A quintessential Kiwi farm life
David Aston was a farmer of that generation who understood the hardship and toil involved in breaking in land. One of six sons born to Clyde and Gladys Aston of Waikaretu (even today an isolated area between the Waikato Heads and Raglan), the young David hand milked his first cow at the age of five using a 5lb (2.25kg) treacle tin as a billy and a small homemade stool.
‘‘I can remember being very thrilled and felt very important when I first completely milked out a cow,’’ he recalled in memoirs.
The backcountry 600-acre property was cut off in winter, with the clay roads only negotiable by horse, and truck deliveries of supplies were ordered in late summer and had to last six months. David remembered camp oven bread, garden veggies, homemade soap, home-killed mutton, and a wood-burning copper.
David started as a boarder at King’s College in Auckland when he turned seven but was back on the farm after just one term once the Great Depression hit. He spent the next six-or-so years travelling on horseback to the tiny Matira school 11km away before returning, aged 13, to King’s for three years.
He left the farm at 18 to study agriculture at Massey College in Palmerston North but that education, too,
was interrupted, this time by war. However, David was fortunate. Too young to be posted overseas, he trained as a radio operator with the 1st NZ Armoured Division, before being allowed leave to complete his agricultural diploma. He joined a shearing gang, learning valuable skills, and recording his personal satisfaction with his performance.
‘‘The first season was short, and I shore less than 2000, my best day was 140. In the next season I shore 5000 and my best tally was 200 on big, fat, heavy Romney ewes.’’
When he turned 21, the army posted him overseas, but he missed the fighting in Europe, although he did make it to Egypt and Italy, before being rerouted as part of the original J Force army of occupation to Japan.
David’s parents separated when he was young but the redoubtable Gladys, with the help of a manager and her six sons, kept the farm going, eventually handing it over to David and older sibling Rodney after the war.
The brothers went into partnership and were given 100 acres of land each and the right to buy out their four siblings when they turned 25. David described the partnership of the two brothers as ‘‘determined to succeed’’ and the partnership was a success.
With a partner, the two brothers set about clearing the bush, hand-sowing grass seed, and splitting suitable wood to make fence battens. The work took them four and a half years, during which time they split 350,000 battens, most for sale in Auckland.
It wasn’t all work, however. The brothers played their football for Woodleigh, often travelling on the open deck of a truck to games against Naike, Te Kauwhata, Wairenga, Waiterimu, and Rangiriri.
Few young women would venture into the Waikaretu district with it being so remote. But when Bess Beer arrived to work as a Karitane nurse word soon got around the district. David made a point of meeting her, they got along, and he found her work as a school teacher at the local district school, so she did not need to leave the area.
In 1954 they married and moved into a room David had converted in the woolshed.
In 1955, Bess’s father offered them an opportunity to purchase his property on Beer Road in Fencourt, Cambridge. The decision to go was an easy one but, before he left Waikaretu, David knew he would need to do a lot of fencing on the Fencourt farm, so made sure to take a load of those hard-earned battens.
He once said he could still find some of them on his Cambridge fences 50 years later.
When David and Bess first arrived at Willowdale, they started a family, and Peter was born in 1955, followed by Tim in 1957, Rob in 1959, and Virginia (Ginni), in 1962.
Now an experienced farmer, David systematically worked on improving the farm, which they named Willowdale, into pasture. As a big proportion of the land was still in scrub, gorse and blackberry, he set to work with a horse and sledge, a hand slasher, and a knapsack sprayer.
David remembered he had trained a succession of house cows to stand in a paddock so he could carry a bucket and stool out to them and plan his day while milking. He must have spent many an hour in this activity as he could later rattle off the cows by name: Bridget, Bunty, Belinda, Molly, Rosie, Snowflake, Annette, Mooloo, Lily, Daisy, Darky, Daintie, and Bambi.
It was only in 1960 David dispensed with the horse and sledge and purchased a David Brown tractor. Much later he retired his horse to pasture and purchased a motorbike,
He often said that, while he missed the quietness of the horse with the sheep, he enjoyed the fact that it took half the time to get around the flock, especially at lambing time.
The couple, who were married more than 60 years, reared dairy heifers for an annual sale held on the farm, and produced Coopworth rams for clients.
Planting trees became important as this improved production and beautified the gullies. Starting in 1966 David worked to put in more than 2000 trees, mostly Italian hybrid poplars, but also planted individual willow trees. It was painstaking work as, in the absence of electric fencing, each tree had to be protected from stock and wind with a three-metre treated pine post and an outer protection of chicken netting. In a good year David would plant 150 trees.
With such long-term planning Willowdale became very successful, gaining places in the ICI farm of the year competition for five years, and in one year winning the highest cash surplus per acre.
Willowdale, and the Aston family, were well-known in the district as the ‘‘black and coloured sheep farm’’, and the couple were foundation members of the blackand-coloured sheep breeders association.
Retirement and slowing down saw the subdividing of the farm, and Bess and David built a home on 52 acres, which gave them the time to spend with family, their eight grandchildren, and six great grandchildren.
David was the husband of Bess (deceased, nee Beer); dad of Peter (dec) and Helen, Tim and Sharon, Rob, Ginni and Alan; poppa of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
A Life Story tells of a New Zealander who helped to shape the Waikato community. If you know of someone whose life story should be told, please email Charles.riddle@wintec.ac.nz