Jordan Barclay is a Rural Estate and Land Management student at Harper Adams University, currently on summer break and working as an Assistant Land Manager at Blackhall & Powis. Before making the switch to land management, Jordan spent five and a half years as a paediatric nurse, a background that continues to shape her life outside of the office. Here, she shares what a typical Highland Show week looks like when you have a foot in several different worlds at once.
Like many people at B&P, I have a farming background. I support my partner’s family farm and farm shop alongside our own sheep, so a heavy link to agriculture means one thing come mid-June: the Royal Highland Show.
My involvement in the rural community runs wider than the farm, though. I have been a member of Strathmore JAC, my local young farmers club, for many years, serving as club secretary in 2023–24 and as secretary of the Angus Tayside District ever since. And through my previous career as a paediatric nurse, working in A&E at Edinburgh Sick Kids, community children’s nursing, and latterly, as a senior staff nurse in paediatric palliative care, I became one of the Health Hut nurses for the rural charity RSABI. All of which meant that this year’s show week was, as ever, anything but straightforward.
Sunday: Arts, Crafts, and Après Ski
The Sunday before the show has always been a busy one. As the arts and crafts convener of my local club, I am responsible for assembling a team to enter the national competition. This year’s theme was ‘Après Ski’. In addition to coordinating the entry, I created the floral art display and was part of the two-person team that headed to the showground to set it all up. We didn’t win, but it is a great way to bring the club together and put our skills to use away from the day job.
Wednesday and Thursday: The RSABI Health Huts
RSABI (Royal Scottish Agricultural Benevolent Institution) provides practical, emotional, and financial support to people working within the Scottish agriculture industry, with a mission to support and care for as many farming people as possible. One of the ways the charity does this is through health huts at local shows, livestock markets, and agricultural events across the country.
The huts offer blood pressure checks and on-the-spot support. As many of us know, farmers and those working in agriculture tend to avoid the doctor, so being able to get a blood pressure check at a time that suits them makes a real difference. There have been many success stories: people who had no idea their blood pressure was raised and have since come back to tell us they are now on medication and have made lifestyle changes. Some have been referred on to their GP and from there to the hospital for further tests and investigations. It is always wonderful to see people coming forward and to hear the follow-up from those who took action.
My Wednesday of show week was spent running our first health hut in the cattle lines, catching people in their final preparations before showing the next day. Thursday was on the main stand, speaking to stakeholders, friends, and new supporters of the charity. In line with the RHASS presidential initiatives, we had a strong focus on prostate cancer and spoke with many people who have been personally affected or who know someone currently going through treatment.
Friday: The Show Itself
Friday was finally the chance to see everything the show had to offer. We wandered around the cattle and sheep lines, taking in the best stock the UK has to offer, and checking on how our friends had placed. I am glad to say many came home with tickets.
After spending a bit too much on the bank cards, the late afternoon was spent catching up with friends in the members. It was lovely to walk about, enjoying the day and meeting people, new and old, for a yearly catch-up. I have been fortunate to travel around Europe through the Young Farmers organisation and meet some brilliant people along the way, and we use the Royal Highland Show as our yearly rally catch-up, both through the members and at the Young Farmers Ambassadors Drinks Reception on the Friday evening.
Saturday: Stock Leading, New Connections & a Broken Toe
With a full stock judging team in tow, I spent Saturday as a stock leader for SAYFC. Being what I thought was sensible, I opted to lead a dairy cow, assuming she would be easier to handle than the beef cattle and sheep I am used to at home. Leading someone’s prized cattle around for 200 young farmers competing for Stockman of the Year is quite a responsibility, but the sun was out and, on the whole, ‘Henrietta’ behaved herself. The judge placed her second in her class.
In the afternoon, I was back leading a different dairy cow for young farmers to carry out demonstrations on. My slightly broken toe will tell you how that one went. Still, a learning experience nonetheless.
With the sun still out, I took the opportunity to catch up with B&P colleagues at GAEL Energy and make new connections in the renewables sector, as well as take a look at the innovations and machinery that might one day end up on a farm of our own.
Saturday evening gave the young farmers a chance to come together and celebrate the week’s competition successes. The tug of war team performed brilliantly, and with juniors picking up tickets in the craftsmanship, it was a strong showing all round. We rounded off the evening in the members’, Pimm’s in hand, on a warm and sunny evening that felt like a fitting end to the week.
