AFTER 50 years driving country roads, Sparra has mates in every town, SARAH HUDSON reports
When Ray 'Sparra' Weygood says he's mates with most of the farmers in the north of Victoria, it's no boast, just fact.
"I'd say I'd know someone in every town of the Riverina and quite a number in North East Victoria," he says.
"I could tell you the history of any farm or stock agent. If you've got time to spend, I could talk three weeks without drawing breath about it. I have a memory for names and people."
Better known as Sparra, the 70-year-old has been driving the roads of NSW and Victoria his whole life.
His career was as a third generation livestock carrier, for CR Weygood, a trucking company established by his grandfather in 1924.
These days, since retiring five years ago, he can be seen ambling along the back tracks in his horse-drawn gypsy wagon, selling fly swats to raise money for cancer (see breakout), and enjoying a yarn with the locals.
"I just love it. I love meeting people, they're mostly farmers. Through the years of my business, I carted stock off farm for these people and I've kept up with them."
It's a nomadic lifestyle he enjoys for several months of the year, leaving behind his wife, Delma, who "is flat chat volunteering for charities", and looking after four children, eight grandchildren and their home in Yarrawonga.
It is a way of life all the more surprising because he's 60 per cent blind.
"I lost it about 20 to 25 years ago. I blame it on the powder they used for foot rot, formalin. When you were hot or tired, you'd rub your eyes with the stuff on your hand and not even think about it."
Sparra was born in Morundah, NSW, near Jerilderie, and took to the road at age 18.
"In that era, businesses went from father to son. I'd be on the road and meet a lot of people, I'd see families grow up," he says.
He moved to Yarrawonga in 1952 - the year of big rail strikes in Victoria.
When he took over the business from his father, there were three trucks which he built up to a fleet of 19 - his was even the first company to have a three-deck stock float in the 1950s.
Business started to slow as farming in the region changed.
"In the '50s, 30,000 head of sheep would be sold per week in Yarrawonga, now it would be virtually zero.
"You wouldn't sell 30,000 per year now.
"There's not a stock carrier in Yarrawonga. Back in the '50s, you could have put your hand on 50 stock freights.
"The rural industry has collapsed. We were a victim of that."
Four years ago, he sold CR Weygood, after more than 80 years in the industry.
The highlight of his career he says was seeing the spring lambs; the lowlight: drought.
"In the '70s they destroyed stock. Put them in the pits and shot 'em. Stock were worthless.
"This drought, people are lucky, because the prices are high."
As much as Sparra's life reads like a social history of eastern Australia's stock trade, it is more remarkable for what he has done away from work.
In the 1970s, sorry to see the demise of horse-drawn milk and bread supplies, he bought the former Yarrawonga milk man's Clydesdale and lorry for 200.
"It was the end of an era of horse-drawn business and so I had spare time and decided to pick up and drop off kids to school. I just did it as a hobby - for about 17 years.
"I did it about one hour in the morning and an hour at night - my kids and about 10 to 15 others, depending who was on the side of the road. You can't do that these days, you need permission to go anywhere near kids now.
"I also did a Christmas Carol run for 16 years, until insurance stuck its ugly head in and stopped it."
He and Delma also ran a social group, Bindi-eye-hill, for children who loved horses, taking them camping and riding. There were about 170 children over 30 years and in 2003, those same children - now in their 40s - held a three-day surprise reunion for Sparra and Delma, which he says brought a tear to the eye.
"The sad part about the new generation is that they aren't very interested in outdoor activities now. They just like computers and being inside.
"I'm trying to bring to kids now what I had when I was a boy."
It was this love of horses, and an old-fashioned appreciation of a dying way of life, that saw Sparra make his own gypsy wagon in 2003 - decorated by the local art society and with full mod cons inside - the aim being to travel country roads, meet the locals and catch up with friends.
Every year since, he has travelled up to 850km - sometimes about 30km a day for up to four months - to Hay, Griffith, Narrandera, Barmah and Picola - always staying on friends' farms.
The wagon is pulled by his faithful Clydesdales Mac and Larger and is followed by a black pony, Billy, who are all agisted on his daughter's farm in Bundalong when not on the road.
Sparra's fox terrier, Clancy, sits alongside up front.
This year, he has also sold fly swats to raise funds for Yarrawonga's Friends in Common, which supports families touched by cancer.
Not surprisingly, Sparra has an encyclopedic knowledge of farming and farmers in these areas. Ask him about any subject, and he's got an answer.
"I stayed with Jimmy in Waaia (in northern Victoria) the other day and he just sold 20 heifers to China. He's a second generation farmer on a soldier settlement block and all he inherited was debt.
"I'm only going on what people say to me but I can't see a future in farms. Farmers are getting older and a new generation is going off farm. They've got no encouragement to stay.
"It's such a hard life and there's no certainty.
"The average dairy farmer works flat out to earn $35,000 a year. It's a lifestyle he loves. It's not a business.
"Just like with my truck business, the lifestyle was great but it was hard. In the '50s it cost $90 to register a truck and now it's $10,000-$12,000.
"We tried to keep it running, but my children showed no interest because they'd seen my hardships at times and thought 'bugger it'.
"In places like Wycheproof and Birchip, they all had big thriving hardware stores and now people don't shop there anymore, but go to the bigger towns."
While the outlook for farming is pessimistic, and he mourns the passing of a unique Australian way of life, Sparra says he wouldn't change his lifestyle for quids.
"I just love being on the road.
"I'll keep doing this for as long as I can. Maybe one day they'll find me dead in the wagon."
