9 Captions by Alecia Bland. Edited by Diana Beeby. Captions were made possible with funding from NZ On Air. www.able.co.nz Copyright Able 2016 ...has turned into a woolly stream. You'll certainly know the voice, even if you don't recognise the face. By late morning, they've joined the mob, mustered from the southern basin. For 35 years, Frank Torley's been known in rural communities as 'that joker from Country Calendar'. Nice to talk to you. You too. Good, Dave. You good? And now this TV producer's back on the land where he first got a taste for country life. Come on, you little bastards. (CHUCKLES) I used to be able to shear, oh, up to a hundred sheep a day. Not any more. I've found that, uh, even one just about kills me. 'COUNTRY CALENDAR' THEME Country Calendar's been on our screens for a record-breaking 45 years. After decades of traipsing across the farms of other people, we thought it time we turned the camera on one of our own. In the heart of the Rangitikei, close to the farming town of Marton, Frank Torley farms a small block. He's been a vital part of Country Calendar for 35 years, and now he's got into farming himself. Oops. < That all went as planned, Frank? (CHUCKLES) Pretty much, Dan. That's pretty much the size of it. Easier when you've only got eight or nine sheep? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, this is the last of them. This is last year's lambs. I'll be selling those... (EXHALES) in the next three weeks ` just after the drench is worn off. I've done pretty well out of the sheep the last year or two. I bought some ewes for 30-odd bucks ` sold them for $65 two years later. Two crops of lambs and these old one here ` might make 90 bucks. Got a fair bit of feed, Frank. What's the story there? Uh, it's not so much feed, Dan, as a disaster. I might have made a few dollars out of my sheep, but what I decided after I'd sold them was that, 'Oh, I'll shut a couple of paddocks up and make hay in conventional bales 'and sell it to other lifestylers.' Didn't work, did it? (CHUCKLES) Somehow or another I judged the market badly, so now I'm left with another 120-odd bales of hay. And then, of course, what made it worse ` I had it covered and the last southerly blew the jolly covers off the stack. I thought in desperation, 'I'll ring the garden centre. Maybe they'll like to turn it into compost.' 'No, thank you, Frank,' they said. So I thought, 'Oh no.' So if you know anybody who wants a hundred bales of not quite top-quality hay, could you please let them know. (CHUCKLES) When Frank was young, his dad's job meant the family moved a lot. And that meant that we travelled the length and breadth of the country, so I haven't got a home. So the Manawatu and Mangatiki I suppose you could call as my adopted homeland. Cos I came down here as a kid, working on my uncle's farm in the holidays, and then when I left school I worked around this area. Then I joined the stock firms. I was a stock agent in Hunterville. And then, uh, it, sort of, seemed quite natural, then, that I come home. So it was a strong draw for you to come back to the country? I suppose you could say that, Dan. But really, it was a matter of me always hankering for a farm. And, uh, I'd, sort of, got distracted for about 35 years, but I finally made it ` albeit a toy farm. DOG YAPS Frank got his first taste of farming up the road a bit at a settlement just north of Feilding. The first real job I had was at Kiwitea, and it was a family farm owned by the Stack family, and that was a stud farm. And, uh, Frank Stack ` he was a tough old bugger, but a fair old bugger, I think you could say. I remember him telling me at the interview for the job, 'Well, I hope you're pretty good, boy.' 'Cos,' he says, 'I've sacked five of you young buggers in the last year.' Well, I must have been all right, cos I did last near on two years at that place. That was back when the rural sector was the economy. Farmers were top of the heap, and TV reporters wore ties. This 800-acre property is pretty typical of a Canterbury Plains farm. Since 1916, it's given a reasonable standard of living for the Jarman family from sheep and from cropping. But right now, it's Keith's oldest son, Paul, who's probably best known the length and breadth of the country. Paul is the Skellerup Young Farmer of the Year for 1975. 'The Paul Jarman story was interesting because, I think, by today's standards, 'the winner of the Young Farmer of the Year wouldn't be known up and down the country. 'But back in '75, that was the importance of farming ` it was recognised and acknowledged. 