Wool Away, Boy!

by Alan Blunt

  Dad and I parted for a while when he went sheep dealing with his lifelong mate Spanner Hayes, an ex-drover, boxer, soldier and poetry-quoting adventurer who had made his money contracting New Guinea natives for work in the plantations. I signed on as a rousie with a St George shearing contractor, Charlie Stewart, an unlikely character for his calling. Charlie’s craggy features and lanky form clad in khaki overalls brought Abe Lincoln to mind. Like the great president, Charlie was a deep reader who loved to quote the classics; he was philosophic, good-humoured and generous. Inevitably he was known as ‘Abe’, or ‘The Long Fella’.

  When Dad got back we signed on for ten shearers at Thomby station, about twenty-five miles from St George. A couple of weeks after the cut-out Dad and I joined several hundred enthusiastic spectators at the annual Thomby Rodeo. I tried to ride a bullock for ten seconds for five quid. In four seconds the beast bounced me off the rails and spread-eagled me in the dirt. Dust-covered and dazed I wondered why the crowd was applauding me, until I realised they were cheering the bullock as he performed a victory circuit, bucking, tail-swishing and bellowing – and heading my way. Helter-skeltering over the rails, I drew more jeers than cheers. Dad checked that I was physically alright, and then summed up: ‘You forgot to watch his head, lad; always follow the head and keep your balance.’

  That night Spanner Hayes offered more advice. ‘If rodeo’s not your long suit perhaps boxing might be your style.’ With no kids of his own, Spanner had taken me when I was eight to the Brisbane stadium to see Alf Wells – a thirty-eight-year-old ex-POW – fight young Jack Daniels to a standstill over twelve rounds. I was immediately hooked. Now, seven years later, he decided it was time to teach me a thing or two about the sport I loved.

  I took to boxing straight away, and though I was small for my age I was strengthened by work and decided to enter some local boxing tournaments. With Spanner in my corner I managed to box the ears off two school kids who were my weight but a couple of years younger. Next I tangled with ‘Tibby’ Gibson, who was my age and also a picker-up in a shearing team. He looked pretty big to me.

  My long reach, left and right shuffle steps and jabs, and the right crosses that Spanner had taught me failed to keep Tibby at bay. He came in hell-bent, flailing like a windmill in a whirlwind. At the first taste of blood I forgot Spanner’s advice to ‘always keep cool and watch your opponent’s feet’ and I went at him like a threshing machine. When the ref pulled us apart and called it a draw at the end of three rounds, the crowd went wild and threw a shower of coins inside the ring. There was even a fluttering of ten-bob notes and a few flying quids. There was money in the game!

  The next morning Tibby and I ran into each other up the street. We were both wearing shiners and fat lips. Tibby said if he hadn’t hurt his thumb in the first round he would have knocked my block off. I said he couldn’t knock my sister’s hat off. We circled, neither of us eager to throw the first punch, but neither willing to take water. Fortunately, Poddy Waters, an Indigenous local footballer and workmate of mine, happened along. ‘Settle down, boys,’ he said. ‘Last night you split thirty-odd quid between you, and now yer want to flog each other for sweet Fanny Adams. Wake up to yerselves! Shake hands now, and save the return bout for the next tournament when yer can get a quid.’

  Poddy was making sense, and he knew we were both hoping for an honourable way out of more punishing conflict. We shook hands. We never did have a return bout.

  Over the next three years ‘the boy’ worked about south-west Queensland as a rousie in shearing teams and on sheep stations as a jackaroo and station hand.

  In June 1955, Dad bought a Vanguard ute, and we drove to the north-west to Barcaldine, where Dad steered to a flourishing ghost gum by the railway. He proudly introduced me to the ‘Tree of Knowledge’, the bush worker’s symbol of unity since the great shearers’ strike of 1891 when the pioneers rallied in its piebald shade to form the Labor Party. Sixty-four years had passed since that watershed in colonial history, but to my youthful mind it seemed like aeons: as far away as Lawson’s ‘Harry Dale’ and Paterson’s ‘Clancy’, or Nellie Melba’s triumphs, or the tragedy of Gallipoli. As distant as the rebels at Eureka laying a foundation stone for Australian democracy, or the tragic deaths of young Les Darcy and Phar Lap. Now, more than sixty years later, that journey to the north and all the years between seem but a breath away; and the heroic battlers of ninety-one breathe companionship.

