suffolk ewes – 800 ewes had been left at Rawburn and they followed in the autumn.

One of my employees at Rawburn, whose mechanical wizardry made up for my own shortcomings, came with us. I had to pay the outgoing tenant, John Forrest – whose advice in the early years I greatly valued – for the growing crop and a few other things of which the biggest was the grain drier.

My experience of cropping was by arable farming standards rudimentary, so I retained the services of the agronomist who had advised my predecessor. Rather than equipping fully and employing another person, I invested in only the most basic machinery and used the Borders Machinery Ring to organise contractors to carry out the cropping operations.

We took over 63 ha (155 acres) of winter wheat, 42 ha (103 acres) of winter barley and 34 ha of (84 acres) of oilseed rape. 21.5 ha (53 acres) of 'set aside', which had recently become a requirement, completed the programme. Around 82 ha (202 acres) were in temporary or permanent grass.

As no-one wanted Angus bulls then, we only sold seven bulls in our first year at Roxburgh Mains. Grain prices were at a high, so we left the cropping programme unchanged.

Cattle prices collapsed around 1996 due to BSE and in 1999 sheep prices were so poor that what we got for cull ewes hardly covered the cost of the haulage. Then foot-and-mouth hit UK in 2001. Grain prices, too, had slipped but still remained more profitable than livestock and were much less work.

The turning point for us came around 2008. We had replaced the commercial ewes with pedigree Texels. Demand for Aberdeen-Angus picked up at the same time.

Now, we grow 48 ha (103 acres) of spring barley and the same of oats, which is all fed on farm. In addition to the 156 ha (385 acres) of temporary and permanent grass on the farm, we take 220 ha (543 acres) elsewhere on grazing leases.

The cows now number 250 and we have 250 ewes which are split equally between Suffolks and Texels. We sell around 90 bulls and 130 rams per annum.

It appears that the leopard hasn’t changed its spots – 30 years on we are still primarily livestock farmers, only we are doing it is a different place.