KEY POINTS:
At 71 Rusty Campbell still draws the studious gaze of younger shearers with his cool, calm, clean-cutting technique.
"I'm aiming for a good clean job rather than speed and I'm enjoying myself," said the retired Dargaville man.
Mr Campbell is among a growing band of over-50s shearers who are lining up for the "veteran's events" that are adding interest and good-natured competition to agricultural shows in the upper North Island.
Yesterday he was on the shears at Auckland's Royal Easter Show. In his younger days he was a busy professional and top challenger at shearing competitions.
"I had shorn all over New Zealand but I gave up that gypsy-sort of life in 1968 when I realised I had to shear 3000 more sheep to make the same income as the year before."
Instead, he worked at the Kinleith Mill for 30 years before returning home to Northland.
There he saw a veteran's event at the Arapohue Show and "the shearing bug bit me - again - and I started going round the shows".
In March, he competed in the "junior" heats at the Golden Shears in Masterton, placing 29th out of 62.
His only lasting physical complaint from his exertion is a sore knee.
"I'm taking a fish-based diet supplement for that."
Yesterday at the show, he came in fifth and warmly congratulated top-placed and younger men, Philip Woodward, who farms at Waikaretu, and Neil Sidwell, a Ruawai dairy farmer.
Asked what the difference was between them and young professional shearers, the trio grinned.
"We haven't any advantage really," said Mr Woodward. "They're way ahead ... their gear is better, they look after themselves better and they eat much better."
"We only had mutton, spuds and cabbage - sometimes without the cabbage," said Mr Sidwell.