  After working around the Longreach and Winton districts for several months we were employed at Beryl station late in the year, when word came over ABC radio that negotiations between the Australian Workers’ Union and the United Graziers’ Association had collapsed. The situation was similar to 1891: wool prices were falling and graziers wanted the so-called ‘prosperity lading’ deleted from the Award. Shearers wouldn’t wear it. Teams were walking off, and the big strike was on. I was as happy as Larry: I’d soon embrace family life with Mum and the brothers and sisters I hadn’t seen for six months.

  2

  THE PRESSER

  The strike of 1956, which was supported by the Australian Workers’ Union, soon became as bitter as the Shearers’ War of 1891. The Shearers’ War had been an epic struggle that had cemented the labour movement’s determination to bring social justice to Australia through parliamentary representation, and make the young nation a society proudly based on a ‘fair go’ – at least for white-skinned male inhabitants. The 1956 strike, by contrast, was far less visionary. It whipped the wool industry and its financial dependencies through a long, expensive struggle, and fed the newspapers a feast of sensational headlines of outback confrontation, threats and brawls from January to October.

  Dad advised me to ‘stick with the Union but keep out of the firing line’. Accordingly, I jogged up and down the peaceful hills of Brisbane suburbia delivering bread for the friendly firm of George Bott and Sons, Bakers, of Wilston, while industrial conflagration raged west of the Great Divide.

  On Saturday mornings I attended Australian Workers’ Union meetings at the Union’s headquarters, where I heard rowdy echoes of the social and financial strife consuming the western merino country. The terms ‘new-raters’, ‘old-raters’ and ‘fifty-sixers’ entered the outback lexicon, while ‘scab’ and ‘blackleg’ (strike breakers) were resurrected. The transport unions refused to handle ‘blackened wool’, which was wool harvested by blacklegs. Unionists shore for the old rate of Award wage, while fifty-sixers sweated for the lesser new rate. Most of the outback towns swiftly developed a scab pub, patronised by the new-rate ‘black’ shearers. Such waterholes prospered during the strike, but the stench lingered, and for years afterwards Union men and supporters wouldn’t push through the bat-wing doors of black pubs.

  Most of the new-rate clip was harvested by teams of ‘tomahawking’ learners (so called because their work was so rough and bloody it might have been done with a tomahawk) and by Kiwi imports and scabby unionists employed by the graziers’ co-operative shearing companies. A handful of thugs were imported to stand over the Union men, but they were matched more often than not by the bush knuckle-men in some memorable all-in brawls and one-on-one battles.

  Union members who scabbed were branded as ‘germs’, but the graziers’ sons who temporarily took up the blades to help out were seen as legitimate soldiers of the other side. Even lads who swallowed the ‘learn to shear and get rich quick’ propaganda ads were viewed as men who might be educated to Union principles once the strike was over. Likewise the imported Kiwi strike-breakers.

  An essential condition of strike settlement – agreed upon by the United Graziers’ Association and the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU) – was that all new-raters be ‘whitened’. This meant that they took AWU tickets before sign-on; it was follow Union rules or roll your swag. The United Graziers’ Association needed professionals – and learners who showed promise – to remain, as did the AWU, which was always endeavouring to increase membership. A combination of good seasons and the wool
boom had encouraged graziers to breed record sheep numbers through the 1950s, and there weren’t enough shearers to keep up with the work as it took years of practice to develop the skills of a professional shearer and required innate hardiness and determination.

  Wool was the nation’s major export, so it was in the national interest to return the wool harvest to full capacity. Graziers needed to pay their mortgages, while storekeepers, who had given credit to the local strikers, wanted unionists back at work to square family tucker bills. The wiser heads in the shearing fraternity saw the advantage of peaceful solidarity in the industry and they set about educating the fifty-sixers, who had been courageous enough to weather the storm, in Union rules and principles.

  The major contractors, UNGRA and GRAZCOS, usually placed a phalanx of solid Union men in each team. These were seasoned shearers who could be relied on to cool the hot heads (for a few hard-cases – usually single men – were on the lookout to settle old scores violently).

