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Feature
Red Kelly - Wee Waa
“I was seventeen when I started shearing
and it was my first job. I went out with my
brother. And I got married when I was
seventeen and had two kids by the time I
was nineteen. I must have had some energy
left after shearing. Then I went up to Walcha
and spent six months up there shearing with
my brothers. Cold, real cold. I was shear-
ing out at Nyngan some time later on and it
was fifty two degrees on the board. We were
shearing rams and we used to go there every
year to do that. I went down in the heat and
they dragged me along the ground to the tap
and turned the hose on me. I was alright to
get going again by the third run.”
“We went to the pub in Nyngan later and
they asked me what I wanted to drink
and I said all I wanted was a glass of milk.
I bloody near dropped dead that day, I
couldn’t even talk and hadn’t eaten all
day. I just needed a bit of energy so I had
some milk. I was only eighteen at the
time. Carolyne said she might do a bit of
shearer’s cooking so I said we’ll leave this
one, look around and go somewhere else.
So she got on to the cooking and I’d be do-
ing the shearing. After that we went down
to Newcastle to live and have a break from
shearing.”
“The first job I had was on the oysters out at
Nelson Bay and we stayed there for five and
a half years. It bought us a house, a car and
everything else. Carolyne loved it. We were
right on the wharf at Lemon Tree Passage.
The oyster farming went bad so we moved
in to Raymond Terrace and I worked at
Stewarts and Lloyds for a couple of years
and I was a wardsman at Sandgate Home for
about three years.
They rang me up and asked me to come
back shearing so I asked Carolyne and she
said we may as well go back, so we did. That
was thirty odd years ago. We had a good life
and we had our ups and downs.”
“Carolyne died two years ago and now it’s
got pretty hard. We were married fifty two
years. Bloody hard. I miss Carolyne like
bloody hell, we were like two peas in a pod.
I look forward to Tuesdays and Fridays at
the Mens Shed and it gets me out of the
place for a while. The only time I suffered
from depression is when I had cancer and
twelve months of chemo and Carolyne was
right beside me all the time. Twelve years
later Carolyne gets breast cancer and that
knocked us for six and I was beside her till
the end.
I’ve got this house up for sale now. It’s just
got too many memories and I just have to
get out. So if you know anyone that wants
a bargain priced home, send them to me.
They tell me I’m selling it too cheap but I
want to sell it quickly and it might help me
get some peace. I hope so.”
photo: John Burgess
Words & Photography by Namoi based
professional photographer, John Burgess.
To contact John, phone 0423 690 586 or via Humans of the Namoi
22 | iNarrabri Magazine | December 2016