Lifelong farmer farewells last of his cattle
At 91, Taranaki farmer Alf Bevins has decided to let someone else take over the cattle.
‘‘It’s high time, there’s a time for everything,’’ he said. ‘‘I’ve had a great life.’’
With his 92nd birthday approaching in July, he is slowing down – a little. He only stopped driving in February and he still gets up at 5am each day.
On Wednesday he watched the last cattle from his Normanby farm go under the hammer at the Stratford saleyards, at what may be his last stock sale, after 76 years as a client of Taranaki Farmers.
His agent of 32 years, Grant Hobbs, said he would keep Bevins’ account open in case he changed his mind
Bevins was born into a farming family, the oldest of Clarence and Ada Bevins’ 12 children.
He got his first pair of shoes when he started school, aged 7.
Just seven years on, World War II ended his formal education.
‘‘I was in charge of a farm at 15. My sister and I were sharemilking during the war, there were no men to do the jobs so we had to leave school.’’
He and a brother taught themselves to shear when faced with 300 woolly sheep and nobody available to shear them.
‘‘We got a neighbour to show us how to put the plant together and we shore the sheep.’’
Bevins also had a busy social life. He was a musician, in demand as a performer and also as a teacher.
‘‘In my young days I used to entertain, I used to be on the radio. I played the guitar, country and western.’’
He was also a shearer, a bushman, ploughman and fencer, and a rodeo rider.
‘‘I’d ride the horse 10 miles and plough all day, then ride home again. And I rode to music at Stratford, eight miles, then home again afterwards.’’
He enjoyed going to dances and had a lot of fun with his brothers.
Sometimes his mother thought her sons were spending too much time out at night, and she’d wet all their good shirts so they had to stay home, he said.
He met his future wife, Marion, at a dance at Ngaere.
They were married in 1952 and went sharemilking.
Marion was a seamstress and also bought and sold cattle in her own right, and ran the farm finances, Bevins said.
They were in demand as workers, and moved several times to bigger jobs, before buying their first farm on Glenn Rd.
After 15 years, they sold it to buy the first farm they had worked on, on Mangowhero Rd.
‘‘We were the first in New Zealand that did over 100,000 tonnes of milkfat with two milkers,’’ he said.
He and Marion raised five children, two sons and three daughters.
After his sons took over the family farm, his 4.30am starts to milk the cows ended.
Instead, he took a job as a security guard for seven years, working shifts that often began at 2am.
Back on the farm he’d ‘‘retired’’ to at Normanby, he ran beef cattle and grew maize.
Just four years years ago, the cattle nearly killed him.
‘‘I was yarding cattle one day and a beast knocked the gates and hit me in the face and knocked me over. Luckily the vet was there and he saved me,’’ Bevins said.
A couple of weeks later, his family noticed something wrong, and took him to a doctor.
A brain scan revealed a massive brain bleed. Two hours later he was on a plane to Wellington Hospital where he had emergency surgery.
Despite his age, Bevins had made a complete recovery, his daughter Jill said.
‘‘He deserved a chance and he got it.’’
‘‘I was in charge of a farm at 15. My sister and I were sharemilking during the war, there were no men to do the jobs so we had to leave school.’’ Alf Bevins