  A scab list, falsely claiming to be issued by the AWU, even went the rounds, causing ill-feeling and sometimes rows and punch-ups. The list was inaccurate, accusing solid men – along with the guilty – of scabbing. The wiser heads knew it was the product of perennial troublemakers and burnt copies as they came to hand.

  The strike might be over officially but malicious ‘pointers’ continued to spread fact and fiction and innuendo. While peace was usually maintained till cut-out, some crackerjack fights broke out once a pub was reached. On one notable occasion animosity was chained only till the boundary gate was shut; then two car loads erupted and ten shirtless shearers punched each other back and forth across the Mitchell grass plain until they were bloody, black and blue. Exhausted, and seized by the terrible thirst that a twenty-minute stoush in the outback summer sun induces, they called a truce and drove forty miles across the plains to the Gilliat pub. There they guzzled a few pots before surging out the back to knuckle on.

  The publican was an ageing, raw-boned legend known as the ‘Downs Tiger’, named after the venomous snake. The Tiger would rather have a fight than a feed. Roaring into the fray he knocked shearers skew-whiff left and right. ‘Now get back inside,’ he bellowed. ‘Youse come here to drink, not to fight. I’ve been waiting three weeks to get a quid out of you bastards. Youse all owe me for grog I’ve sent out on the mail truck. Now pay up and get a gutful of piss – and then youse can fight till the cows come home.’

  With the strike settled in a rare points win to the Unionists, I returned to the south-west in April 1957 and became a wool roller, followed by piece-picker (a rousie who sorts the lower grades of wool, removed by the wool rollers) in Richie Jack’s team near Bollon, south-west Queensland.

  Richie was known as Sack ’em Jack, a nickname he had earned during the 1930s. For me it became hard to associate the stammering, affable grey-haired man with the ruthless overseer who had earned his reputation during the grim years of the Great Depression. Old hands, however, still recalled bitterly Sack ’em Jack firing shearers who were struggling family bread winners.

  Younger blokes who hadn’t experienced his harshness firsthand would chuckle as they passed on a tale telling how Richie had gained another nickname: the taxi-loader. Apparently, after firing four men in quick succession, one of the men told him, ‘I’m going to the homestead to use the phone to contact the Union organiser. He’ll pull you into gear quick smart.’

  ‘No need to phone, s-sport,’ Sack ’em replied, ‘you can s-s-see him when you get to t-town. Get your cheque. You’ll make up a taxi load.’

  Of the eight men on the board half were learners – class of fifty-six – which meant the team was shearing only as much wool as an average five-stander. Even so the wool presser, an overweight fifty-sixer, soon threw in the towel.

  ‘Heart the s-s-size of a p-pea,’ Sack ’em stuttered as he handed the fat man his cheque. He offered the man-sized job to ‘the boy’. Turning to me he said, ‘You’re the p-presser, young Blunt! Want it?’ Did I ever!

  Being a wool presser involved putting the wool into a wool press to make bales, and it was the heaviest work in the shed. Under the Pastoral Award pressers could work unlimited hours except on weekends. However, it was a matter of pride among professional lever-men to keep the wool away within the bell hours. Professional I was not. I was eighteen, fit and hardy but underweight and under-powered for the job. Muscle-sore and dog-tired I plodded to the shed each night after tea with a carbide light and a proud can-and-will determination. In the gloomy interior I loaded and tramped wool and swung on the lever for a couple of hours to lower the wall of fleeces prior to the next morning’s bell.

  As I passed the boss’s hut, Richie Jack, who was relaxing on the verandah, removed his pipe, blew a cloud of pungent Erinmore aroma, chuckled, and called to me a stammering, ‘A scratch team got you b-bogged? Never thought I’d see you doing a F-F-Florence Nightingale for eight snaggers, Chapman.’ Bill Chapman was the doyen of wool pressers – a peerless giant of a man – and pressers who had to work at night to catch up were jokingly referred to as Florence Nightingale (aka the lady with the lamp). Thereon Richie Jack dubbed me ‘Chapman’, or AJ (my initials); others called me ‘the presser’. ‘The boy’ was forever gone.

