Life on the land no hardship for 92-year-old

The Southland Times

Farming on the southern coast is not always easy. Reporter Carolyn Deverson catches up with Albert McTanish and asks him way he continues to love the land.

"BecauseI like it," is a very good reason for continuing a farming career, though at age 92 you could perhaps be forgiven for considering retirement.

This doesn't seem to be in the mind of Catlins farmer Albert McTainsh, who has been farming his property near Papatowai since the mid-1960s, having taken over his father's farm. Alexander McTainsh had come south before World War I and gone rabbiting with his twin brother, who died of malaria on service in Palestine in 1918.

They worked on Gwynn's sawmill, putting in a tramline, and bought 35ha and a house.

"It was the first house in the area built with sawmilled wood from a circular saw. The walls were insulated by shavings from wood machines."

The farm expanded by buying neighbouring properties and another area near Florence Hill and now Mr McTainsh owns 485ha, where he farms beef cattle.

He had sheep and beef until about 20 years ago when he decided sheep were too much trouble. His herd of 430 plus about 170 calves consists of herefords and angus and shorthorns crossed, with a smattering of simmentals and Murray Greys.

The occasional difficult birth necessitates getting the vet in but generally the cows calve easily.

He does not own large machinery.

"I decided early on to get contractors in. It was a waste of my time to do it when contractors could do it more quickly with the best and latest of machinery. I had very good contractors in Russell and Brian Kirk."

Nowadays paperwork and statistics takes up much of a farmer's time.

Testing for tuberculosis means bringing in all the cattle and counting them. Mr McTainsh had a bad run of TB for about eight years until he obtained a blood test, which showed one cow full of TB even though she had passed the TB tests earlier.

With her demise the problem disappeared.

Mr McTainsh was considered unfit for service during World War II and was manpowered (sent to work where the Government decided people were needed).

He came to farming after working first as a lamb killer at the meat works Finegand and then as a carpenter in Australia for 15 years after World War II.

"Before chain-killing at freezing works, each man did the whole lot: killing, gutting, skinning, washing and preparing. My father's brother was the fastest lamb killer around and I wanted to learn that."

His plan had been to work as a carpenter in Darwin then South Africa and Canada, but Australia "was a helluva lot bigger than we imagined'.'

He was persuaded to work at Thursday Island in the Torres Strait north of Australia, which was a pearling centre.

He worked there as a carpenter for the Government being the lead hand then foreman.

In Darwin the high adventures continued.

"It was not long after the bombing and there was shrapnel everywhere in the houses."

One of his jobs was to build a mosquito-proof room for the superintendent, but his main worry of malaria proved groundless as there was no malaria on the island.

Working to fit bases for new motors in the pearl boats meant a journey of 800 nautical miles (1481km), with him as the only white person on the boat.

Mr McTainsh eventually made his way to Alice Springs and a chance meeting led to him first building a glider, then learning to fly them.

He became a national instructor and achieved his Diamond C Certificate in 1986, which involved a graduated scale of achievements, ending with trip of five hours to a specified destination and reaching a height of 3000m.

This had two major sequels. While taking nurses up as passengers in the glider he met his future wife, Dorothy, a South Australian girl.

And much later in the late 1990s when he was about 80 years old, he saw that the Japanese wanted two international pilots for their big air show at Hokkaido.

"I was cheeky enough and wrote to say I was interested. I thought they would say I was too old, but they sent me guff in Japanese to sign and then paid my accommodation and airfares. I flew a Robin, a French aircraft of 260 horsepower, fully aerobatic."

The other international was a Polish man, the aerobatics champion in light aircraft. Mr McTainsh went to Japan to take part for four years in a row, staying several months each time.

Back home, like most things in life, change continues to be a constant thing.

And he's seen plenty of change, even in a quiet place like The Catlins.

Farming families have come and gone, sawmilling has disappeared, farming methods have changed and the state of the roads improved beyond belief.

"When my father got off the train here he left McLennan at 9am and got to where the Lenz Forest and Bird place is now as it was getting dark."

That was about 10km.

The roads had great pot-holes such that horses often had to be used to pull cars out of the ruts. People were prepared to walk long distances then, too. He remembered the wife of a neighbour making butter then walking to Owaka to sell it and pick up supplies, a distance of about 25km on muddy difficult roads, which even today by car takes the best part of half an hour.

A full life of learning ("I always went to night classes wherever I was") and adventure has taken Mr McTainsh fishing in Alaska when he was about 85, crewing on Russian sailing boats along the South Island, working for Hawker-Sidley on the curtain walls on multi-storey buildings in Auckland, topdressing and surf lifesaving.