ACE LAND GIRL

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIII, Issue 236, 6 October 1942, Page 5

ACE LAND GIRL

manager of station

SHEARING AND SCRUB CUTTING

There is to be found on a Marlborough station, which she is managing during the absence of the owner on war service, a young girl of 22 who can lay claim to being the rr^°i Sl '» T accom P' ishcd and capable land girl New Zealand has yet produced. In fact, there is little in the province of the average farmer that she cannot do Perhaps she could be seen at no better advantage than in the snearmg shed, where her feat in blade shearing a daily quota of 115 half-bred ewes, has earned for her a reputation which has gone a long way in breaking down the prejudice of many men against the entry of women into the sphere of farmwork. At any rate, she has been "accepted," and throughout the Marlborough and Nelson districts her services are m growing demand by farmers harassed by wartime labour difficulties.

The heroine of this story of the production front is Miss Grace Austin Johnson, an attractive natural blonde, whose appearance on those occasions when she dons her offduty clothes, is difficult to reconcile with the hard and strenuous work that is her daily lot. Only a few pounds over nine stone in weight, Miss Johnson is a veritable human dynamo of energy, and the long hours which she puts in in the course of her duties seem to leave her unaffected. A shirt and denims comprise her work clothes, and a businesslike touch is added by a large sheathed knife at her hip. It is not fhere for adornment either, for she does all the butchering, and she slits the throat of a struggling sheep, and bleeds and cleans the carcase with as little fuss as another girl would exhibit in powdering her nose. Miss Johnson was brought up to hard work, for she was reared, as an only child, on a Sounds sheep station at D'Urville Island, on the northern fringe of the French Pass. There, as a mere girl, she began her education in farming under the tutorship of her father, Mr. Freeman Johnson. At the age of nine years she could crutch lambs, and at 14 she was no mean hand with a pair of blades. In the eight years that have passed since then she missed only one shearing season, and that was when she was doing fruit work in the Motueka area. It is claimed on her behalf that the tally of 115 represents a New Zealand women's record. Not that she is worrying about that—she is far too busy to care. But whether record or no she is a first-class hand with the shears.

Scrub-cutting is another of the things usually regarded as a man's job that Miss Johnson can do with equal facility. She admits that at times it takes a bit of keeping up to, but says that she possesses good endurance which sees her through.

As a musterer she is described as "as good as the best," and she takes a lot of keeping up with on the steepest country—as many a male assistant has discovered to his chagrin. She is used to the high country and "the tops," for D'Urville Island is not exactly flat.

To fully appreciate her it is necessary to remember that she embarked on her self-chosen occupation of farming well before the outbreak of war thrust women into a number of spheres hitherto jealously guarded by and reserved for men. To put it mildly she was at first regarded by many as a trespasser, and she received little encouragement in her home district. To escape what she calls this Victorian prejudice Miss Johnson went to Marlborough, where her persistency resulted in her being given a trial by several farmers. No doubt they were astonished at her capabilities, and very soon this forerunner of Dominion land girls was proving her worth. Now she has as much work as she can handle— particularly in the shearing line, and is looking forward to a run of four months in the coming season.