  In April 1958, after gaining experience as a wool roller, drover and roo-shooter for twelve months around south-west Queensland, I met Peter Hargreaves at a shed out of Goondiwindi. Peter was a young solo-slaughterman-cum-shearer from Wangaratta and although he was shorter than me he was a stone and a half heavier and strong as a scrub bull. He had done a bit of boxing and volunteered to be my sparring partner to prepare me for an upcoming tournament in Goondiwindi.

  Each night a few of us would take carbide lights to the woolshed after tea, where I’d box rings around a dogged, pursuing opponent. Although I pulled my punches Peter ended each session with claret dripping from his nose and reddened ribs and face. ‘I’ll catch you one night,’ he’d say, grinning while we shook hands. Our final spar ended when he caught me fancy dancing in front of the open wool press door with a shoulder charge that knocked me inside the box. Trapped, I tried to fight back while Peter thumped me vengefully till I dropped, winded and bleeding. Stepping back, he chuckled and pulled the gloves off. ‘That’s our last spar, Presser. Now we’re square.’

  The bout in Goondiwindi fell through when my opponent didn’t turn up. Instead I boxed an ‘exhibition’ with a lad from Roma whose opponent also didn’t show. We must have put on a good performance, for as well as bloody noses we drew a shower of coins and a few notes.

  Remaining good mates, Peter and I lined up work with UNGRA Shearing Co-op in Hughenden, while Dad took on overseeing shearing sheds for a Goondiwindi contractor. In June we drove up the coast in Peter’s Holden ute. We passed a week lolling through the sleepy coastal sugar towns. ‘The further north we go,’ Peter observed, ‘the girls get prettier and everything moves slower. There’s more push bikes than you can poke a stick at – and I’ll tell you, all this pedalling sure gives a girl good legs.’

  In Townsville we went to the Olympic pool to watch the Empire Games team in training. It was an easy going era: swimming champs were amateurs and Aussie heroes, not millionaire celebrities barricaded by millionaire agents. My Box Brownie snapped friendly shots of Dawn Fraser, Lorraine Crapp and Gary Winram, before we headed for Hughenden – and a meeting with Big Bob Teitzel, United Grazier’s Shearing Co-op Manager for the north-west. ‘Big Bob’ had been dubbed variously the ‘Provo’ (slang for military police) and ‘Gestapo Bob’ by the hardy independent ex-diggers who shore in his teams. A part of Big Bob’s martinet policy was to split mates by putting them in different teams. His theory was that if one pulled out or got the sack his cobber would go with him, and the team would be short two men instead of one. However, this didn’t apply to everyone, for Bob knew from experience that some old mates and brothers worked together as a condition of employment, and that they were usually reliable, above-average shearers. Thus I was sent to Vu
na station, south of Hughenden, while Peter was placed near Julia Creek, 400 miles west of Townsville.

  Following Vuna cut-out I went on to Malboona. I was travelling light – my only luxuries were half a dozen books, a dismantled twenty-two rifle and a set of boxing gloves, crammed into a port and swag.

  Since the 1890s, when Henry Lawson wrote his vivid descriptions of big sheds and big men about Bourke and along the Darling River, the shearing fraternity had been noted for its individuals and characters. Seventy years on, the Malboona team of thirty men could boast an above-average quota of the same. ‘Darkie’ was one of those characters. He was an easygoing bloke everyone in the brotherhood seemed to know, like and respect. He was an unobtrusive peacemaker who could defuse explosive situations with a few words, or liven a dull evening with puckish wit and amusing yarns.

  Darkie and a few others were having a drink in the Grand Hotel waiting for a taxi to take them to Malboona when two unknown newcomers from New South Wales breasted the bar. After the usual ‘G’days’ had been extended, Darkie made a friendly inquiry: ‘You blokes goin’ to Malboona?’

  ‘We were,’ Johnny said pointedly, ‘until Adolf Hitler’s bloated uncle laid down the law about grog in the shed.’ He was referring to Big Bob Teitzel’s proclamation that anyone taking alcohol onto a station would be dismissed, according to a rule written into the Shearer’s Agreement but usually ignored.

  ‘Strewth!’ Darkie exclaimed. ‘He don’t have a search warrant, yer know. If it suits yer I’ll go and have a yarn to him.’

  ‘It’s too bloody late now, cobber,’ Johnny said. ‘I told the red-faced Gestapo prick he should have been hung in Munich with the rest of his Nazi butchers.’