As a child I often marvelled at the process of shearing a sheep and although I witnessed it on numerous occasions, I just couldn’t believe how smooth and clean the shearers managed to defleece a sheep.

Now cast your minds back to 1960 and imagine a thirteen year old lad standing on the board of a deserted shearing shed, with a pair of blade shears in his hand, cogitating on whether he should try his hand.  He’d seen it so many times before that he knew all the moves off by heart, there wasn’t anyone around and the groom had left the ration sheep in one of the catching pens, ready to dispatch them next day, so it’s now or never.

Now which one?  It’d better not be the big wether in the corner, he might fight to hard and I wouldn’t want to lose him in a half shorn state.  So, it had better be that nice second cross lamb, the one I knew was intended for the homestead’s kitchen, for Gran had visitors coming at the weekend and she didn’t want to serve up tough meat.

So here goes. I had sharpened the blades, just as I’d been taught, lent them against the post on the board and dived into the pen, too easy. The lamb didn’t put up much of a struggle and I turned him up and pulled him onto the board. Grabbing my shears, I commenced to take off the belly wool, then the rest of the fleece came off easily.  After letting him back in the pen, I admired my handy work.  Well, there were a few high spots and in places he looked lopsided, but shorn he was.

Then an awful thought came to mind.  What if the groom tells Granddad Tom about the shorn lamb, my god he’ll skin me alive!!  So, for the next few days I just waited for the “axe to fall”. Nothing happened and as I was going back to school in Geelong the following Monday, I just prayed that nothing would be mentioned. Come Monday morning, I was taken to the Deniliquin Railway Station, ready to catch the seven thirty train to Melbourne and beyond. Usually, my mother would drive me in, but not this day, it was to be my Grandfather, who had errands to run in town. Pretending that the shearing episode had not occurred, I just kept up my usual prattle on the drive in.  At the station, he helped me with my suitcase and put a ten bob note in my hand. His parting words were, “that was a pretty good first time shearing job you did last week and I’ll see you in a couple of weeks when you play cricket against Geelong Grammar”.  He usually came to see me play a couple of times a term.

The shearing story doesn’t end there. After finishing school in 1963, I was sent off to jackaroo for Sir Roy McCaughey at the Coonong Merino stud, near Jerilderie, and was fortunate to be given the job of looking after the Ram Sale rams, all 200 odd of them. Each year the Fitzsimmons brothers were contracted to blade shear the rams that were destined for the various ram sales that the stud attended each year.  Yours truly got the job of helping Jack and Jim during their stay at the property. I was to roustabout and keep the wool away from them after they finished each ram and turn the sandstone sharpening wheel, while they sharpened their shears, this took place at Smokos and lunch time. They were very professional at their job and since they also shore for my Grandfather, I had met them before. Both men, especially Jim, took a keen interest in me.  When I told him that I wanted to learn how to blade shear properly, he gave me plenty of pointers and would let me shear his last sheep at the end of each run.

Over the next few years, I regularly sheared the rams on the various stud properties that I worked on.  When I finally went back to my family property in nineteen eighty four, I took up blade shearing as an adjunct to my farm work. By this time, I had formed my own Sheep and Wool Consultancy business and was classing up to a hundred thousand sheep a year. However, in the year that I went home, I was at the Ballarat Sheep Show, where Sunbeam Australia held the Australian Blade Shearing Competition, so I entered, I never went anywhere without my blade shearing kit, for you never knew when you might need it!  Luck had it that I managed to win the Novice section. There were several Stud Masters watching on who I knew and I was swamped with people wanting me to shear for them. To cut a long story short, I then went off blade shearing professionally for the next twenty or so years, shearing all over Eastern Australia, shearing in about thirty studs’ sheds and at the peak, shearing three to four thousand rams and ewes a year.  My best tally was at Boonoke when I shore off 124 rams in the day.

SHEARING SHEDS THAT I HAVE BLADE SHORN IN.