Sunday: The Final Stretch
Sunday is normally a quieter day at the show, but with the arts and crafts board still to collect, we headed in early to finish any last-minute shopping and take it all down. After five years of being handed the short straw on that particular job, I was pleased we managed it in record time.
We caught up with more friends, watched the heavy horses, and saw our neighbour place reserve champion for turnout. To round things off, we stayed for the showjumping Grand Prix. Not quite Silverstone, but engaging and tense all the same.
Why Shows Like This Matter
Shows like the Royal Highland are so important for everyone in the rural sector. They tend to land around silage time, which makes it all the more important to carve out time to step away, socialise, and reconnect with friends from all over. Rural isolation and loneliness remain serious concerns, with rates higher than ever, and events like this play a genuine role in helping to address that.
For those of us at B&P working closely with rural landowners and communities, weeks like this are a reminder of how much happens beyond the desk. The relationships, the understanding of rural life, and the awareness of the pressures people face all feed back into the work in ways that are hard to quantify but genuinely matter.
To find out more about RSABI and their Health Huts, visit: https://www.rsabi.org.uk/health-huts/
This week, a few of the B&P team are swapping the office for the showground as we head to the Royal Highland Show.
As the highlight of the Scottish agricultural calendar, for us the show is about being out among the farming community we know well. Many of our team, friends, and families come from a rural background, and some will be showing livestock, volunteering on stands, competing with young farmers and catching up with friends at this year’s event. We’ll be there to cheer them on.
Catching up with the community
Years of working alongside the agricultural sector also means we know a huge number of people in this community. So, the Highland Show is the perfect excuse to catch up.
While the show is still very much work – for us and our farming friends – it is also one of the few social occasions throughout the year for many in the agriculture sector. We’re looking forward to swapping stories with familiar faces and people we’ve worked with over the years.
It’s also a great chance for members of our team who don’t come from a farming background to get stuck in and get to know the community better.
Come and say hello
As always, we’ll be keen to chat about the energy industry and hear what opportunities and challenges those in agriculture are seeing. But at B&P relationships are at the heart of everything we do, so the social side of being in the field is just as important to us as the work aspects.
So, if you’re going to the show, look out for the B&P team. You’ll most likely find us in the cattle lines, looking at the machinery or snacking in the food hall, maybe after 5 o’clock in the Herdsman. Come and say hello. Thursday and Friday are probably your best bets hopefully by Saturday we will be celebrating some show success!
Health and safety have always been central to how we work, from holding the right certifications to maintaining high standards across the business. But as B&P grows, we’re building something more deliberate: a stronger culture around health, safety, environment and quality. And in true B&P style, we’re doing it a little differently.
Mark Cook joined us at the start of 2026 in a newly created role, HSEQ Manager. He brings a refreshingly human touch to a subject that can often feel dry, putting people and conversation at the heart of how we approach it. And he’s starting where it matters most: with the H.
Our three pillars of HSEQ
Underpinning our new approach is a framework built around three key policy pillars:
- Safe and Well
- People and Planet
- Leading with Quality
All three matter, but there’s a deliberate order to them. Mark is starting with the first, putting health and wellbeing front and centre, and that is where his early work has been focused.
Pause and Prevent
“The H for Health is the bit we often forget,” says Mark. “I focus on putting health first. Our team being fit and well matters, because if you’re not well and you’re out on site, that’s a risk.”
It’s a simple idea, and it reframes how we think about safety. Looking after yourself isn’t separate from doing your job safely. It’s part of it.
Mark uses the analogy of looking after your car: regular checks, rather than waiting for something to break down before you get it fixed. He talks about staying two steps ahead, reminding the team to pause and prevent, so the small things get caught before they turn into big ones.
“I want to get people to pause before getting in the car,” he explains. “To make sure they feel OK. Check the weather, check the traffic. Pause and prevent. Then the second part of that is monitoring how they feel throughout the day, making small adjustments as it unfolds, particularly when switching environments, from home to office, office to site. We’re moving into a different headspace, so it’s worth taking a moment to make sure everything is OK. It’s about much more than doing risk assessments. It’s about identifying risk and building our intelligence and systems around it.”
