the butter factory offered me a course at Werribee to train as a qualified cheese maker, but it was too late.
CHAPTER 7
THE HERD TESTER
Once qualified, I successfully applied for the position of herd tester with the Phillip Island & Archie’s Creek Herd Test Association to begin on the 1st of December 1958. This was in anticipation of obtaining my driving license in January when I would be 18. To carry the equipment for testing, I bought a 1930, V8 Oakland car in almost original condition, but it succumbed within months to the extravagant demands I made upon it. Flush with a salary of £23 a week, I bought a Hillman Husky on time payment and became a reliable herd tester. The Hillman was essentially a small two door station wagon with a simple lift up rear seat when required. The small side valve motor ensured I had to be content with reliability rather than speed. Being a herd tester entailed working for the Archie’s Creek and Phillip Island Association of twenty four farmers who received an incentive from the Department of Agriculture to test their cows for butterfat. The results of the testing provided an objective production record from which farmers could select and breed from the best cows. I carried ten test buckets with lids, a centrifuge turned by hand and about 200 test bottles with rubber stoppers set in tin trays of 24. For the sampling I had an assortment of glassware including a burette, a number of pippettes, graduated test flasks and a large carboy of sulphuric acid. The test buckets were placed in the line of the milking machine so that each cow’s milk could be trapped, allowing me to weigh it and take a proportionate sample before tipping the balance into the large vat for collection by the butter factory truck. This was done for both the evening and morning milking.
I stayed on each farm once a month because the farms of the association were widely spread. The process was repeated every month. Farmers not in the association would also approach me and request a periodic test so for additional income, on completion of my regular round, I would test them also. For much of the year I worked every day either testing or doing farm work on an hourly rate. In Victoria at that time, the State herd average per cow was less than 300lb of butterfat. A number of herds in the Archie’s Creek and Phillip Island Association exceeded 300lb while the top producer in our association, averaged over 400lb per cow each year.
The calving records required that all calves be tattooed in each ear so that each animal carried a reliable record of its breeding. The tattooing of calves could be great fun because it required the farmer to know which calf belonged to which of the cows that had calved since the previous visit. In general, it was the farmer’s children or his wife who knew best because they were more often involved in the calf rearing process. The numbers put in one ear recorded the number assigned to the calf and the farm code, with a prefix for the year. The other ear carried the dam’s number and the sire’s code. It could be great entertainment running down frisky calves in all weathers while adjudicating the odd family argument about which calf belonged to which cow, remembering that every cow had a name as well as a number. On the larger farms at this time, it could mean up to 200 calves being born over three months.
The testing results were a valuable guide for the future breeding program of the farm for most, but for a few it was a chance to get their name in the paper because the results listing the top ten producers were published each month in the local newspaper. To be high on the list carried considerable kudos in a rural community, especially if it could be achieved consistently.
I would arrive on the farm around 3.30 p.m. in time for afternoon tea. I would then set up the equipment while the farmer gathered his cows. On completion of the milking, I would assist in cleaning up the shed, then myself, before having the evening meal. Most farmers were pleased to see me, although sometimes it was not always convenient for them. Testing did disrupt the routine and slow the milking a little. It was a business and as such, while pleasant to me, my presence had a nuisance value that was generally handled with tolerance and lukewarm indifference. I was not family and yet I was to be accommodated. The wives could be put out by my sudden appearance. There would be murmurings about changing beds, other guests, the food situation and other domestic inconveniences. Generally I was greeted with a warm welcome, but because I was a guest there was no helping oneself to the phone, fruit, snacks or drink from the refrigerator, unless invited to do so.
Over time, through familiarity, I merged with the wallpaper. I became privy to amazing family dramas that enabled me to see disputes did occur in other families, but most occurred without the violence I was used to. Issues of inheritance, sibling rivalry, religion, unsuitable suitors, politics, neighbourhood disputes and sport, beside the vexatious issues of life on a dairy farm, were all played out without physical violence and only moderate bad language.
Although I had a good car and was well paid, I dealt with my personal isolation by going out almost every night. I rarely managed more than five hours sleep because although some farmers started as early as 4.30 a.m., most started around 6 a.m. My coming and going was of little concern providing I was there for each milking and that I completed the testing and book work. Without a place within my own family and only this tenuous connection with the farm clients, I was a free agent. My belongings easily fitted in an old blue suit case held together with a leather strap.
Some of my friends might have envied my freedom. Inwardly, I craved the opportunities and stability I saw in the best of the families I visited. I was unhappy sleeping in a different bed every night and always being the visitor. Spare beds were invariably worn out and sharing a bedroom with other people’s children is not homely. I was bored with the repetitious nature of the job but powerless to change it, or so I thought. A few of the families were exceedingly kind, a fact I was grateful for.
During my free time during the day I visited my mother regularly or called on friends. One day as I was leaving my parents farm, I was hailed by two men I presumed were lost because they waved me down as if for directions. They introduced themselves as Senior Detective Bell from Dandenong and Senior Detective Seymour from Warragul. They wanted to know what I was doing one day the previous month when apparently I was seen in the bush opposite the Glen Forbes Butter Factory. I explained that, assisted by Roger, I had cut six feet of pipe from the disused piggery milk line to make a tow bar for the Hillman Husky. I tried to tell them I had obtained permission to do so from Sam Pearson, the manager of the factory, but they seemed uninterested. I gave them all the details of where and how we had got the pipe and felt that would be the end of it. Undeterred, they then went to see Roger, from whom they obtained a similar story.
To my amazement, we were charged with stealing the pipe. I couldn’t believe it since I had permission to take the pipe and the pipe line belonged to the factory. I did nothing. I did not tell my father or my mother, thinking it would resolve itself when fully investigated. We were soon summoned to court. It never crossed my mind I should see a solicitor because I had no money. On the appointed day, I dropped into the local newspaper to speak to the owner, Mr. Tom Gannon. I did this because he knew of me and my involvement with the Young Farmers. I begged him not publish the story. It was a mistake I explained. He assured me he would not.
The bench was occupied by three Justices of the Peace. The charge of stealing was read to the court and I was asked to explain. Apparently, we were charged because the police thought we had been involved in stealing the contents of a house at Kilcunda the same day we had been seen taking the pipe. Detective Seymour then spoke in our defense, saying he had obtained character references for us both and that the pipe was worthless. He also confirmed I had permission and that we should not have been charged. Accordingly, the magistrates said there would be no charge so we were let off. Relieved, we went home.
The next week the headline on the front page of the local paper shrieked ‘Honest Boys Let Off’ in the biggest print possible. My father went into overdrive. He could be heard all over the district. All that concerned me was the ribbing I was sure to receive from everyone who knew me. Roger’s father
