“As the stock are slowly stringing, Clancy rides behind them singing, for the drover’s life has pleasures that the townsfolk never know”.
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These words were penned by the great Australian poet Banjo Patterson, and are the reason Boggabri’s Eric Murray chose a life in the bush.
Born in the suburbs of Sydney in 1928, Eric spent his younger years hanging on his mother’s every word as she recited the classic poem to him.
"I guess that’s where my desire to be in the bush came from,” Mr Murray said.
“Ever since I was a boy I always wanted to be in the country and I have never really known why, but I’d say my mum reading me that poem (which Mr Murray can still recite from memory) and how I imagined the bush to be as a boy are the big reasons why I have never really ever gone back to the city.”
After leaving the city in 1942, Mr Murray pursued a career in the country as a shearer and still has warm memories of “the wild old days”.
“To start me off they used to have me picking up for five shearers, which believe me kept me pretty busy,” he said.
“As you went along you would hear the three minute bell and you would ask one of the shearers if you could finish off a sheep on the whipping side, that’s more-or-less how I learned how to shear.”
The early years of his shearing career also saw World War Two come to an end, a milestone which Mr Murray said was celebrated thoroughly by everyone in the bush.
“We were working on a station out near Nyngan when the war came to an end, it was about 12:15pm when we heard and the shearers just let the sheep go and away we went,” he said.
“All of us loaded into the back of a 1936 Maple Leaf Chevrolet and headed for the pub at the nearest town, there was only the one pub and a cafe in town and between the 10 of us from the station we drank the pub dry.
“From there we headed into Nyngan to continue the celebrations and I can still remember all the girls dancing on the bar and everybody having such a good time, in fact it took the boss about three days to find us as we kept going from pub to pub.”
There came a time for Eric to settle down with the love of his life Eleanor and the couple along with their two young children choose Tambar Springs as their first place to put down roots.
“Well there came an opportunity for me to work and not to travel so much and settle down in Tambar Springs,” he said.
“After that Eleanor and I got married in 1951 and had our third son.From there we moved about some more to places including Premer and Coolah while always doing things like our business and shopping in Gunnedah.”
Eventually the country man found a home in Boggabri to settle down and to finally put down the shearing combs at the age of 70.
“When it came down to it though in 1989 and my son had married a Boggabri girl I floated the idea with my wife about settling down in Boggabri and she was all for it,” he said.
“We lived on Claire Street and it was great to be near the family and really have a chance to relax.”
Since Eleanor’s passing in 2013, Mr Murray has lived in the John Pryor section of the Boggabri Multi-Purpose Service-Hospital, Mr Murray told The Namoi Valley Independent he “couldn’t think of a better place to live.”
“I can’t stress enough how wonderful everything is here,” he said.
“The staff are terrific and take such great care of not only myself but everyone here.
“Everybody, from the nurses to the office start, everyone of them are truly wonderful people.
“It really is a wonderful place to call home."
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As for his day to day life now, Mr Murray takes great pride in his family and the fact there is now four generations of the Murray name.
“Family really is everything to me,” he said.
“From my three sons I have five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren and I am proud of all them.”
When looking back on his life, Mr Murray said “I have no regrets.”
“I am just an everyday Joe Blow,” he said.
“Throughout my life I have always tried to be fair dinkum and ridgey didge in the good and bad times.
“I really love life, I loved my time in the shearing sheds and I was very lucky my wife would have me and stuck by me for more than 60 years.
“Truly, I have no regrets and I have loved every minute.”
Billy Jupp
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
