In Memoriam

In Memoriam Alas we have lost some members and to all those left behind we offer our condolences:

George William Wallis (FC 65/66).

We are sorry to report the death of George William Wallis (Bill) on September 15th 2020 after an illness.

Dave Ross (NDA 65-67 ) in June 2020:

On leaving Shutts Dave returned to the family farm near Rotherham where he expanded cow numbers, built a new parlour and gradually increased to around 200 acres. In the mid to late seventies he met his wife, Maria Pilar (aka Pili). It was somewhat of a whirlwind romance; she was Spanish and was visiting her brother here who was married to a friend of Dave’s sister. They fell in love, three weeks later he went to Spain after her and they married. He didn’t speak Spanish and she didn’t speak English so they used an English/Spanish dictionary to communicate whilst she experienced one of the coldest winters in England. Despite it all they were together 31 years and had four sons before she was sadly taken with cancer at the tender age of 55, leaving Dave heartbroken.

With four sons it was always a challenge as to how they could all get a living from the farm or alternatively should it be sold? The family rose to the challenge and diversified the business with a farm shop and butchery, set up a milk bottling plant and deliver their own milk, and run a successful festival, FarmFest,(a day of live music, food and farming). Having transformed the farm himself in the seventies, Dave was able to see the whole family transform it again in recent years to a thriving diversified rural business. Earlier this year the family featured on a BBC TV programme on the Farmers Guardian Family Farm of the Year Award.

I had come across Dave a few times in my BOCM PAULS days as he was a customer of ours and having seen the programme resolved to look him up again after lockdown, but too late I am afraid. Sorry Dave !!

Rossco will be fondly remembered by many of us from that era, part of the staunch Yorkshire contingent, always cheerful with his trademark chuckle. He was a rugby player, and a champion of the qualities of Yorkshire beer to which I am now converted as a southerner living in the county for the last 30 years or more. We had so much fun together at Shutts with stories too many to recall (the memories are a bit hazy, not sure whether due to old age now or the amount of beer drunk at the time !!)

I know that Dave and Maria would both be very proud of what their family has achieved. Rest in peace Dave.

Colin Mark Teek of Noorongong 4/10/1945-20/3/2018 (NDA 63/65)

Colin was on a born on a mixed farm on the western edge of London just after the war. His mother was Irish and his father was from a long line of farmers from the one family farm in Somerset, SW England, going back to 1595.

As a small child times were tough and he remembered the farm house full of ‘refugees’ from a bombed out London. Jack, his dad, was often stressed running a farm with dairy and beef cattle, sheep and cropping which supported an additional three families with the farm workers. When Colin was seventeen his grandmothers family farm in Somerset came to his dad and Jack said to Colin “You don’t want a wet old farm in Somerset do you?” Young Colin had always dreamed of sunshine and exotic lands so replied a bit uncertainly, “No”.

In 1963 Colin went to Shuttleworth Agricultural College, and had his first taste of real freedom, making lifelong friends with Ants LeFanu and John Mills, to name a few. After a couple of years of college Colin jumped on a ten pound POM ship and came to 1960s Australia. He worked all over Jackerooing, tractor driving, picking fruit and eventually setting up a business crutching sheep in W.A. After a while, itching for change he took a job with the Australian government surveying in the jungles of New Guinea. There he met his future wife Jean, who had moved up there from South Australia with her family to grow coffee.

Colin and Jean were married in 1972 and ended up buying a small farm in west Wales U.K., where they had pigs, strawberries, beef cattle and finally a dairy herd. Colin built a big cowshed and attached dairy as in the cold Welsh winters the cattle had to be housed and of course fed lots of silage and hay. After twelve years (and three kids) of much rain and mud Colin realised that they had to get back to the Australian sun.

The family emigrated and spent four years running a wild pub in far north Queensland with Jean’s family; something only Colin enjoyed being a social creature. A favourite recollection of Colin’s was a conversation with a local customer. “Colin, how can you go from milking cows in Wales to the notorious Bottom Pub in Kuranda?” He thought about it and quickly came to the conclusion “Actually it is not much different”. “What?” asked the confused and probably very drunk patron. “Well it is the same thing, the animals come in, we milk them, they cr..p everywhere, we kick them out, sometimes forcibly, and then we clean up the cr..p, often with a hose!”

In 1987 after selling the pub, Colin and family drove the length of eastern Australia looking at farms. It wasn’t until NE Victoria that they came across country that really grabbed them and in 1988 Colin and Jean bought ‘Stonroy’ in the Noorongong, the Mitta valley, from the Ronans. They both worked hard living tight for many years and managed to pay the farm off. Colin was always heavily involved in the Mitta Valley community, especially Landcare, where he spent twenty five plus years getting grants to benefit farmers and the local environment. Blackberries, a very successful biological control for Patterson’s Curse, tree planting and dung beetles were some of the projects he was instrumental in.

In the Mitta Valley and its residents Colin the wanderer had found his place and was happy and content. He loved being ‘up the back’ fencing, spraying, cleaning up timber or whatever had to be done. Retiring from the farm in 2015 he had the place in great condition and had