NEW BRIGHTON MAN RECALLS WORKING ON BIG CHILEAN RUN

Press, Volume C, Issue 29706, 27 December 1961, Page 8

NEW BRIGHTON MAN RECALLS WORKING ON BIG CHILEAN RUN

A report in "The Press" aboi * two weeks ago that Canterbury Corriedale rams were going to the Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego in Chile revived old memories for M- A. A Cooper, who lives in New Brighton. Mr Cooper as a young man spent eight or nine months on one of this company's big properties in Patagonia almost 50 years ago The son of the late Mr Thornhill Cooper, a pioneer settler who at one stage wa c a gold buyer for the National Bank on the West Coast and who lived to be more than 100 rears old. Mr Cooper said at the week-end that he mils' have inherited something of his father’s love for adventure and travel. In his capacity as a wool classer Mr A. A. Cooper made frequent trips to New South Wales and Queensland and in 1911 at the age of 21 years he went to Europe, working for a time as a wool sorter in a mill of the Prevost organisation ir Roubaix and also visiting other mills in Italy. Belgium and Spain At Roubaix Mr Cooper met Emile Wenz. the head of the Prevost organisation, and a nephew of his who went to an executive post with the firm’s branch in Montevideo in Uruguay, and so in 1913 the New Zealander decided to go off to South America. In those days, Mr Cooper

recalls. there were no troublesome requirements : bout taxation clearances so he packed his portmaneau. put on his hat and sailed off in the old Athenic. As the ship rounded Cape Horn the fogs lifted for a moment to disclose -memorable glimpse of the cape. In Montevideo his French acquaintance was awaiting him with the salutary advice that this was a part of the world where he should never talk politics or religion and he should run at the first sign of a fight or riot. Soon Mr Cooper was putting this advice to better effect than his French friend. Caught up in a riot or political demonstrtion involving 30.000 or 40.000 people and ending up with a charge by mounted police with swords, Mr Cooper sheltered in a dry fountain until the trouble was over but his friend, unable to escape from the mob. suffered a nasty blow with the flat side of a police sword. For three months Mr Cooper worked in a wool scour in Montevideo and then he went to Buenos Aires where, through the influence of the Prevost organisation, he was engaged as a wool classer on the Cerro Castillo station of the Sociedad Explotadora de Tierra del Fuego. Snow Losses Mr Cooper recalls that there were 324.000 sheep on the station, which was about 150

miles long, and in the extreme winter that year when snow lay up to seven or eight feet deep. 64.000 sheep perished. Shearing went on in a big shed where there was room for 48 shearers and space to hold 12,000 sheep. More than 400 of a staff sat down for meals on the station, Mr Cooper remembers. That year, after the big winter losses of sheep, Mr Cooper was for weeks classing dead wool brought in on big bullock-drawn drays, rive traction engines were used on the station for hauling the 012' wool clip s Scat was then a serious problem on the station, and tl.e sheep had to be dipped five times a year. pie shape of the hills reminded him of Canterbury said Mr Cooper, and in the early spring the country was a mass of yellow flowers, but the noise of the winds that blew incessantly for months on end was “enough to drive one crazy.” Mr Cooper remembers a condor, a gigantic W]t *J ’ wln «Pan of about “ id that these pirds had a wingspread of up to about 20ft They could be attracted by going up onto a hJltop and alternately lying then n,ovin i to attract their attention. Mr Cooper landed back in o“ s JE ali ? fro . ra his s °iurn in South America on the day that World War I began.