APRIL 2017 | Lorraine Clarke

IN TODAY’S workforce it pays to be multi-skilled. The career one trains for often morphs into something different altogether.

Bryan Pearce of Hadspen has mastered several occupations, and at 90 years of age, he enjoys a demanding physical job that has changed little for millennia.

Many Meander Valley residents have met Bryan at market stalls, Agfest and the Tasmanian Craft Fair, where he is a regular, selling hides he has tanned and handcrafted sheepskin items. “I only missed the first Agfest,” he said. “I’ve been at every other one, and every Craft Fair.”

Bryan is a keen gardener, growing his own fruit and vegetables, including cannonball-sized onions and a bumper crop of luscious tomatoes.

“I’ve made 100 jars of tomato relish so far,” he said. “I do about 40 jars at a time to sell at church fetes.” His raspberries produce so well that he tires of picking them.

“When I left school, I returned to the family’s mixed farm for a while, then went into banking. After the War I realised I wasn’t suited for working in a bank and travelled to New Zealand to learn farming. I started dairying at 'Midlothian' in Parkham. I milked 12 cows to start with, and built up to 186 cows by the time I left. I used to grow the best grass and chou mouellier in the district. People wondered what my secret was. I just put on a lot of fertiliser.”

Bryan began tanning as a hobby about 40 years ago because he had nothing to do on the weekends. Working days start early in the tanning shed. “The alarm goes off at 6:15. I lie there and listen to the radio for an hour. Then I bound out of bed at 7:17. People say that’s a ridiculous time to get up. I say, Why? 7:17’s as good as any other time.”

Hobby farmers who get their own meat butchered often want to use the hides as well, and send them to Bryan. Skins are trimmed and washed, then spend a number of days in an acid pickle before soaking in tanning solution. Large wooden frames stretch the hides while they dry, then they are oiled and softened. “I’ve tanned all sorts,” said Bryan. “Cattle, sheep, deer, goats, kangaroos, alpacas, rabbits, fish, possum and quoll skins.”

Soaked Friesian or red, shaggy long-haired Highlands hides are heavier than Bryan when wet. He recently installed a hydraulic gantry system to lift them out of the baths. “It was getting too hard lifting them with pulleys,” he said.

After a morning in the tanning shed he spends hours on the overlocker, crafting sheepskin items as diverse as wool-lined caps, vests, moccasins, insoles, hot water bottle covers, saddle pads – all natural products perfect for comfort and warmth in our bleakest winter.

Bryan’s enthusiasm for life and hard physical work seems to be the elixir of youth. He has no intention of retiring from the tanning business any time soon.

“Come back in ten years, and see how I’m going at 100!”

Photo | Mike Moores