What does it take to be a shearers' cook? | Landline | ABC Australia

[Music] [Applause] for sheer hard work few jobs come close to shearing and there are a few trades where you work up such an appetite it astounds me even still sometimes because you'll get people that just you can't fill up the boys of course they're burning it up quicker than anything i think a day sharing something like playing three afl matches in a date so yeah they burn through the calories pretty quick it's not like other jobs no you just gotta have that fuel in the other yeah [Music] at shearing the busiest time on a wall growing property the shearing shed becomes a small factory and the cooks in the nearby kitchen power this human sweat and toil they really are the engine room of the shearing team that come out of the station in our case twice a year to share our use and a really important part of um of our project here for 46 years cheryl duggan has been making meals for shearing teams with husband dick the couple has traveled the sheep regions of eastern australia loved it hated it sometimes when you're getting bogged in on the i have no road or yeah but a lot of i think yeah i love the travel i think pretty much when we're not sure and i don't know what to do with myself [Music] dick began shearing in his early teens well i started 14 at shed calls doing planes yeah and i told them i was 18 of course but anyway you didn't have to show birth certificate seven days dick duggan forged a reputation that earned him the nickname the king now 81 the king now plays consort to his queen dick gets up and cooks breakfast i get up about seven and my day starts then and we just progress through the day he cooks the meat or whatever we need whatever needs doing we do pujanook station is a famous mourinho studney jeri in the new south wales arena region and spring shearing is in full swing there are eight shearers and as many shed hands rouster bounce wall rollers wool classes the shearing contractor and the presser at least 16 often more hungry workers to feed it is a logistical exercise and vic the contract is vital in in delivering not only good sharers and good shed staff also the cook and and organizing all the all the rations you know good food and a good bed always keeps me alright can i try it yeah yeah it keeps everyone happy good sheep there too there geez you're full of compliments today [Laughter] [Music] if you can please some of the people some of the time but you can't please all the people all the time you know and that's the general run of it and the bloke said well it's there if they don't want it they don't have to eat it you know but we usually try to put two different meals on each time so that they've got a choice of what they eat [Music] dick duggan's working day begins in the kitchen soon after five there's always a hot breakfast on hand scrambled eggs bacon toast even fried mushrooms it's waiting game and i've got to work my time at the clock you know by 6 30 most of the team is tucking into a hearty breakfast this team we've got now they're pretty good on the two they'll lead quite well [Music] in the wall shed the catching pens are full and with a full stomach finely sharpened shears and a minute or two of contemplation the shearers get ready for the riggers of an eight-hour day on the stroke of 7 30 they spring into action for the next two hours the only time they'll lift their heads is to catch another sheep all the while in the cook house cheryl duggan makes morning tea known as smoko a half hour break [Music] and dick acts as delivery boy morning smoker is mostly hot food party pies sausage rolls uh cocktail frankfurts maybe or dim sims or whatever toasted sandwiches [Music] today there's pizza as well and the team makes short work of it very spoiled really lots of variety which is very important and um yeah all beautiful tasting food it's lovely well for a start if you've got happy men that makes a hell of a difference you get away with a bit like the sheep are a bit tough or things aren't quite right if you've got a good cook and keeps the team happy makes a hell of a difference i think having a good shearers cook it's the core of a good team keeping everybody happy if you've got a good cook everybody's happy cheryl duggan's cooking career started by accident i was thrown into it to start with the cook snatched it or was sacked and i was 20 year old straight out of the city you've got to cook dinner okay i'll do that when they come down for dinner no meat nobody told me how to put wood in a wood fire so that was my induction into cooking and it's just rolled on ever since um cooked with my first baby when she was two weeks old and just kept going that's when they first met dick and cheryl already had five children between them soon after they married and had four more dick worked alongside cheryl both as a shearer and shearing contractor the kids looked after themselves i guess um oh i've got photos of the kids looking like they've just come out of a bog somewhere um don't get a bath until eight o'clock at night or whatever but yeah the kids love the outdoor life the work was often remote the conditions rudimentary no pair a lot of the sheds in those days when they were little like even when i first started kerosene fridges with the difference in refrigeration you know you can take things out where once you just couldn't couldn't have tomatoes or lettuce especially in the hotter weather it either come in a tin or you just didn't have it you found a brand yet you just got two hour increments all day long until