Cut above the boys

Press, 18 April 1979, Page 1

Cut above the boys

The fastest woman blade shearer in the world, Joy McCracken, demonstrates her skill on a rather anxious staff photographer, Peter Ritchie. Joy aged 21, of Rangiora, won the intermediate grade for blade shearers from an otherwise male field at the Sefton Sports on Monday, wearing a T-shirt and jeans, her usual shearing gear. A week before that, she was a close second in the same competition at the Oxford Show, and before that again, she preceded Linda Jones across the Tasman to show the Australians how it is done.

Like Miss Jones, the famous apprentice jockey, Joy McCracken was the first woman of her profession to perform in Australia, and she too was the subject of media attention when she visited New South Wales in March to give shearing exhibitions. She sheared in Sydney at Flemington Market as part of “Farm Link” — “They were trying to get through to city people that their milk and butter didn’t come out of a fridge” — and at a station near the New South Wales border.

She “had enough of reporters” during her 12-day visit there, she said yes-

terday. Among other publications, she was interviewed for the “New Idea” women’s magazine, which is sold In New Zealand, and appeared on the Mike Walsh television talk show. Mr Walsh interviewed her as she sheared. New Zealand was “far ahead” of Australia in the number of occupations open to a woman, Joy McCracken said. There had been “absolutely no hassles” when she began shearing in New Zealand three seasons ago, whereas in Australia, before she could pick up a pair of blades, she had to join a union.

As a result of her Australian visit, she has been offered two jobs in that country, but whether she takes them up will depend on the date of her return from a trip to the United States and Canada, where she is going for a holiday next week. She would like to do some demonstrations in the United States too, but so far she has not been able to make any contacts in this direction. When she left Rangiora High School at 16 — “I enjoyed the sports at school” — Joy did not really know what career she would take up, except that it would be outside —“nothing in an office.”

She does not come from a farm — her father, now retired, had a transport business in Rangiora — but she enjoyed working on a friend’s farm, and joined a shearing gang as a shed hand, just as an interim measure. However, she found that both the job and the hours appealed to her — six months a year working, six months off, with plenty of time to travel, and she stayed on. It just happened one day that they were short of a shearer and “they gave me a pair of blades”, and the day after that she sheared 108 ewes. “It might take people weeks to do that many — even a whole season.” Two days later she set a world record for female blade shearers — 137 ewes in a day. She was a natural.

For the last two seasons she has been shearing fulltime, and this February she set another record, this time with lambs — 225 in a jday. She prefers blade to machine shearing because, even though “it’s old fashioned, it is much more relaxed; there is a better atmosphere in the sheds, not so much noise.” In speed, there is not much difference between the two methods. She said that, depending on the

type of sheep, some people would average about 200 a day on blades. She would do about 150 or 160 in an average working day. Mr J. B. Williams, of Lyttelton, an administrator of the Lion All Breeds New Zealand Shearing Titles, said that in his opinion, two things accounted for Joy McCracken’s success: her build, and the interest taken in her progress by the present Now Zealand blade champion, Peter Burnett, who works for the same employer as Joy in Rangiora. “If you noticed, she is a very strong girl with quite wide shoulders which gives you a start in pushing the blade. It’s not like using scissors. You push tho blade sideways, in a scything effect. She also has strong wrists and arms and a long back, which gets her into a much better position over the sheep. “Peter Burnett noticed that she was quite good, and started training her. The mors encouragement she got the better she became. She got it together at the week-end (at the Sefton Sports) and she was a clear winner — the bost time and the best job on the fleece.”