Driving the header – at 94
When Grass Flat farmer Allen Webb steps down from his header or wrestles with a sheep, a sore ankle gives him some grief.
“I have a crook ankle and that pulls me up a bit. It’s the bottom half that’s the trouble, but I’ll keep doing what I’m doing for as long as I can. Why not?” he said.
It’s a comment that could easily be dismissed considering many farmers often work with niggling injuries and ultimately have to decide when to call it quits as they get on in years.
But circumstances are more than a little bit different for Mr Webb, who has been in the farming game for almost 80 years, is approaching his 95th birthday and is still going strong.
“I’ve been stripping crops, fixing and making things like I always have, and crutching sheep. I’m not extraordinary – I just have good health,” he said.
“I need to have a job – I can’t sit down and do nothing. I play bowls for Natimuk and used to play cricket for Tooan.”
Mr Webb and his wife Marie, 88 in April, have three sons who have followed in Mr Webb’s footsteps in farming in the district, and a daughter in Adelaide.
The couple still lives on the farm at Grass Flat, north of Natimuk, in a rural landscape featuring Mt Arapiles as a backdrop and renowned for producing long-lived residents, many of who are Mr Webb’s relatives.
“I suppose I started farming when I was 15,” Mr Webb said.
“My father died when I was 12 and I worked with my grandpa. He wasn’t mechanically minded and I wasn’t going to work horses, so we got a tractor. I was the only one who could use it.
“Mum had to look after us as kids and then one day my uncle asked me if I would like to go share farming. So I went share farming.
“I didn’t make anything in the first year but gradually made a little.
“I then had a suspicion that a fella might be selling out of his property, so I decided to ask him and finished up buying my own farm. I’ve been here on this farm for 68 years.”
Mr Webb said after a while he decided to get himself a welder and made machinery for himself, starting with a tipper for his truck.
“A neighbour was keen for me to make him one as well and so I started an engineering business, making tippers, bulk bins and augurs. It was a supplementary thing and I didn’t really make much money out of it, but I had about 40-odd trade accounts and was making all sorts of things,” he said.
“I still do all my own repairs and work for the boys as well.”
Mr Webb’s three sons run properties in the district. He said he enjoys staying involved with the farming business.
“I don’t feel like I’ve ever really stopped. I’ve been helping my eldest son who has an illness and I just alternate between them all,” he said.
“I’ve been pretty lucky. We live in quite a good area. We look across Mitre Lake and Mt Arapiles – it’s a great view and painters and photographers are often out here.”
Grass Flat has a reputation for producing centurions and Mr Webb, who appears many years younger than his age, might well be among next in line to reach the milestone.