four o'clock and you can have a shower and take a break to five o'clock that's about it the kitchen at pujinuk is a class above most definitely not typical of some of the kitchens like some we've had little tiny wood stoves and that's all you've got we had a gas stove that got fly blown you could smell from the front door i had to throw that out and just use a little wood stove in the middle of summer um you know this is pretty good actually very good it's like being at home good facilities attract good people and at the end of the day we're all here to do a good job that's basically the genuine wish of everyone in these isolated areas where people have to stay overnight or for several days or two weeks i think it's an important part of our of our society out here to be able to get the work done properly [Music] [Applause] sometimes when they're too far from town it's a case of make do there is a bit of an art to it you'll always run out of something always so you work around that a good cook should be able to make anything out of nothing and it's very much appreciated and enjoyed some people are enthusiastic about their work and some people are less enthusiastic well we've had um a few cooks and they can make everything from scratch whereas other people the whole stores is full of packets packets packets yeah what's for taylor i don't know cherylin told me yeah there's one ingredient never in short supply dick's always got plenty of yarns [Laughter] there's no worries about that there's one thing he's never short on once shearing was a staunchly blokey affair some couldn't tolerate a woman near the wall shed it reminds me of it up in queensland one year and and the cooks snatched it and went and next thing that cocky's wife said i'll fill in until we get somebody and the press a turn a new presser turned up got out of the taxi 60 mile out seen the woman in the shed and said woman cook take me back to town so that women were about once but now they're probably 50 of the time yeah even sharon it was once customary for the cook to kill a sheep for rations i can dress a shave but i couldn't cut their throat until softer when we're on a station and they kill meat for us i mean we'd go through a whole sheep in a matter of a couple of days we have roast dinners day and night different things chops and so on i mean there's so many different things you can do with lamb so yeah it's it's mind-blowing these days there's less meat on the menu i don't remember making so much salad years ago it's more it was more soup and meat and veg then but now i mean in the hot weather they like a lot of salad and even in the winter i've had people ask for salad so everybody's become a bit more wary of what they're eating there's always fruit everybody goes berserk for fruit and salads and and wraps and it's really quite amazing yeah how much and what shearing teams eat depends on the weather this can be frightfully hot work we get icy poles in summer and we just hang for icy poles in the afternoon yeah and watermelon and they keep it cold and it's just beautiful because as you can imagine like on a 40 degree day outside and it's 40 degrees inside the shed like you just anything that's cool is delicious and beautiful yeah [Music] but it seems everyone who's ever worked in a shearing team has a horror story about a cook they've tried to starve us and uh yeah some just had no idea we did have oh years before when we're up in queensland and women weren't in the sheds then we had this cook that oh that was changing sheds and they didn't want to cook dinner for them and so dick said to him look mate i think you better cook dinner for these blokes so he just picks up a dirty big bag of potatoes and tips it into a pot of cold water dirt and all and said there that'll do them [Music] dick duggan once saw three cooks sacked in quick succession well somebody left a bottle of rum in the room and i didn't realise until three of them had to go then i got rid of the rum i've seen one that told us he had an alcoholic poison at charlevoix yeah i remember him well we had to get rid of him yeah we went all week and then we still had three parts of the sheep in the meat house but that was on the friday morning when we got rid of him so does cheryl duggan feel appreciated they do say thank you every every nearly every meal so i'm hoping they are i think we would would we not have a job now if we weren't they do it blindfold they know what each other's thinking and and they just put it all together they're a great team to have with a sharers team yeah because they're a team as well [Music] when you get to my age what do you do you know sort of you've got to be doing something don't you when you've worked all your life you just don't stop you get used to traveling around and when you once you're home after a little while you get dick and i start getting a bit cranky we don't we don't talk much at all but then we don't talk at all so you know just yeah it's good to get away and talk and talk to other people about different things [Music] how long do you reckon you'll was to get this going until terribly dies he won't let me retire i don't know i think we've got another year or two winners yet maybe i don't know [Music]

Channel: ABC Australia

Views: 201,819

Rating: 4.8794179 out of 5

Keywords: ABC, Australia, ABC Australia, Landline, Landline ABC, ABC Landline, Shearers, sheep shearers, sheep shearing, shearers cook, farm cook, station cook, Tim Lee

Id: Tn8FwPK7V08

Length: 13min 55sec (835 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 17 2020