Clyde reflects on ag life

Clyde was born just out of Farrell Flat on the family farm, Stoneleigh, a sheep and cropping enterprise which was then run by Clyde's father, Harold.

As a lover of farm life from an early age, one of Clyde's fond memories from growing up on Stoneleigh - originally 200ha and bought by his grandfather George in 1899 for 1000 pounds - was helping to move sheep from the market back to Stoneleigh.

"My Dad used to go buy lambs from the Burra market for seven shillings each, I had a pony and a good dog and so I'd bring the sheep back home," he said.

"There wasn't much traffic on the roads, and people weren't going very fast, so it was safe."

Time in the saddle was not limited to moving sheep, with Clyde travelling to school via horseback, beginning at Farrell Flat in 1926.

At the time, the school had 56 students across seven grades.

After finishing primary school, Clyde spent one year at Thebarton Boys Technical High School, Adelaide, learning the art of woodwork, clay modelling, blacksmithing, and tin smithing, but always knew that he wanted to return to the land.

"I came home (from Thebarton) in the Christmas holidays and convinced my parents I would stay home and start farming, and I never regretted that decision," he said.

Clyde remembers harvests using a header that was just under two metres wide, with a five to six bag box, with each bag weighing about 82 kilograms.

"One day I reaped 325 bags, but because it was only a five or six bag box, you had to pull into a heap every time that box was full, we were flat out," he said.

Each harvest yielded about 3000 bags, equating to about 246 tonnes, made up of wheat, barley and oats.

Clyde said he and Harold "worked like brothers", with the pair farming together until Harold's retirement in early 1945, when Clyde took over at the age of 25 - the same year he married his wife Norma, who he met two years previously at the Black Springs dance.

"I always wanted to make a success of farming and I never wanted it to be said that my father was better at it than me," he said.

Clyde's takeover of the farm got off to a fortunate start, with the timing coinciding with the wool price boom.

"Fourteen pence per pound (of wool) had been our previous top price, but from 1945 to 1951 it went crazy, we were getting 243 pence per pound," he said.

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Until the 1950s, Clyde had been sourcing wheat seed from Vic, due to wheat from Roseworthy being unsuitable for the clay-based soils of Stoneleigh, but after an Agricultural Bureau meeting at Black Springs with a plant breeder, he was convinced to set up trial plots on Stoneleigh, eventually becoming a grower of certified seed.

"If a new wheat was released and suitable for our area, I'd sow it, and as the wheat was coming up, I'd get the seed, and multiply it, and then sell it out.

"In the days before bulk handling, I sold seed in bags, one year I sold 1300 bags. Farmers that took bigger lots came, loaded, paid and left, but those taking only small lots came, loaded and talked for half the day.

"I met wonderful farmers from all over the state."

Striving for better results, while maintaining a willingness to help others, has been the epitome of Clyde's mindset as a farmer.

"If I found out I had something that was good I didn't keep it to myself, I'd rather tell my mates and friends about it if it was going to help them," he said.

Clyde is the first to admit he liked a challenge, with his fascination for tinkering paying off for Stoneleigh. With the help of Harold, the pair made their own harrows, and Clyde also converted a seven-furrow plough into an eight-furrow plough.

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"If anyone said you couldn't do it, that's the time you got stuck into it," he said.

Farming aside, Clyde was a keen sportsman, playing tennis for 25 years and bowls for 49 years, and also served as Burra district councillor for six years during his sixties.

But farming always came first, and Clyde said he always remained devoted to Stoneleigh.

Clyde believes the process of haymaking has been the biggest change he has seen in agriculture in his lifetime, and remembers back to when a horse-pulled 2m ground driven binder was used.

"Farmer inventions, tractor loaders, hydraulics and hay balers made things easier, and now with machines making big round bales, there has certainly been much change in haymaking in my time," he said.

Clyde lived at Stoneleigh for 72 years, before semi-retiring to a house in Riverton, which he built himself.

After a 13-year stint in Gawler, Clyde then relocated back to Riverton, but is "thrilled to bits" that Stoneleigh is still in the family, now run by Clyde's grandson Greg Kellock and his wife Jane, with their son Sam wanting to carry on the farm in the future.

Greg, Jane and Sam were among six grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren, and Clyde's three daughters - Bev, Raelene and Marie - as well as many friends who attended Clyde's 100th birthday celebration held earlier this month.

"I've had more hustle and bustle in the past few months than I have in a while, all the family were there," he said.

Thinking back through the years, Clyde said that on the whole, fulfilling the farming dream of his four-year-old self had resulted in a "good, wholesome life".

"Life is life, and when I look back on it, it hasn't been bad at all, I've quite enjoyed it," he said.