GROWING up as a kid on a farm, we didn’t get a lot of visitors, so it was always a red-letter day when the stock and station agent stopped in.
We were battlers, and Peter Coady was our stock agent, and he always gave us the most important thing any stock agent can give his clients – time!
Many of you would remember “Lewis Coady” on Curlewis Street, which became BR&C Agents.
I did a short stint there whilst finishing my college degree.
On the first day, I travelled with Peter to Frank Old’s farm at Balranald.
As we pulled up there was a single steer in the back pen of the yards, and as the lackey, I was sent to go and get it so they could have a good look at the beast (they both knew of course and I didn’t, that the steer was completely mad and half-blind).
So I open the gate and just walk up like it’s a dairy cow.
It’s making a bit of noise, pig snorting and swiping its feet, I just assume it’s bluffing.
But there was no bluff.
The steer put its head down and flat-out charged me from 10 paces, and I have never run so fast.
I turned and ran like someone whose life was in mortal danger.
I hurdled the eight-foot yard rails in a single bound as the steer crashed full bottle into them behind me, reckon I was peeing my pants before I left the ground. I look around and here is Peter and Frank rolling around with laughter like they had won the lottery on Christmas day!
Got me good and proper, they did.
Being a stock agent is hard work physically and emotionally, there are a lot of tough decisions and tears made in paddocks and around kitchen tables.
Back in those days, there was little direct-to-abattoir sales and few mobile phones.
The cattle sale was a big event.
Stock would come to the sale before the evening curfew to be unloaded. Then you’d go to bed early for a few hours’ kip and return to the yards at some ungodly hour like midnight or 1am, and start drafting ahead of the next morning sale, which started at 8am.
The agents worked straight through the night and until the sale was over after lunch and the cattle were all safely on a truck.
At the end of the sale, Peter would work the rest of the day and then go home in the evening and start ringing the list of farmers with good or bad news on the landline with their cattle prices.
I had a truckie say to me the other day paddock directions from Peter were always written out on the back of a TAB ticket.
Over time, Peter became a neighbour, running some cattle on a block we now own.
He would turn up after work, beer in hand and he had this unique way of telling his cows he was there.
He would imitate a bull calling his cows, with his auctioneer’s voice, the bellowing sounds he would make would run together till it was almost a song. The cattle could never resist and would come a-running.
I still do this, mostly when nobody is about, and I don’t do it as well as Peter – but it stuck with me.
Peter was a remarkable fellow, a character larger than life, devoted husband to Lois, father to Carl, stock and station agent, businessman, auctioneer, show announcer, life member of the trots and the races, community stalwart, race caller, volunteer to riding for the disabled, and much more.
I am not the right person to tell the stories of Peter Coady’s life but when I was younger, he gave me the most important gift of time and he was influential to a young pretend farmer with limited experience.
Peter Coady passed away in February. He will be missed.
