Australian Estates was one of Australia’s best-known wool-growing businesses. For 83 years, from its beginning as the Australian Estates and Mortgage Co Ltd in 1895 to its sale to CSR in 1978, its name was synonymous with fleece wool of the highest quality.
Even more importantly, it was a company that nurtured thousands of young men, teaching them how to run their own successful sheep properties, and building a camaraderie that remains alive today.
A plan for a reunion of staff from the various sheep properties that dotted Australia’s eastern states has already received interest from over 100 people, including 92-year-old Norman Volk.
The well-known names of Paul McIntyre, Joe Mildren and Hugh Brown are behind the idea.
“It’s time to round everyone up,” said Hugh. “We were a pretty close-knit family. A lot of us played polocrosse together and marked lambs together, and we’re all getting older.”
Adora Downs, a farmstay at Mt Tyson, 45km west of Toowoomba will be the venue for two days of reminiscing and sharing stories from March 9 to 11.
One of the stories to be shared on the Thursday evening might involve the young English offsider gaining pastoral experience at Thylungra, in the Quilpie district.
“One day while running waters we came across the windmill expert who was renewing the stub legs on the tower of a mill,” Hugh remembered.
“We found that all was well, with the holes under the mill completed and the windmill expert attaching new legs to the tower, ready for the cement to pour round them.
“We looked about for the offsider, to find him some distance from the mill up to his knees in a large hole he was digging.
“ ‘What is Tom doing?,’ I enquired.
“ ‘I’ve got him digging a spare hole in case we need it till I’m finished here and he can come back and help here when I’m ready,’ replied the windmill expert.
“True story, I would not lie to you. Workplace health and safety was alive, the fellow was not going to get hurt over there and this proves that everyone took human resource management seriously. It was good that the young fellow had something to do.”
With huge numbers of staff - Thylungra in the 1950s had a census of 400 on its books - there are bound to be plenty of similar stories.
“It was a million and a quarter acres at its largest,” Hugh said. “The most number of sheep shorn there was 122,250. Shearing took place in three separate locations and musterers were needed at each place to bring sheep in and take them away.
“A couple of roo shooters lived there most of the year, shooting for skins and visiting their wives in Charleville every now and then.”
Hugh himself started at Terrick stud at Blackall before moving on to Dagworth, Eurella, Thylungra and Terrica.
“When I went to Dagworth they had 15,000 sheep and it was destocked in three months. That was in 1969.
“I spent nine months with no stock at all. It looked very similar to the way it is now.”
There’s accommodation for 120 at Adora Downs, or at Pittsworth, 25km away, and spots for campers and caravanners.
Potential attendees keen to add their names to the invite list can get in touch with: Paul McIntyre (07) 4693 7251; Joe Mildren 0409 617 476; or Hugh Brown (07) 4696 6065.