On top of the world

LIZ ST GEORGE

Debra and Paul Avery at their Toko farm.

Relevant offers

PAUL Avery ignored the advice he got after his first day shearing. "I shore 106 full-wool ewes with Mark Copplesone. Mark was driving home and he turned to me and said, The best thing you can do is throw away the hand piece and never shear another sheep again. He said I was too small and scrawny to become a shearer."

Despite weighing about 50kg at the time, that comment only fuelled his determination to continue.

"I won the shearing cup while at school in Feilding. After I left, I worked for a cousin on his farm. The shearers came along and converted me. They told me there was better money in shearing than working on a farm wage. I rang up and went pressing with Roger Cox that main shear. I was nearly 18."

Mr Avery's father, Basil, taught him. "He was a haymaking contractor during summer. He used to run the lambs into the woolshed and tell me to plug away. He was a good shearer."

Another influence was Loyd Bishop. "He'd shear one sheep, then, while he was grinding, he would tell me to shear another four. He'd keep an eye on me while he was doing so. The reason we shore five was because it was a five-stand shed and we had to have one sheep down each porthole to be fair."

Wife Debra came on the scene during those early shearing days. She says Mr Avery was still about 50kg then. She had just trained as a nurse and was filling in time before her first job at Hawera Hospital.

The pair had grown up in similar circles. Mrs Avery's parents, Jack and Ngaire Rawlinson, knew Basil and Dawn Avery. A three-year age gap meant the couple had attended many of the same functions and even the same primary school at Douglas, but hadn't really got to know each other. Mr Avery went on to Feilding Agricultural High School. It gave him a good grounding in the various types of farming.

The couple married in 1991 and bought their first farm in 1993. They now have a home block of 239ha, a run-off of 48ha and this year they bought another 126ha.

The Averys change their farming practices regularly. This year they replaced 520 of their 1000 cattle with dairy heifers and replaced the Friesian bulls and beef cows with 480 beef animals. They have 350 ewes, keeping numbers low to lighten the workload.

While Mr Avery is away pursuing his shearing, Mrs Avery runs the farm. She nursed for eight years before deciding to quit when third child Sarah, now nine, was born. Mrs Avery also takes care of all the paperwork, including paying the bills and the GST. She organises the Taranaki Shears along with Clint and Phillipa Bellamy while Mr Avery organises the smaller Stratford Show with his cousin Rodney Baldock.

When Mrs Avery attended a school hockey trip in Whangarei with her daughter while Mr Avery was in Norway at the world champs, her father and son David, 14, ran things. Neighbours are always on hand to help out, too, which the couple are grateful for.

Mr Avery found he had a knack of doing well at shows early on. He was told if he started clean, he would always be clean.

In 1985, Ian Buchanan took him to the Golden Shears. "I watched the open final. It was the year Paul Grainger won. I knew I wanted to be one of those. Ian told me if I was going to shear a sheep, it was fastest to shear it on the skin. And he said you not only go faster, but you will shear it well."

The following year, Mr Avery won his first junior show at Palmerston North, then various others. In 1987, he became the Golden Shears intermediate champion and in 1988 the Golden Shears senior champion. In 1999, he competed in the open, making the semifinals and coming 11th.

"It is like a bug, winning the purple ribbon. It is special. Once you catch it, it is hard to stop."

At the world champs, Mr Avery's profile listed 161 open title wins. He has represented New Zealand eight times, three in Canada and five in the UK. This season's wins include six New Zealand and six overseas opens. Until the world title, he considered his best achievement the Golden Shears win in 2005, after making 11 finals. He's won the Shears twice and been runner-up twice and won the New Zealand Shearing Champs three times.

"Sometimes you wonder why you put yourself through it all. But when you win the Golden Shears or NZ Shearing Champs, you stand back and think, that's why I put myself through that."

Mr Avery says he used to look at the shearing greats like David Fagan and Colin King and hope he made the finals. "Now I don't think about those guys. I think about what I'm doing in my own little world." He says self-belief was a turning factor in 2005 when he finally won the Shears. He'd also taken his father-in-law's rabbit's foot as a good-luck charm that year. He still admits to nerves in the big shows.

"Johnny [Kirkpatrick] and I had trouble sleeping a couple of nights before the worlds. It was the excitement of it all."

He and Mr Kirkpatrick also won the team event, a feat Mr Avery first achieved 10 years ago in Ireland. That year he came second in the individual.

"It was pretty disappointing coming so close in Ireland. Ever since, I have been trying to make the team again. There have only been three opportunities.

"It is only held every second or third year. Then two out of three, they are held in Australia or South America and they pick merino shearers. The hardest part is making the team."

Mr Avery said he focussed hard this season to reach that goal.

In his early days, when he was shearing full time, he would shear 60,000 sheep a year. Now it is more like 15,000. The work has taken him to France, Wales, Ireland, England, Scotland, Australia and Norway. He is grateful for the $10,000 AMP scholarship he won in October, which helped him in his world-title quest. Despite the fact he has not been interested in speed sheer competitions or taking world records, he has some respectable tallies. He shore his first 500 when 21, 600 at 22 and 700 at 23. The day before his 700, Mr Avery shore 699.

At the world champs, Mr Avery was a whole sheep ahead of Mr Kirkpatrick, who was next placegetter.

Traditionally, shearing and marriages don't go well together. A combination of alcohol and long periods away usually take their toll. "The hardest is when they come back," Mrs Avery says. "You have to readjust to someone telling you what to do. This time it was five weeks."

Rather than arguments, they have some "bloody good discussions". "We both stand our ground," Mrs Avery says.

And Mr Avery says he has never been much of a drinker, either.

The show season extends from October through to April and Mr Avery enjoys attending his children's sporting activities during the winter. The couple have built a tennis court and enjoy playing as a family.

While he acknowledges at 41 that he is getting towards the end of his career, Mr Avery is not contemplating retirement. He would like to make the New Zealand team for the next world champs in Wales in 2010. Welsh sheep are his favourite.

That may be more difficult On a welcome-home card, the couple's middle daughter, Johanna, 12, wrote: "Did you know the next hockey trip, you have no excuses not to come?"