Elders Kellerberrin agent Adrian Gamble has hung up his boots after 63 years and four months with Elders Limited.
Mr Gamble officially retired on April 30 and recently in his home town of Kellerberrin, clients from local and surrounding districts joined with him and his wife Marcia to celebrate that long and memorable career, 41 years of which has been spent in the eastern Wheatbelt town.
Described as a living legend with a great sense of humour who always pushed to achieve the best for his clients, many of whom he is now dealing with in the third generation of their families, the pending octagenarian (a milestone he'll click over on November 22 this year) reflected on his career with the iconic Australian company.
Not long after his sixteenth birthday in November 1957, Mr Gamble left school (Marist Brothers, Subiaco) and applied for a job with Goldsbrough Mort and Company, later part of Elders.
"At the interview, I was ushered up to the office of the accountant, knocked on the door and waited for what seemed an eternity," Mr Gamble said.
"Eventually a voice said come in and I was greeted with a pair of shoes on the desk, with a newspaper held up and behind it was a wisp of smoke coming up.
"Eventually the voice said yes boy to which I replied I have come to apply for the job sir."
After another long wait the words 'have you now, well sit down boy' were muttered.
"The shoes and paper came down and CJ (Charles) Wade appeared with pipe in hand.
"It was all very intimidating for a 16-year-old boy straight from school, but as it transpired, all went through the same ritual," Mr Gamble said.
"I got the job and started work in the second week in January together with Ian Tassell, who went on to captain the State junior golf team, the first time they won the Australian championship, and now has a winery in Margaret River, Ric Cowan who had an insurance business in Esperance and Bob Everett who later went into the navy and was the signalman on HMAS Melbourne when it sank the H.M.A.S Voyager, before becoming the boss of New South Wales Waterways.
"On my second day of work I was picked up at 3:45am for my first day at Midland saleyards by the late Tom Mackenzie, with Ian Sharp.
"On Tuesdays after working with pigs we were often dropped off in St George's Terrace about 5pm to catch the bus home.
"It was always very crowded but we always had plenty of room (because of their smell)."
As was customary with Elders renowned training program, young staff were given a solid grounding working across multiple sections of the business including the mail room where Mr Gamble was joined by "two new boys, John Fisher and Bob Symington".
"In mid-January, 1961, I received my first country posting to Bridgetown, where Bill Sheridan was the boss, Jack Draper the head stock salesman, along with Bill Reynolds (later the official historian for the WA Cricket Association), John Fisher, was the office manager, Diane Austin (who later married John) was the office girl and I was the ledger keeper with Jack Haunold."
After six cold months there, Mr Gamble was transferred to Three Springs to take over as office manager from Stuart Dunne, "who was killed in a car accident on his way home from conducting the biggest sheep sale ever held at the Midland saleyards".
"Mick Bignell, the one-armed bandit, was the boss (later replacing Kevin Kerr in Geraldton) and Ian Sharp the stockman," Mr Gamble said.
"Mick lost his arm in an accident years before and was renowned for driving at up to 140 kilometres per hour on gravel roads steering with his stump while rolling a cigarette with his good arm."
"I had my 21st birthday in Three Springs, not long after I went on the road as a stockman and in 1963 when Goldsbroughs and Elders merged to become Elders GM, was transferred to Carnamah," Mr Gamble said.
"Malcolm Douglas was the boss and because he wasn't yet married we all bach'ed with him.
"There were seven of us in the manager's house opposite the Carnamah Hotel, which included two teachers who we put on dinner duty.
"They cooked steak and mashed potatoes every night and I can't stand both now.
"I shared a room with Ross James who later, at the age of 27, became the manager of Elders Tokyo.
"We both canvassed Perenjori and on Fridays always met up the hotel and after quite a few, often stayed overnight," he said.
"Owen South, the hotel manager, did not charge for accommodation, but we usually had to get back to Carnamah by 8am for Saturday morning conferences.
"On the night of my 22nd birthday we had a late one and stayed over in Perenjori.
"We were late getting to Carnamah and were expecting to get busted for it but when we walked in Malcolm Douglas met us with 'there'll be no conference today because John Kennedy was assassinated last night', so we went to the pub."
The connection with Perenjori saw Mr Gamble transferred there in 1964 to open an office working with the late Cyril Maurice and Jess Laurence.
Mr Gamble normally clerked their regular sheep sales while Mr Douglas auctioned, but "one day two minutes before the sale started Malcolm grabbed the books and told me you're selling today".
And that was his introduction to auctioneering.
"It was a baptism of fire but I got through," Mr Gamble said.
At the end of 1965, he was transferred to Koorda to take over from the late Ian (Blue) Gillett, under regional boss in Dowerin Tom Hannagan, father of Elders Moora's Patrick Hannagan.
"Just before I arrived Ian had to ring and tell Tom on a Sunday morning he had rolled the company car coming back from a cabaret at Mollerin, some 60 kilometres away, the night before and it went like this:
Tom: "Blue, how are you?"
