Godfrey Bowen To Instruct In Russia

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30126, 9 May 1963, Page 16

Godfrey Bowen To Instruct In Russia

(New Zealand Press Association)

WANGANUI, May 8.

The Wool Board’s field director, Godfrey Bowen, will visit the Soviet Union in June at the invitation of the Soviet Ministry of Agriculture. This was announced today by Mr D. G. McHardy, chairman of the board’s sheering committee, when he addressed Federated Farmers in Wanganui. Mr McHardy said the Ministry of Agriculture had been very pleased with instruction received by three Russian shearers who visited New Zealand last year. Mr Bowen had coached them at a shearing school at Massey College, and they had qualified for the board’s shearing certificate. Mr Bowen was already well known in the Soviet Union, where his book, “Wool Away,” had run through two editions, and was the accepted textbook on shearing technique. The invitation to Mr Bowen

had been conveyed through the charge d’affaires of the Soviet Legation, Mr N. V. Ivanov.

Mr Bowen would spend 25 days in the Soviet Union and would give instruction in the principal wool-growing areas. The board was pleased to release Mr Bowen for the trip, said Mr McHardy. Russian interest showed the universal value of the teaching methods developed by the board over the last 10 years, and the excellence of the shearing technique taught by Mr Bowen and the board’s instructors throughout New Zealand.