Legendary shearing contractor
Allan Reid was buried in a woollen casket with his name embroidered on it. The Canterbury shearing contractor died recently, aged 87. His gang of 100 shearers, wool handlers and shed hands handled more than amillion sheep a year at the peak. Reid employed up to 30 blade shearers at a time on South Island high-country stations.
Reid once had 14 shearers at work in one shed, with 33,000 merinos to be shorn. Shearer Nobby Giles remembers 18 shearers going flat-out in an old shed to meet a deadline after rain. He told The Press: ‘‘There was wool fair flying. We shore 2222 that day.’’
Reid was an expert shearer himself. But his life was more than shearing.
Growing up at Summerhill, near Cust in North Canterbury, he attended the local school but had no secondary education. He picked up shearing on his father’s farm, removed his first fleece at five and completed his first one-day tally of 100 at 12.
He started work as a farm labourer before joining his uncle’s shearing gang. By his mid-teens he was a fulltime blade shearer earning £1 a week. His father then suggested he sample other ways of life. Reid accepted the advice and took a job with the railways. He signed on with the army at 18 and was assigned to work as a cook. The skills he picked up served him later in a restaurant and in providing meals for shearers.
He married Joyce and they had two daughters but later separated.
By the time he was old enough for active service overseas, World War II was ending. He went to Japan with J-Force, helping in the reconstruction of the country. His time there was a few days short of the year required for rehabilitation assistance, but he didn’t let it bother him. He launched himself into a flurry of activity.
He took over a restaurant in central Christchurch. Then he did a builder’s apprenticeship, from which he gained the nickname Chips. His carpentry skills came in useful as he later built his own house in Rangiora and offered continuous employment to his shearers, building shearing sheds during the off-season.
Reid’s carpentry boss ran a few sheep which Reid shore for him. It was enough to lure him back to his first trade. He linked with another shearer and they began work as shearing contractors.
When Reid branched out on his own, he had 29 farms on his books. He employed more shearers and started building his gang. Nobby Giles and Paul Groufsky have spoken of the respect Reid commanded. He was a role model as well as an employer. He changed lives, offered pay advances when times were tough and bankrolled cash-strapped farmers. He gave youngsters a
Allan Reid: break when they might have strayed onto the wrong side of the law, said Groufsky.
Reid’s quiet but genial demeanour created a good working culture, Groufsky said. Back-country shearing kept the gangs away all week and that created camaraderie.
Reid’s workers were often the best paid around Canterbury. High standards were set and demanded. Shearers had to start as rouseabouts and prove themselves before they were accepted. Rough handling of sheep provoked the gentle rebuke that this was ‘‘not the Reid way’’. Any ongoing problem led to a parting of the ways.
While blade shearing remained a specialty, Reid employed machine shearers, too.
The Reids’ house was the centre of the business. Shearers were treated like family there and always offered ameal. The kitchen was the nerve-centre until Reid built an office onto the house. He ran a fleet of vans to get his people to sometimes far-off woolsheds.
Music and dancing were Reid’s favourite pastimes. He organised dances in country halls where his shearers were working in the 1960s and 1970s. People came from surrounding areas for these events. He encouraged cricket matches between farmers and shearers, producing memorable battles.
In 1981, Reid accepted an invitation from the Wool Board to visit South Africa for six months to train black shearers and white farmers. Six months became 15 years. He insisted on treating all races equally – not for him the white men riding in the front of the ute and the black men hunched on the deck. He helped forge better working conditions and accommodation. Such was his impact that he got away with his disdain for apartheid.
As well as instructing in shearing techniques, he redesigned many woolsheds and yards to improve sheep handling efficiency.
Reid returned to Rangiora in 1996. Several hundred former employees and friends celebrated his work at a reunion in 2009. The following year he was awarded the QSM for services to shearing.
Groufsky said Reid ‘‘took a lot of young fellas and saved a lot from going to the wall, from going to jail. He brought a lot of people a good start. He was a good mentor.’’