The Sun
Friday August 12, 2016
Shearers meet up for 45 years Story and photo by Cathie Bell For 45 years, a small group of men have been meeting in Lloyd and Val Mapp’s Pine Valley woolshed each year to shear their sheep, and this year is no different. But this year, they reckon might be the last time they all get together – they’re getting older, shearing is hard physical work, and even that far up the Northbank, sheep are giving way to grapevines. Karl Slape is keen to get The Sun in to talk about the old days, and the roles that Eric Warmouth and Peter Yorke have played in shearing in Marlborough. Lloyd says he took over the farm 45 years ago, and then, Eric Warmouth had the shearing run, Karl had just started shearing. Peter started a bit later, and he got his first 300 sheep tally in the Mapps’ shed. He still holds the shed record. In those days, the farm was running Perendales, small sheep with not much wool, so it was a favoured place to shear as it was easier. Eric says when he started shearing, he did 10 sheep in his first day, and then Karl’s father Jim Slape and Laddie Hope got hold of him and got him ‘up and running’. Shearing’s always been a tough job, and the gangs could be a bit rough and ready. Eric has tales that will make any health and safety inspector wince. “When Yorkie started shearing for me, he was a little bit of a lad. We were living around here, having a hard time. In the morning, we’d slept in. Yorkie arrived on his motorbike with an old army greatcoat, covered in black. He’d slept by the fire with the boys at Pelorus.” ‘I smelt like cabbage,’ Peter laughs. Eric says Peter could be ‘as crook as a dog’ with booze but after the
inbrief Motel sale today Bing’s Motel has sold, with settlement today. It is understood the site has been sold to Valley Harvesting to be used for worker accommodation. The central business district motel has been a part of the Blenheim landscape for more than 50 years. Owner Graham Bing, 92, died last week.
Metal yard damaged Police are seeking information to help identify those responsible for causing about $10,000 damage to vehicles and other items at a scrap metal yard in Kinross St, Blenheim, over the weekend. If you have any information please contact Blenheim Police Ph 5785279.
Van rolls
Shearers Karl Slape, Peter Yorke, Eric Warmouth, and farmer Lloyd Mapp in the Mapp woolshed.
first hour, he’d come right. “He was on the job every day, he never missed a day. I could guarantee he’d do the same number of sheep every day.” Drinking doesn’t happen like the old days. Shearers finish up and go home, they don’t drink like they used to. Karl says Eric has ‘an unusual sense of humour’, and liked to prank workers, sometimes buzzing them with the shears. Eric laughs about the time he did that to a woman in the shed. “She was wearing a dress, I got too close and it got caught up, there was bits of material everywhere and a bit of skin went too.” Karl refers to Eric as ‘the master’, which is a reference to their shared Mason background. Eric has been a grand master of the lodge, Wairau 42. All three shearers do significant
community work, Val says. They all have great stories about the places they’ve worked and the people they know, all agreeing shearing is not like it used to be – for a start, there aren’t many sheep left in Marlborough. Where the Northbank valley used to be able to keep three shearers in fulltime work, there would only be enough to keep one in work part-way through the season. Eric says in the heyday, he had to shear 161 sheep a day to keep his three children in boarding school and make a living. He hunted pigs and possums too. Food provided by farms is memorable too. Eric remembers one place for the ‘little round biscuits’. “They were so hard, you couldn’t eat them. You’d give them to the dogs, they wouldn’t eat them. I tried to nail one to the wall.”
Karl says shearing has changed in its staff too, guys ‘over 40’ like them aren’t seen in gangs now. “We’re still coming because we enjoy it.” Lloyd says ‘there are not many places like this now’. He thinks this may be the last time they have a shearing run, but Val is not so sure about that. “There’ll always be a few sheep here.” Eric is still shearing, and says he’ll be doing it next week on his own Fabian Valley property. “I can do 25 an hour. I can do it for an hour, and then I have a rest for an hour. “It’s hard work, but it’s having a knack, realising no two sheep are the same, they’re all built different. Once you’ve been at it for a while, you know all the bloody ins and outs. “It’s all different today though.”
BOATING MADE EASY
A man was injured yesterday when his van rolled on State Highway 63. Police say the crash happened on State Highway 63, near Larkins Rd, about 50 kilometres west of Blenheim just before 10am on Thursday when the van’s front right wheel blew and the driver lost control. He was the only person in the van and had moderate injuries and was taken to Wairau Hospital by ambulance.
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