BLENDING OF OLD AND NEW

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28553, 5 April 1958, Page 9

BLENDING OF OLD AND NEW

“J WOULDN’T have a motor-car if you gave it to me,” says Mr R. H. (Bert) Nosworthy, who is shown in his gig drawn by a quarter-draught for which he nas no specific name, about to leave Addington saleyards for his home at Hornby. Mr Nosworthy, who is probably the last man to regularly drive to the market by horse and gig, remembers the Addington yards 50 years ago, before the age of motor-lorries, when all stock was carried in by train or driven on the reads and motor-cars were rare. A familiar personality at the yards, where he still has a job with a stock firm, Mr Nosworthy was a drover for many years. His longest droving assignment was the movement of 1800 ewes from the yards to Ngapara, near Oamaru. The sheep were taken in easy stages inland to Coalgate and along the foothills to Geraldine. The journey down took 27 days and by the time he returned home.

Mr Nosworthy remembers he was paid for 31 days’ work. Mr Nosworthy travelled on foot, but a companion had a horse and gig. Droving was then worth 10s a day. Born in Devonshire in England, where his people were farmers, about 20 miles from Plymouth, Mr Nosworthy came out to New Zealand in 1908. Among his early jobs were a period of horsebreaking for John Grigg at Longbeach, and two years as shepherd for Duncan Rutherford at Leslie Hills. Then about 20.000 sheep were shorn on Leslie Hills and at this time Mr Rutherford also held Molesworth and Mr Nosworthy remembers that 10,000 to 15,000 sheep were driven down off the inland run over Jacks Pass and the Ferry bridge to be shorn at Leslie Hills. Then followed six years in managing appointments on farms in the North Island, until he returned to the South Island again in the early 1920’s in a time of depression and he has lived at Hornby

ever since. In addition to droving he has spent periods mustering on such well-known properties as Purau station, Mount Stewart, Castle Hill, and Grasmere. . Now at Addington, though fie is more than 70 years of age, Mr Nosworthy takes delivery of sheep arriving by rail and motor-lorry for a stock firm. In the busy sheep season he rises at 3.30 a.m. to drive to Addington to start work at 5 a.m. on Wednesdays. Addington market, he says, has like everything else become “more up to date” over the years. Electric lights have replaced the old oil lamps used in former years. Alleyways between pens are nearly all paved. Formerly in wet weather the unpaved pathways became a quagmire. Now chutes on wheels are used for unloading trucks in place of the boards which had to be lifted up to railway waggons.