1. BALLYDEAN & DANDBURY - URALLA
2. BANAVIE - MARNOO
3. BELBOURIE - MARNOO
4. BOONOKE - CONARGO
5. COONONG - JERILDERIE
6. DENILIQUIN STUD PARK – DENILIQUIN
7. EMMAVILLE - WEETHALLE
8. GLENDEMAR - MARNOO
9. GLENERA NORTH - HORSHAM
10. GOWENDALE - MARNOO
11. HINESVILLE - DENILIQUIN
12. KARMALA – LAKE BOLAC
13. KOORALONG – LAKE BOLAC
14. LONE PINE/SILVER PINES - JERILDERIE
15. LOWANA – COLEAMBALY
16. MUNGADAL - HAY
17. NINUENOOK – WYCHIPROOF
18. OAKBANK - MARNOO
19. OAKLEA - MARNOO
20. OLD COBRAN - DENILIQUIN
21. OLD DUNDEE - MARNOO
22. POOGINOOK - JERIDERIE
23. SHALIMAR PARK - WALCHA
24. TUPPAL CREEK - DENILIQUIN
25. UARDRY - HAY
26. WALLALOO PARK - MARNOO
27. WONGA - JERIDERIE
28. WILLURAH - CONARGO
29. WIRRENOURT - WILLAURA
30. WANGANELLA – WANGANELLA
31. ZARA – WANGANELLA
32. PEPINELLA - CONARGO

​I only entered the Australian Blade Shearing Championship twice again, nineteen ninety four and five, winning in ninety four and running second in ninety five.  My shearing days are long gone, arthritis and back problems have put an end to all that!!!!


David Lowing
June 2021
  

My early childhood, that is after I started remembering incidents, was made up of various pets, “Miaow” my cat, “Danny” and “Brownie”, the two sheep dogs that my Grandfather Tom had, “Creamy” my horse and an assortment of Bantams, Ducks and Chooks in general.

One of my earliest memories was the chook yard, where I had a favourite bantam rooster, which I called “Chookum”.  I never really found out what became of “Chookum”, but I fear he may have found the cooking pot in our kitchen.   My verbal announcement of the disappearance was forecast to all in sundry, with the words, “who tookum my Chookum?”.  This fell on deaf ears.   Apparently after it was realized that the son and heir’s favourite feathered friend wasn’t in the chook yard, the matter was considered better left alone and not discussed.   I sure did miss “Chookum”, for he was the only member of the chook yard I could hand feed.

Two of the first members of the canine race that entered my life were, “Danny” and Brownie”, sheep dogs by breed and training, the first a champion Border Collie and the other a rather nondescript Kelpie.  The dogs disliked each other with a vengeance and could be easily enticed to have a scrap, by just throwing gravel at them both.  Of course, they both thought that each had induced the situation and didn’t realize that one little boy had perpetrated the whole affair.
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There was always much excitement when a visit was made to the “Rabbiting Packs” kennels; for in the late nineteen forties and fifties, rabbits had begun to overrun the whole countryside, so as to enforce the “Rabbit Act”, station owners were required to employ “Rabbiters”, who armed with a pack of rabbiting dogs, shovels, traps and poisons would set out daily to pursue and destroy the erstwhile bunny.  My Grandfather Tom employed a rather laconic Australian, who went by the name of “Bantam Jim”.  I never knew his surname, but I used to follow Jim, sticking to his trail as limpets stick to a rock, for I always knew that there would be some excitement happening during the day some time.  Jim was the fellow that taught me songs and one of the earlier ones was a little ditty that went thus, “Cigarettes and Whisky and wild, wild women, they’ll drive you crazy, they’ll drive you insane”.  Of course, my Grandmother Ruth would run around telling me not to sing those terrible songs and have my Grandfather say something to Jim, who’d not be very happy. Since Jim was a good mate, I did not want him to get into trouble with the boss, so of course, I complied.  As the Rabbiting Pack was made up of both dogs and bitches, there was always plenty of fighting and squabbling amongst the pack, especially when a bitch was “in season” and all of the dogs were trying to “mate” with her.  Of course, the inevitable would happen, two would be “knotted”, so much delight would be had by a little boy throwing buckets of water over them both.   I don’t really know what result was achieved by this, except that both the dogs and a little boy were thoroughly wet to the skin.

My first venture into high finance reared its head during this period in my life, for I had learned how to trap rabbits, skin them, then string the skins onto a bow of eight-gauge wire.  Dried skins fetched a shilling a pound and good quality rabbits were sold to the local butcher for seven and six a pair. Another money-making enterprise was to walk around the paddocks with a chaff bag and pluck all the wool of any unfortunate sheep that happened to have put its four feet into the air; wool was worth a few bob in those years’ of the early to mid-fifties.  So, my bank balance grew!!!!!! 
 
David Lowing
June 2021