Graeme Bell has been involved in the annual NZ Merino Shears since the event started in 1961.
Graeme Bell traces his love of wool to being seduced by the first Merino shearing competition held in Alexandra in 1961. He reflects on a lifetime interest in shearing and wool with Neal Wallace.
The smell and feel of wool was imprinted on Graeme Bell while at primary school.
Bell vividly recalls as a 10-year-old his introduction to wool and the annual Merino shearing competition, initially held in the Alexandra Town Hall opposite his home, which led to a 50-plus years career in the wool industry.
Fascinated as he watched sheep being unloaded for the initial event of the NZ Golden Fleece Shearing Championships in 1961, Bell wagged school to help.
“People gave me fleeces to carry to the wool table and then to the wool press, then they would lift me up to trample the bale,” he recalled of that first year.
“I got the smell of wool from that.”
In subsequent years his teachers accepted his interest in wool and shearing was greater than sitting in class.
“The deputy headmaster at the Alexandra Primary School would walk past the town hall on his way to school in the morning and would see me pushing sheep up onto the stage and he would ask ‘Will I mark you down as absent today, Bell?’,” he said.
Sixty years later the Alexandra-based PGG Wrightson wool agent’s passion for the fibre is undiminished as is his commitment to the annual NZ Merino Shears, being involved in every event since it began in 1961.
He was lured to the shearing contest by its excitement but also the glamour and wealth evident in the display of Mark III Zephyr cars and Holden utes that the contestants drove.
On leaving school at age 18, Bell worked as a rousie then graduated to crutching and shearing.
But it was wool handling that was his first love and in 1970 he completed a wool classing course at what was then known as Lincoln College.
Four years later he launched his own shearing gang, which he ran until 1987, shearing fine, halfbred and crossbred sheep throughout Central Otago.
Alexandra shearing contractors Peter and Elsie Lyon bought his business.
Bell’s commitment to the industry, and especially the renamed NZ Merino Shears, has been unquestioning, both in practical roles helping set up and dismantle the infrastructure, but also governance.
He was president for the jubilee year, 2011-12.
Bell also competed in the event as a woolhandler, winning titles in 1979 and 1981.
Bell’s father was a bootmaker and his family opened their home to contestants during competitions, but also made leather strops for competitors and leather shearing boots for prizes.
The contest was established by farmers to lift the standard of shearing and woolhandling, to use judging and competition to create a quality benchmark for the industry.
“They were motivated to make sure there was consistent quality within the industry,” he said.
“They want to ensure consistency of quality.”
He says it has achieved what those founders sought.
From having a few dominate the early contests, the pool of potential winners grew each year as industry standards grew and quality workmanship became a daily expectation, not something to focus on ahead of competition.
In later years the event has become more of a sporting occasion, but Bell says it remains a way of maintaining and improving shearing and woolhandling quality.
“They have become athletes,” he said.
The Merino shears also become an industry celebration by displaying wool harvesting, processing and clothing.
From benchmarking quality harvesting, Bell says other attributes such as sustainable production and management have been able to evolve.
He has seen the highs and lows of the Merino industry, including the early 1990s when what he called “micron madness” struck the industry as sheep prices soared on the back of high wool returns and the breed expanded as far north as Auckland.
Bell says it harmed the Merino industry as some sheep that should have been culled were kept for breeding.
“Sheep came from all directions to sell their gold,” he said.
Reflecting on his career, Bell says one of his most memorable recollections was in 2011, the event’s jubilee, which coincided with the Rugby World Cup hosted in NZ.
The organisers invited shearers and woolhandlers from South Africa and Australia to compete against a team from NZ.
Teams consisted of blade, machine shearers and woolhandlers.
While South Africa dominated the blade contest and Australia the machine, NZ were consistent overall and won the event.
It was a great spectator sport, he says, as was a subsequent North Island versus South Island event, which pitted shearers, woolhandlers and pressers in a race.
Bell comes from an era when community service was highly valued and he has served two terms on the Clutha District Council followed by two terms on the Otago Regional Council.
Bell stresses that others have made just as significant contributions to the running of the Merino shears, citing Don Clarke, Don Moffatt, Alastair Eckhoff (crrt), Ted Dreckow (crrt), Greg Stuart, Richard Stevens, Mervyn and Helen Kinaston (crrt) and Barbara Newton, to name a few.
The longevity of the competition is graphically illustrated by the historic connections of the current president Lane McSkimming.
His father, Murray, won the first Merino shearing competition in 1961 and a trophy built from his handpiece has been donated to someone who has made a significant contribution to shearing.
The handpiece, mounted on a piece of wood, is so worn from work, that the tension knob is heavily eroded.
Bell is determined the shearing competition will continue and he intends to be involved, but says he would like more interest from young people to help ensure that.