There’s real substance behind that idea. B&P backs it up with a serious spread of support for its people. For anyone who needs someone to talk to, there’s Virtual Lucy – free and confidential counselling available day or night, no referral needed and no questions asked, alongside a team of trained Mental Health First Aiders across the business. Through cover with AXA and Canada Life, every employee has access to far more than most people expect: a 24/7 GP they can call from home, physiotherapy, specialist referrals, counselling sessions, income protection, and legal and financial support. And to help people build the skills to look after their own wellbeing and support their teams, there’s professional one-to-one coaching and a growing set of self-paced courses on Learn Nest – B&P’s virtual learning environment.
It’s a real investment in people’s health rather than a list of perks, and part of what makes B&P a good place to build a career.
Making it Personal
The support is there. However, Mark’s real focus, though, is on making this personal.
“I’m the first to admit that health and safety can be a dry subject, so I want to make it personal for people,” he says. “I’m not the safety police. That’s not how you get people on board.”
To bring these ideas to life, he’s launched HSEQ Brew Time. It’s half an hour in every team member’s diary each month; an open invitation to step away, grab a coffee and have a proper conversation. It isn’t a tick box exercise or a lecture from the front. It’s a chance for people to get involved, ask the questions on their mind, and feel part of how the business approaches safety. Topics so far have ranged from fire safety and accident reporting to mental health and risk assessment.
The risk assessment element was to really highlight lone working. Lone working can often be misconstrued as being big brother-like when it comes to systems and knowing employees’ locations.
However, the real focus within the risk assessment session was on when exactly we need lone working and when not.
We don’t exactly want to know you’re at the 9th hole on the golf course on a Friday afternoon; it’s about risk management, and for Mark, that was exactly the message he wanted to deliver.
Mark set the tone early, kicking off the focus on wellbeing on Time to Talk Day and speaking openly about his own experience of depression and an ADHD diagnosis. “I’m being open from the start, and that encourages others to do the same.”
It’s not all quiet conversation, either. Last month saw ‘Movement May’ – a team challenge focused on physical wellbeing. The challenge began among the team last year and quickly turned competitive. Shirley Henderson set the bar in 2025, averaging a staggering 30,000 steps a day, then bowed out this year, presumably to give everyone else a fighting chance. The team took full advantage of this. And, on the final day, with the top spot still up for grabs, Lenz Bartelt walked from Glasgow to Falkirk and back to lock in his win. By the time the month was over, 24 colleagues had racked up a combined 7.5 million steps.
For Mark, the focus was never the leaderboard, though. These conversations aren’t meant to begin and end with an awareness month, and he uses moments like Movement May to keep them going all year round.
He’s also introduced safe space learning sessions: a relaxed, supportive clinic where anyone can come along and ask questions. “I don’t want people to be frightened of health and safety,” he says. “It’s about talking things through when they come up.”
Robust Systems and a Human Approach
At the same time, Mark is strengthening the policies, processes and procedures that sit behind all of this, making sure our systems are robust and ready for what’s ahead without losing what makes B&P, B&P.
Health and safety shouldn’t be an eye roll or a box you tick to keep someone happy. It has to be something the team can live with day-to-day, and something that supports them. Get that right, and the systems look after everyone, rather than just covering the business.
This is where the other two pillars, People and Planet, and Leading with Quality, come into focus. Over the coming months, Mark will lead B&P through our ISO certification renewal and the work towards EcoVadis recognition. EcoVadis assesses how a business performs on sustainability and responsible practice, and provides a clear, structured roadmap for improving our ESG performance year on year. It’s a meaningful step, and a practical one: a way of holding ourselves to a standard and knowing exactly where to push next.
A Lasting Legacy
Mark’s fresh approach and his enthusiasm for all things HSEQ have slotted into the B&P culture perfectly. Creating this role and getting the right person into it says a lot about how seriously we take this. It’s a real commitment, not a gesture.
The culture around safety and wellbeing we’re building now will have a lasting, positive impact on our people, our projects and our clients.
“I want to be able to look back in two to three years and see the journey we’ve been on,” says Mark. “It’s exciting to develop a culture and systems that will leave a lasting legacy.”