Morven legend Les Heaydon shears 100 sheep for his 80th birthday
And now to another episode from my special Streets of Your Town series - The Outback Project. Bringing the sounds and stories of Australia’s outback to you from my epic 2600km round trip from Brisbane to Winton and back, in Mildred my cantankerous kombi.
Today we meet a true living legend of Australian shearing, from a tiny town in remote south-west Queensland.
Well known Morven local Les Heaydon picked up his first shearers’ handpiece at the age of 14.
In a monumental age-defying celebration of his 80th birthday recently, Les shore 100 sheep in just one day, surrounded by family and even a few tourists to see him achieve what he’d long aimed for.
“When I was young, I used to work pretty hard and a couple of the guys said, “The way you’re working, you’ll be burnt out by the time you’re 50 or 60.” And I said, “No, I’ll still shear a hundred sheep when I’m 80.” So I thought I’d better do it,” Les says.
As he tells us on Streets of Your Town, Les has aimed to do this impressive physical feat since he was about 18 years old. And it’s not even close to his all time record of sheep shorn in one day—a feat he achieved using the older narrow handpiece as well.
“Yeah, one day I did shear 236 with the narrow handpiece gear,” Les humbly recalls.
“But I should have shorn more with the wide (handpiece). I shore a few 200s with the wide gear, but I was getting a bit older then. Probably if it had been about back when I was 17 or 18 I could’ve knocked that record off too.”
In the more than six decades since he started, he’s seen many changes in the great cultural tradition that is shearing in Australia, particularly in his beloved Morven region, where he’s lived his whole life.
“When I was young and first started out, there was three or four teams of shearers working out of Morven,” he says. “Now I’m about the only one in that when someone wants a half a dozen done, they ring me up.
“They don’t stop out a lot now. A lot of them go home. You got better cars and better roads. When I first started, we used to go out on the back of a truck.
“And you had to stop there ‘til it was finished. If you were out there in the rain, well, that was it. You just couldn’t, you had to stop there.”
And even at 80 years old, Les loves shearing so much, that retirement is a long way away yet, despite the physical demands of the job.
“I love shearing and I just like to get out with the boys now,” he says.
His beautiful wife Gail joined him as the cook at many of the stations he worked at as a shearer in the day. She says it was hard work, but great fun.
“It runs in the family. We had two girls who were roustabouts. Our son was a shearer as well and I was the cook,” she says.
“There was one year there, I used to get up at five every morning and then get their breakfast, then get smoko. And then I had to bring my boy into school, go back out for lunch and take smoko, afternoon smoko down and back in, pick the boy up and get back and get dinner ready.”
Les’s achievements are so appreciated, that mates have made tribute flags and trophy boards to celebrate his achievements.
One distinctive sign says ‘Congratulations Les Heayden on sharing one million sheep, two alpacas and one dog. Many thanks from all woolgrowers’.”
He says shearing the alpacas was a definite challenge.
“One peed all over me, I come home and Gail said, ‘Gee, you smell.’ I had him down on what they call the long blow. Next thing he just peed all over me,” he says.
“And one time we were shearing at Angellala Downs and the priest’s come out and they come over to have a look at the shearing and his wife had this little dog and it was hairy little thing and she said, ‘Do you think you could shear me dog?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, I can shear anything.’”
Les and Gail love country life, continuing the traditions handed down from their parents. Les’s mother and father lived in Morven most of their lives as well, and they met at the local school when they were kids.
“Yeah, my mother and father were and, yeah, my father lived there most of his life and then my mother was raised here too. She went to school here in 1936,” he says.
Gail and Les have also just celebrated their 61st wedding anniversary in July.
Les plans to keep on the shears for a few more years yet, and is one of the last locals still shearing and contributing to the local community whenever he’s needed.
“Yep I’m going out in the morning to crutch 12 sheep,” he says.
“And I done that 100 the other day—in less than three runs.”
Thank you my ever supportive Streets of Your Towners for keeping me and Mildred the Cantankerous Kombi on the road and getting these stories that will now be kept in the State Library of Queensland collection for generations to come. As one of the librarians so kindly told me when I asked her why they bought the rights, she said that I had captured stories of Queenslanders that in a hundred years no-one would remember—what it was like to be a refugee, to be a struggling actor, or to trek into the Woodford Folk Festival. You can see how to access the State Library collection at the bottom of this previous newsletter!
So thank you all for making this possible!
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Love yas!
Nance