Opinion: We didn't get up there on our own!

The Westmere Young Farmers Club debating team and supporters prepare to board a bus to Hastings in August 1968.

Alex Hayley, author of a best-selling autobiography and TV series Roots, had in his office for many years a picture of a turtle perched on top of a two-metre post.

The accompanying caption read: "You can be sure he didn't get up there on his own!"

As I prepare to travel to Invercargill next month to join other grand final winners of what was, in my day, the Skellerup Young Farmer of the Year to celebrate 50 years of this amazing contest, I have been reflecting on the high points in my life and how I certainly never "got up there on my own".

And it seems an opportune time to acknowledge the people in the Young Farmers Club movement who helped not only myself, but many others to "get up there".

Sadly, most from Young Farmer days are no longer with us — one of the last, Keith Morrison, having passed away just a few weeks ago.

Keith was just one of a number of outstanding young men who set the standard and mentored the younger members, coaching us in all sorts of activities.

Activities ranged through stock judging, shearing, debating, public speaking, ploughing and pasture judging.

When I think about it, we desecrated local farmers' paddocks in the name of "ploughing"; hacked most of the wool and some of the skin off their prized sheep with what we thought were shearing skills to surpass those of Godfrey Bowen; and probably insulted their animal husbandry skills as we passed observations on the quality of their animals in stock-judging events.

All this was taken with a good understanding of our youthful enthusiasm and ignorance — and with the inevitable dose of rural humour.

In the 1950s and 60s, the Young Farmers movement boasted some 12,000 members nationwide, and the Westmere Club, one of 10 in the Wanganui district, had over 30 members and met every month in the Westmere Hall.

There we were privileged to have outstanding speakers on a wide range of farming and community topics.

Members from Jaycees judged our debates — people like Bob Spencer, Morrie Harris and numerous others set many of us on a path to future public involvement. These young farmers received a grounding in community citizenship unequalled elsewhere.

Allan Anderson, New Zealand Young Farmer of the Year in 1970, looks back over his time with the Westmere club.

Senior club members were in a league of their own and here I have to mention as many as my memory allows — Alan Skilton, Doug Brownlie, Graham Cooper, Keith Morrison, Michael Anderson, Nick Tripe (still with us) and one very special man, the club patron Charlie Palmer.

Charlie seemed to have been around forever — someone said he served in World War I — and owned the Cake Kitchen, so he would usually bring some goodies for supper.

He also worked for the Chronicle, or as he always described it "Wanganui's leading morning daily", a term I still like to use. Charlie was always present to give good fatherly advice to us young'uns, a quiet man who had faith in the younger generation of farmers. I like to think we didn't disappoint him.

The Department of Agriculture, the forerunner of Ag and Fish and now MPI, played a key role. Everyone likes to poke fun at public servants as non-productive pen-pushers, but those ones were dedicated to the wellbeing of Wanganui's young farmers.

Alan Duncan headed the Wanganui office and two other staff members were of enormous assistance. Harold Richardson was general support officer while Peter Marshall was sheep and wool officer and committed to members' training and success in shearing and wool-handling.

We were young and fit but 5am on a training day would see Peter on the shearing board with expert guidance for the tasks in hand.

His crowning moment came when, at the Masterton Golden Shears in 1962, a combined district team of Peter Coleman and Mike McGee (both now deceased), as shearers, along with John Stewart and John Orr, as wool handlers, won the teams event with a trip to Aussie as the prize.

A great team effort but no one got up there on his own. All could claim equal honours.
If the Westmere Club could boast supremacy in any one field it was in debating. In one year, the district finals of the junior, senior and the country girls contests all featured two opposing Westmere teams.

The members' support was unreal as shown in the accompanying photo depicting the Westmere senior team of Rick Handley (leader), myself and the late Frank Lacy as we departed for a North Island semifinal in Hastings in 1968.

We are in the middle of the front row, Harold Richardson is at the left and our coach, the late Alan Skilton, is at the right rear.

As the Chronicle reported: "This army of supporters would encourage any team." It certainly did. We won that semifinal but got beaten in the final at Te Awamutu. Many were the laughs and memories of those days — and note the elegant fashions of the '60s.
Of that debating team, Rick Handley in Taranaki and I in Wanganui have both served as members of our respective district councils and district health boards.

Activities were not confined to the club — the annual Christmas shout for everyone in the district served as an appreciation of the support given by residents.

On a somewhat larger scale, Westmere YFC entered the Wanganui Miss Personality carnival in 1959 which was designed to complete the fundraising for the War Memorial Hall.

This event showed Wanganui's rural community at its best. From all manner of social functions to countless tons of sheep manure (the city's gardens surely sported a vast crop of nettles that year) the money rolled in and Westmere's entrant, Janet Laird, twin sister of club member Duncan, romped home as the carnival winner.

So, many will be the memories shared in Invercargill next month. Though 50 years have passed since those halcyon days, little will be lost in the exchanges.

I recall the words of club member Mike McGee, champion shearer and bush poet extraordinaire: "Then through the hazy mist of times, good mates I've known still stand in line" — and between what I trust will be copious servings of Bluff oysters I will raise a glass to all those great folk who have helped me to "get up there".

Fifty years on, I salute each and every one of you.