'Paul was one of those young guys who are the farming leaders of the day.' Cos even then, in '75, there wasn't much thought about conservation and, maybe, alternative ways. But Paul had some very interesting thoughts about where he thought that farming was going in the future. It's been said landowners are the guardians of land, which they hold in trust for future generations, and I believe this to be true. A farmer never owns the absolute title to a piece of land ` he's only a temporary guardian of that land for future generations. And, as such, I believe that in many ways, the good farming practices are also good environmental and good conservation practices. And I think this is why farmers by and large are conservationists. After cutting his farming teeth with the Stack family, Frank took a new job at the Feilding sale-yards. 'Oh. Oh, this is hallowed turf. This is where it all happened ` my career in broadcasting.' 9 JAUNTY MUSIC Two men, two horses and 10 dogs drive half a thousand head of cattle 60-odd miles round the back roads from Puhinui Station to Feilding. The biggest livestock sales in the North Island are held at Feilding. ...ladies and gentlemen... After two years as a farmhand, the young Frank Torley landed a job right at Feilding's rural heart. Frank, the Feilding sale-yard's pretty significant place for you? Oh. Oh, this is hallowed turf. It was where I spent, oh, the best part of my youth, I guess, as a stock clerk initially, and then ` I finally got my spurs ` a stock agent. But it was right here in these sale-yards that a mate of mine, who'd left before, and, uh, he'd got a job in radio. So he called me up and said, 'Hey, Torley, do you want a job?' 'What as?' 'In rural radio.' Shivers, that seemed a bit cushy. So that was the start of my career. Simple as that. It's all over. That's the money. It's a career that's taken Frank from one end of the country to the other to meet all sorts of characters, like the East Coast cowboys mustering wild cattle near Ruatoria. A group of guys said, 'DOC is going to slaughter all the cattle that are running in the reserves up there.' So they said to DOC, 'If we can get some out before you go in and slaughter them, can we have them?' 'Go for it,' says DOC. So this posse ` it's all you could call them ` posse of guys went in there, some on horseback, and they drove in a mob of tame cattle, if you like. And then they went into the bush and brought out the wild cattle with the help of a couple of helicopters. ARCHIVE: Most of the cattle respond to the aerial musterers, but some need more personal attention. HORN BLARES 'The first meeting with Ferdinand. The chopper wins this round, but they know there's trouble ahead.' HORN BLARES And then they pushed these cattle out of the bush into the tame mob and took them down to the yards. Well, that was only half the problem, cos once you got 'em into the yards, these bulls and cows had never seen a fence in their lives. And man, oh man, did we ever have some trouble trying to draft those cattle. CATTLE LOW The beauty of those guys is that, sure, there was a dollar in it, but really that wasn't what they were there for at all. CATTLE LOW ARCHIVE: After the choppers and other expenses, 'there will still be a pot of money for Tony to share with his team. 'But, hey, they'd do it all again tomorrow for no pay at all.' Country Calendar was already in its ninth year of production when it moved to its new home at Avalon in the Hutt Valley. So Avalon Studios must have been brand new when Country Calendar moved here? It sure was. It was brand-spanking in 1974. I came up in '75, cos I'd been news-reading in Christchurch and returned to the fold of Country Calendar. It was a real fun place to work in. There was something like 800 people worked here. There was news, sports, drama, Pioneer Women, The Governor, Braindead. It was an absolutely incredible place to work. This is where all the footage gathered out in the hills is put together, polished up and becomes the finished story. Funnily enough, though, it was just after that that, uh, that we had our crew in the wrong place. (CHUCKLES) And... and Charlie forgot that we had a radio mike on him. And the things he was saying about the cameraman and the soundie we could never put to air. (LAUGHS) Oh, boy, was he grumpy. Anyway... The way the programme's made has changed a great deal since the early days, with film giving way to high-definition images edited on computer. And on the land, things have changed as well. In basic terms, farming hasn't changed at all, in that you take land, you grow grass on it, you put stock on it and you bring them to` either to eat or to milk cows or anything else. Those are the basics ` they haven't changed. As far as the technical side of things ` been huge advancements. When the show started, mustering was done on horseback, then the motorbike began to take over. These days it's all quad bikes. But Frank recalls one of the first stories showing how helicopters were changing farming. Andy Buchanan, Andrew Buchanan, in his heart of hearts, was a hoon. ARCHIVE: It's difficult to assess the full worth of Andy's helicopter. 