You come into Blackall, a little Western Queensland town about 1000 km from Brisbane, via the Matilda Highway having passed more grey nomads in their Winnebago’s – than dead kangaroos. It’s a close call because the road kill is huge in numbers this year, but then again, so are the grey nomads.

It’s a Saturday afternoon and the main drag of Blackall is like that of every small Australian country town – quiet and deserted. This place, population about 1,600, is full of history. It is where the Labor Party Constitution and rules were signed off; it has the black stump and it is the home of Jackie Howe who set a world record by shearing 321 sheep in seven hours and 40 minutes in 1892 with a pair of hand shears.

I read about Jackie Howe and the Barcoo River as a kid – in the days before we had a television – by the yellowish light that was the result of a 32-volt generator. When that failed we had kero lamps. Sitting in Victoria, reading Banjo Paterson making much of the town’s river, the Barcoo:

‘On the outer Barcoo, where churches are few / and men of religion are scanty, / On a road seldom crossed save by folk who are lost / One Michael Magee had a shanty.’;

reading about places such as the Barcaldine with the Tree of Knowledge, they were as untouchable and mysterious as Paris or Rome. But now, standing in the deserted main street of Blackall, I felt an affinity with Jackie Howe.

My old man had been a shearer and at various times in my life, I had worked as a roustabout in local sheds. I remember them as large hot places, made of corrugated iron with big wooden wool presses. These are workplaces where men had names like darkie (a reference to hair colour at a time when the world was less sensitive) sailor (for unknown reasons) and Marshall (Bomber), a small wiry man with a hand-rolled cigarette glued to the corner of his mouth.

They were men who worked at the grinding, backbreaking skill of shearing. You were surrounded by the clatter of the shearing machines; the bleating of the sheep and the blueness of the language from the men on the board. You learn a lot, watching and listening to these men, leaning on a broom waiting to dart in and sweep away the bits and pieces chewed off by the machines. They were dressed in navy Jackie Howe singlets, long before they become fashionable, denim trousers marked by the lanolin from the wool, and with sweat that ran down their face and off their nose.

You watch them flicking the shorn sheep down the chute with skill, pushing open the pen gates, grabbing another, keeping the rhythm going. One sheep shorn every three or four minutes; the running tally on the board so you knew how many you had and how many the bloke next you had. It’s a quiet competition with the older blokes – for the younger men – it is a measurement of their testosterone levels – like young bulls flexing their muscles.

In between sheep, you dart in with the broom to sweep away the bits and pieces, keeping the board clean. Later, you would graduate to picking up the fleece, and fling it, with some skill and great pride, down the skirting table where it was graded, rolled, stored. Shearing was hard work but that’s what defined these men. They were not defined by their education or trades skills but by their capacity to absorb hard, unremitting, back-breaking work. To be regarded as a good worker  – someone who worked hard – was the ultimate accolade. It defined your maleness – it made you an Australian Man – that and the capacity to drink. One generally followed the other.

They often had a simplified view of the political landscape – labor was for the working man – and the liberals for the bosses. Neat and clean. The definition spilled over into your choice of pubs – some were workers pubs, others for the bosses, bank workers, and teachers. Simple and clean – no swinging voters, no independents – just us and them.

But shearing sheds were places of manners – ducks on the water meant women in the shed and heaven forbid he who swore while she was around.  It was an unusual, social democratic place where all were equal with the boss. You grew up thinking that the great Australian egalitarianism actually meant something – and it did until your first experience of being told to go to the back door to pick up the morning tea. Little things dictated where you fell on the social and professional ladder. Shearers didn’t rate too highly – nor did the sons of shearers.

But you learnt from them – you learnt a code of decency and fairness – doing what was right was not to be marvelled at – merely expected. And you met men who seem to have fallen off the escalator – for whatever reasons – and who had a predilection for the metho as they picked up a couple of days work here and there.

They were colourful and interesting, generous with their time and opinions and later when you were progressing through the educational system, generous with their support and encouragement.  I suspect that the profession, like others, has become sanitized, beaten into a blandness. I know, watching the old man sweat and strain for eight hours a day in day out, week in week out, convinced me I would never be a shearer, would never rely upon the strength of my back for a living.

I went to the Barcoo Hotel for lunch – Chicken Parmigiana – and a couple of beers – enjoying the retreat from the heat before the sound of pokies intrudes and send me back to my motel room. It’s like every other motel room throughout Australia – and you lie on the bed watching the fan’s slow movement while you think about Darkie, and Sailor and Marshall and wonder what happened to them all.

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