‘Tike’ still shearing at 89

By Daneka Hill

Oct 14, 2022

Colin “Tike” McGillivray’s life has rotated around sheep since he was 13 years old.

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Now aged 89, his Holden Rodeo ute still holds a shearing motor in the tray and carts around mismatched bags of wool.

Shearing combs line the passenger seat, alongside a shed’s worth of tools and loose junk.

“It’s a jungle in there,” Mr McGillivray said.

“This (shearing) motor is actually new. I bought it a couple of months ago for $400. I have heaps of motors in the sheds, but I wanted a new one.”

The single shearing machine set-up on the ute. It allows someone to shear sheep near the tow-ball area. Photo by Daneka Hill

The most shocking thing about Mr McGillivray isn’t his age — it’s the fact he claims to have never suffered from a bad back.

“I’ve never had a bad back in me life,” he said.

“I put that down to doing a lot of foot running when I was shearing.

“Foot racing was popular back in the ’50s and I’d do races all around Bendigo, Echuca, Shepparton and Pyramid Hill.”

With a single shearing machine attached to his ute, Mr McGillivray is able to keep up his old profession.

“I’m fit enough, my health is still pretty good,” the Gunbower resident said.

“These days I only shear occasionally, and it’s mainly pets.

“Sometimes I put the big ones in a home-made cradle.

“I used to do a lot — I went all the way to Mooroopna once, now I only do around here.

“Sometimes I keep the wool. Sometimes I sell it for a bit of pocket money, sometimes I don’t.”

Bags of wool sit in Mr McGillivray’s front yard, while a full bale takes up room in the garage.

Inside the enclosed patio space a set of electric shears and hand shears are mounted on the wall beside an old freezer filled with home-butchered lamb.

"I still use the hand shears sometimes," Mr McGillivray said. The noiseless shears can be handy on untrained pet sheep. These shears are mounted above a wall full of volunteer appreciation awards for Colin and his wife Betty.

Even in the kitchen, sheep are never far away.

“I started shearing when I was 13 outside Hay with Kevin Sarre,” Mr McGillivray only needs to reach a hand behind him to pull a book from a pile on the counter.

The book is a biography about Kevin Sarre — one of the world’s greatest 20th century machine shearers — written by the Lockington and District Living Heritage Complex Committee.

“I did a lot of shearing with Grazcos from 1970 to 1980. They were big shearing contractors and had about 1000 shearers,” he said.

“We did all the big sheds around Australia.

“I travelled to the Flinders Ranges and went all over South Australia.

“There was a lot of big sheds out there.”

When asked what he loves about shearing, Mr McGillivray said he “didn’t know”.

“It was easy for me. I had to like it because I had to work,” he said.

“I went to Dookie College when I was 10 years old for six months to learn how to work.

“I did another six months when I was 12 years old to learn shearing.

“I lived with my grandparents from the ages of two to eight because my mother didn’t want me.

“She’d just had twins and didn’t have the time. It made for a tough life.

“I used to milk the cow by hand when I was six because my grandfather was blind.

“We lived out on Gunbower Island. They were farmers but they didn’t have much. One cow, some gardens.”

The gardening bug has stayed with Mr McGillivray.

His Gunbower garden is filled with veggie patches, orchard shade houses, fruit trees, rambling lawn and lush harvests of rhubarb, broccoli and cabbage growing inside plastic barrels.

“I don’t like the raised garden beds,” he said — raised troughs and pots are much better.

The wet weather has soaked the veggie garden, but the raised pots along the shed are doing well. Photo by Daneka Hill

While he was growing up, Mr McGillivray’s father was working across the district — including on the Torrumbarry Weir construction which run from 1919 to 1924.

“In the end he became a successful sheep farmer out beside the Terrick Terrick park with 1200 sheep,” Mr McGillivray said.

“He was a big farmer. We settled in Gunbower to be close to my wife’s family and I ended up shearing for my father.”

Today, Mr McGillivray owns 300 sheep on property outside the town.

“I get a bloke to shear them. When we were there recently he did one one every two minutes and he was 80 years old. Nearly as old as me — fitter too.”

Mr McGillivray said the wool industry had certainly changed.

“The sheep have grown — they got big about eight years ago, I reckon. Not that long.

“They have got more wool on them too and plainer skin with less rolls, which is better.”

When asked about his nickname, Mr McGillivray said “Tike” had always been his name — probably adopted when he showed up as a little kid with a lot of energy at those first shearing sheds.