'What value can you place on being able to quickly cover every inch of the farm 'to know exactly how much feed's available?' Whether or not he could justify having a helicopter on his place is a moot point. But, boy, did we have a ball doing that one. He would fly around his ewes. You know, sometimes ewes get cast. In other words, their fleece is so long that they lie on their side and can't get back up on their feet. Well, Andy did this wonderful sequence for us ` contrived, I have to say. HELICOPTER WHIRRS He came flying in with his helicopter, put the skids underneath the ewe, lifted her back on to her feet and then flew off over the hills and into the distance ` home. 9 11.36 < 11.36. OK. Here we go. By mid-morning, the trickle of sheep from the upper slopes has turned into a woolly stream. A lot of care is taken with every stage of the programme, including getting that familiar voice recorded just right. 'When I first joined, I was able to speak nicely as they used to in those days, like the BBC. 'And then when we came into the later years of the programme, 'we actually got to be roughened up a bit more ` more Kiwi.' No more rounded vowels ` you just spoke as you normally would speak. I hope anyway. So that has changed. Along with the presenting style, the content of the show has changed a little too. At the start ` back in '66 to about '72 ` oh dear, oh dear. It was as boring as to the average urban viewer, because the programme was designed to impart knowledge to the farming community. And because we only had one channel in those very early days, the whole of the nation used to watch it regardless. And one programme I do remember, oh, how we got away with it ` we would never get away with it today ` but we went to Grasslands. And there we were looking at various grass varieties which were available for farmers. And so perpetual shots of bloody grass and clumps. (LAUGHS) And then we come to amenity grasses. Now, these are the ones that are used on, say, roadsides, on playing fields, on football fields, the home lawn, of course, and, uh, golf courses. And you try to lighten it up. And so that's why at the end of the programme, I re-enacted fumbling my shots on a putting green. But, you know, regardless of how good the turf is, it still does nothing whatsoever for my golf. Actually, it wasn't all that hard to fumble either. (CHUCKLES) Of course, having a bit of fun on Country Calendar later became something of a tradition. The start of the spoofs, or hoax, really goes back to the very early days when we were all in radio, and, uh, we used to do silly things like haggis farming and, uh, the macaroni grower. And so that was a natural follow-on. But I think great credit should be given to Burton Silver, who was really responsible for most of the more zany ideas ` the bionic dog, the fence player, rural fashions. What's the reason behind all these gadgets? > Oh, all these? To keep me dry, eh. Everything gets wet around the cow bales, you know, and course, I just thought of these ideas to try and keep my smoke dry and that's the main thing. And my, um, oh, you know, my book right now. What's the pencil stuck in your band for? > Oh, that's for if I wanna write down a number of a cow in a hurry. You see, I just grab me pencil and whoop, like that. Stick me pencil back up there like that. And slap that on there like that. Country Calendar's always had a big audience in the cities, so it seemed only natural to bring a bit of a rural touch to downtown. ARCHIVE: There's not much room to move, let alone contemplate a farming venture. 'But for Trevor Topp, entrepreneur with a hankering after the rural life, 'there's a farming fortune to be made right here in the heart of the capital's business district. 'Guinea-pig fibre is becoming hot property among top fashion houses in Europe. 