Mick Clarke on shearing sheep for 60 years
Mick Clarke has been shearing sheep for six decades and says it keeps him young at heart. And the 77-year-old doesn’t have any immediate plans to call it quits. This is his story.
Celebrating 60 years of shearing sheep, Mick Clarke is likely to have achieved another significant milestone in the process.
“Some have said (I’ve shorn a million sheep). I’ll claim it, people tell me I have, but whether or not it is true, I don’t know,” he said.
Living in Kilmore, with a farm in Pyalong and another in Tantaraboo, the 77-year-old said he “sort of fell into” shearing when he was young.
“My father had a farm and I thought I would be a farmer, so (shearing) was just a little bit of extra work on my days off,” he said.
“My brother Pat had gone to agricultural college and learnt to shear, so I learnt a lot off him … and as I got better I got more and more jobs.”
Mick said the change in training standards is one of the biggest changes he has noticed in the industry throughout his career.
“When I started, a lot of the time it would be farmers telling you you’re doing something wrong and half the time they’ve never shorn,” he said.
“The way they do it now, the (educators) come out every couple of months checking that younger ones aren’t getting into bad habits. They straighten them out.”
From Moree to Wagga Wagga, people that Mick had previously shorn for or shorn with made the trip to Kilmore last Friday night to celebrate Mick and his 60-year career.
“That’s what really touched me more than anything. You do a job and you don’t really realise how much people appreciate it,” he said.
“I think that was the most I got out of it, it was a great night, and I really enjoyed it.”
And while 60 years would be enough for a lot of people, Mick doesn’t have any immediate plans to call it quits just yet.
“I like the company, the farmers I work for, and the fellas I work with,” he said.
“It keeps you young at heart … I think it’s a good way of getting out and about, but I think I’ll just phase out of it.”
“A bit like General Macarthur … ‘old soldiers never die’.”
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