Blue: "Not too sure."
Tom: "How's the car?"
Blue: "Not too sure."
Tom: "Where's the car?"
Blue: "Not too sure... perhaps I should check on the lot and call you back."
"Ian's accident report showed that due to a lapse in concentration the car rolled over."
Mr Gamble continued auctioneering the monthly sheep sales at Koorda and had "five wonderful years there", blighted by the drought of 1969 when the town lost 50 per cent of its population, before being transferred to do the Badgingarra run from the busy Moora branch epicentre.
"Tom Hannagan was the manager, Neil Williamson the area manager, with Nick Balfe the head stockman and we had six cars on the road - it was a busy area," Mr Gamble said.
"Badgingarra was still being developed back then."
After 18 months he was sent to Wongan Hills to work under branch manager Bob Cullen.
With big sheep sales and an active stud breeding fraternity which made plenty of use of his auctioneering skills, coupled with a very vibrant community, he was in his element.
But after 18 months it was back to Moora as head salesman again under Bob Cullen as Tom Hannagan had gone to Bridgetown and John Blaxell had taken over from Neil Williamson.
He continued to do the auctioneering at Wongan Hills as well as Moora and remembers 1976 as a particularly busy year with weekly sheep sales from sheep being trucked to Moora from the droughted northern Wheatbelt.
"At the end of 1979, I was transferred to Kellerberrin as branch manager and most of the 80s made for exciting times," Mr Gamble said.
"Elders took over Western Livestock and Bill Cream came on board.
"The eastern Wheatbelt became renowned for our sheep circuit sales, wool prices were booming, we were doing fortnightly pig sales of 5000 to 6000 head - some of the biggest in the nation - at Merredin with Elders having about 60pc of the yarding and with the (John) Elliott era Elders was the fourth biggest company in Australia.
"We had up to 10 staff in Kellerberrin."
The highlight circuit sale was on May 13, 1987, when they sold more than $1 million worth of sheep in a day at Narembeen, Bruce Rock, Merredin and including a record 10,000 head at Kellerberrin.
"The following year the Ryan family achieved a State record price of $80.20 and former Elders manager Errol Gardiner brought a bus load of buyers from Gnowangerup," Mr Gamble said.
While he experienced some of the best of times he also saw some of the worst exacerbated by poor seasons, falling wool prices and rising interest rates.
"At one stage I sold 800 ewes for the York family at Anameka Farms, Tammin, for 20 cents per head, $160 for the lot," he said.
"Last year I sold a line of ewes for them at $320 a head."
In 1990, he said all the red tag ewes were destroyed to get numbers down and Elders began rationalising and closing branches including Kellerberrin in 1991, necessitating Mr Gamble to become an Elders agent.
"Sheep numbers have declined as cropping has increased and farms have got bigger," he said.
"One of the saddest things is the loss of quality young people, our best future leaders, out of these rural districts.
"There are now more young people employed at our local IGA than on local farms."
The other big change has been the advent of electronic livestock selling platforms such as AuctionsPlus.
Not exactly sure what drew him to a career with Elders it may have been the yearning farmer.
He was born to the family farm at Kondinin, next door to the Biggin family, but his father died when he was four and a half years old and his brother was just six months and although his mother initially share-farmed the property they eventually sold and moved to Perth.
He continued to get a farming fix at his uncle and former CBH chairman Jack Sadler's Goomalling farm (who married his mother's sister) and they were big Elders clients.
When asked what kept him there for 63 years his reply was "I probably never got around to moving".
But the reality is he loved the industry, the people he met, the clients he worked for and the colleagues he worked with.
"I have dealt with many wonderful people, some for 40 years and more including the York family, Saunders family, Giles family, Grylls family, Ryan family, Hayes-Thompson family, Cram family and Heinrich family to name a few and with most of them I am starting to deal with the third generation of those families," Mr Gamble said.
"As branch manager at Elders Kellerberrin, I had many great young people come through such as Kevin Broad, George Greaves, Dale West, Rod Goswell, Joe St Jack, Kevin Penrose, Brett McNabb, Peter Burchell, Mark Mahney, Bill Cream and the 'girls' such as Jill Rogers, Tracey Woods, Jan Alcock, Carla Fulcher, Sue Silver, Lesley Tiller and many others."
And his one bit of advice for budding auctioneers was always make sure you have a name to knock the item down to at the end of the day which is not your own.
His days will now be spent on family time - with son Scott running Farmways in Kellerberrin, daughter Nikki based in Darwin where her husband is the boss of the fisheries department and youngest son Rohan based in Perth with the police dog squad.
And he'll still be rubbing shoulders and swapping stories with a few clients as president of the local Kellerberrin Men's Shed.
Happy retirement Adrian Gamble -after 63 plus years with Elders you have surely earned it.