'World production is still small, 'and Trevor's research indicates that if he gets in on the ground floor now, he'll make a fortune.' Country Calendar's had a lot of fun with its famous spoof programmes over the years, but Frank Torley recalls one work of fiction which had a very serious message. The foot-and-mouth programme we did ` I think it was the late '70s ` was an incredible programme because of what we did. ARCHIVE: Thousands of head of stock worth millions are being slaughtered and burnt 'in the worst animal-health and economic disaster in NZ's history.' The rationale behind the story was to try and convince the public the impact of what would happen if an outbreak of foot-and-mouth ever did occur in NZ. We did a re-enactment. Dougal Stevenson fronted it. The highly feared disease has been identified on properties in Horowhenua, near Otaki, and the Wairarapa hill country. Earlier today the army rushed a decontamination unit to an Otaki dairy farm ` the site of the first positive identification of foot-and-mouth disease. Reporter Frank Torley was at the scene. The national calamity is that four days ago, pigs from this infected farm were sold at the local sale. Attempts are now being made to find where those pigs went to. And once found, every cloven-hoofed animal on all those properties will automatically be slaughtered. And it required enormous cooperation. We blocked the Manawatu Gorge. And then we had the police cooperating with us. And we had to advise every embassy that NZ had any contact with that this is an educational programme ` there has not been an outbreak of foot-and-mouth. There was one aspect to that story, though, that I've always had qualms about subsequently, because to make it as realistic as possible, we deliberately slaughtered, I guess, the thick end of 50 or 60 sheep. Sure, they were old ewes that would have been going to the works anyway, but to give it the credibility we required, we had MAF come along with their slaughter men and actually slaughter those sheep. And then when it came to the cattle, we found, uh, half a dozen dairy cows, boners. They were, again, due to go to the works, but we also slaughtered them. And I've always had a bit of a conscience about it. You know, how far should we have taken that programme for the sake of credibility? FIRE CRACKLES A highly successful programme, uh, with real impact, but I don't think we'd make it today. FIRE CRACKLES After years working at Avalon, the call of the country proved too strong for Frank and wife Jenny, and a few years back, they finally got that little place in the country. Levi! This way! > Good boy. CAR REVS But a lifetime of looking through a lens at the farms of others doesn't prepare you for even the most basic task on your own farm. Stay there. Good boy. Stay. When Frank bought his 2ha, it was all in one big block and he needed to build more fences to create smaller paddocks. How are ya? Good, good, mate. Good. Stick it on the bill? I'll put it on your account, sir. OK, mate. Cheers. Thanks. But it was here, Dan, that I realised that despite having 35 years looking at farms, I knew nothing about it. It was when it came to subdividing the land, and they said, 'How much wire do you want?' And I had no idea, cos I don't know how much is in a coil of wire. So then it came to the fence posts. They said, 'What sort of fence posts do you want?' I said, 'Pretty, round ones would be nice.' (CHUCKLES) (LAUGHS) Did they laugh you out of town? They did. So, anyway, what they did was, 'Have you got a plan of what you want to do?' 'Yep.' 'Measurements in there?' 'Yep.' They said, 'Leave it to us. We'll deliver it for you.' So 35 years and I didn't learn a bloody thing. HAMMER TAPS Finally getting a piece of dirt of his own has given Frank a new appreciation for those who work the land for a living. There's always something to do ` a little bit of maintenance, a little bit of fine-tuning, if you like. And I've found that whether you got 5 acres, like me, or probably 5000, there's always something to occupy your mind. But what I do realise is the enormous admiration I've now got for anybody who farms the land. And I think of one particular family. They were up the Kawhatau Valley ` Alan and Liz Rennie. Now, that guy was a real fencer. And not only that, he was breaking in some of the lousiest, toughest, roughest country you've ever seen. ARCHIVE: Alan Rennie and wife Liz moved here almost a decade ago. 'They've made remarkable progress on this challenging block of land.' But they had a beautiful piece of bush, which they donated to the QEII Trust, and they used to do horse-trekking. And people would come from miles around just to go on the trek through their property. And it's that love of getting out into remote spots like this that's kept Frank in the job over the years. I've often said that I have the best job in NZ. You get the opportunity to visit the country, but most importantly, you get time to stay with the sort of people you like to mix with, who are candid, honest, don't suffer fools and don't suffer bullshitters. Somehow or another, I reckon my job's got it all. To learn more about this programme, go to... Country Calendar is brought to you by Hyundai New Zealand: heading for the heart of the country.