Legend of NZ shearing world cranks up for charity
SHEARING legend Sir David Fagan used a crank-powered handpiece to shave former EnglandWorld championships wool handling representative Natalie Crisp’s head in Te Kuiti on Friday.
The charity event was part of the North Island Speedshear Shearing Championship and is the latest of several fundraising shearing events.
Fagan, who retired from competitive shearing in 2015 with 642 open-class wins, surprised even himself with how clean his job was. He said the quality of most haircuts completed with shearing handpieces usually required finishing touches from a barber or hairdresser.
However, a tassel left behind at the end could have meant the red-light of disqualification had it been part of the actual Speedshear, but Fagan removed the final piece soon after.
The hair is heading to the Little Princess Trust in the United Kingdom, which provides wigs for child cancer sufferers who have lost their hair. Donations from the night and through the Givealittle pagewill be given to Breast Cancer Foundation New Zealand.
Crisp came to New Zealand to shear about 17 years ago, and has been living in the country for eight yearswith her partner Nik Bryant. She now works for
Waitomo Honey so rarely enters the wool sheds.
This was one of several recent shearing fundraisers, including Ariki Hawkins, of Hawke’s Bay, shearing two back-to-back eighthour ‘‘days’’ in support of a shearing mate who was injured in a quad bike rollover on a Southland farm, and a 24-hour shearathon by Taihape shearers Brad Anderson and Sam Mallalieu to support Ronald McDonaldHouse.