When Barbara Newton graduated from Massey University with a diploma in wool and wool technology she never envisaged embarking on a career that would become a lifetime passion.
He recent retirement after 47 years’ involvement in the New Zealand wool harvesting industry, initially as a broker classer before embarking on a career as a self-employed professional shed classer, has seen her encounter many changes.
Some were for the better, some for worse, but her love for wool has never diminished.
“My initial interest in wool began in my early teens from my mother with her fleeces spread out in front of the fire, from which I would select out staples for her to card and then spin,” Newton says.
“Of course, I was brought up in an age when wool was the fibre for clothing.”
With two grandmothers and her mother all keen knitters and craft persons, there was never any shortage of woollen garments created throughout her childhood.
Newton believes she was born with a passion for the sheep industry.
“I was born in the Chinese year of the sheep and aptly named Barbara, so obviously I was destined to be involved in the sheep industry.”
On leaving school she planned to pursue a career in science, but for several reasons, she says, that was never going to happen in a hurry.
She also had two uncles in the wool trade, one a wool store manager and the other in marketing at Alliance Textiles, Oamaru.
“At the suggestion of the former I decided to do the wool course at Massey to give me some background in the industry before looking to apply that with my science to wool research, which was in its early beginnings with the Wool Research Organisation of New Zealand (WRONZ).”
She was awarded a scholarship from WRONZ with that very idea in mind.
But, “as it turned out, I had a natural flair and feel for the raw product, so I continued down that road”.
In her first job, between the two stages of study at Massey, Newton worked at the Donald Reid wool store in Dunedin.
“There I was dispatched to the oddments department, where for the first few months during the off season I picked pieces, taking out stain from crutchings over a table.
“This didn’t impress me much, so I was determined not to spend the first 10 years of my wool career doing such things – as I was led to believe from the senior classers I was working with – before being even considered to do fleece wool and classing.”
At that time a huge percentage of clips were classed in the stores.
During her time of wool store employment and two years of study, Newton gained her full broker classer registration and is believed to be the first woman to achieve the qualification.
“Consequently, I was a bit of an anomaly in the beginning as a female classer in the store.”
Following the completion of her studies and after spending a year working at the Wrightson wool store in Timaru, Newton was lured back to Dunedin to follow her interest in cricket and to work in the Dalgety wool store.
After four seasons working in various wool preparation facilities, the opportunity came in 1981 to class a merino blade run in Upper Waitaki.
She jumped at the opportunity and “pretty much never looked back”, obtaining registration in the merino shed classer division a year later and embarking on what was to become 40 years of shed classing.
After two seasons she took a short break to have her two sons, but still managed to do the odd bit of classing until the late 1980s when she restarted her classing in earnest.
“I was indebted to my husband, family and friends who made it possible to continue with my classing,” she says.
Her wool classing has been based on the merino sector, but Newton’s interest remains with the entire NZ clip.
She was appointed the first wool classer representative to the Wool Board Classer Registration Advisory Committee and went on to be an inaugural member of the NZ Wool Classers Association Inc in 2005, when the NZ Wool Board was disestablished.
For the past 15 years she has been an active committee member of the Otago Merino Association, promoting excellence in fine wool.
Newton has seen a lot of changes in the wool harvesting industry.
The switch from classing most clips in the store to shed classing; the introduction of objective measurement (a big one); selling options; the integration of women in the industry; and the improvement in the standard of preparation in the sheds.
The most disconcerting change has been the demise of the educational opportunities.
“It’s all very well wanting to be a classer, but vital learning opportunities and relevant institutions have shrunk dramatically.”
Newton was “extremely saddened” by the discontinuation of the Dunedin wool auctions.
“It was an event where shed personnel, classers, growers, brokers and buyers could mingle together, view the entire range of clips and meet and discuss the relative merits with all concerned.
“We lost a valuable learning opportunity when this disappeared.”
There have been improvements, including replacement of jute packs and seeing the needle and twine replaced by synthetic and nylon packs and stainless-steel clips; felt pens replacing stencils, coarse brushes and ink; and the fact that crank down box presses are now a rarity, superseded by hydraulic models complete with scales, making bale more uniform in size shape and weight.
Long gone are the straw brooms and, for the most part, blades. Shearing machines and gear have moved up to a new level.
“For classers we still have to use the same tools, our hands and head, but we can specifically class for end use.”
But some things never change.
“The industry is still faced with the same concerns – incomplete specifications, contamination, presentation of sheds and sheep, shed conditions, provision of clean running water.
“Most importantly the provision of a functioning toilet … sadly lacking in many shearing facilities.”
Newton says was “anguished” at the thought of retiring, but “I know I’ve given it my best shot”.
“I believe there are plenty of people to provide fresh eyes and hands and to give the next generation of growers a chance to build relationships with someone new.
“I will miss the fabulous fibre, the atmosphere and most of all the people,” she says.
