A SELKIRK gamekeeper gear suppliers is now by royal appointment.
Game and Country in Dunsdale Road received the welcome news that it had been granted the royal warrant on Christmas Eve.
Owner Richard McGill said: “We are very excited about it. It gives a certain credibility.”
The company sells the tools gamekeepers need to do their job and clothes to work outdoors 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, and on vehicles and packaging.
Mr McGill said: “We do have some export customers and if we are putting the royal arms onto 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.