Central Queensland

Google Maps screen capture showing locations of Biloela (bordered), and Jambin at the top left.

By John Wade

Every month ‘the dreaded 92s’ would arrive from Brisbane. This was the company Form 9201 which listed all the overdue accounts from BP Australia in my territory: it was a big blue form and the duplicate white copy had to be returned to Merv Carey, the credit manager in Brisbane, showing details of action taken and money collected.

As a BP country sales representative living in Biloela, Central Queensland, collecting overdue accounts as part of the job was daunting, to say the least. Only once was I physically threatened: one irate farmer, who was incensed when I asked for the payment of an overdue account, threatened to get his rifle if I did not get off his property. Collection of the debt was immediately passed over to legal action by the company. In hindsight I should have reported this incident to the police and made a statement.

On a more entertaining note, another of my early experiences was when I called on a farmer living between Biloela and Jambin. I got out of the company car and approached Mr Sid Dickenson: this was in late 1966 and soon after I arrived in the district. Work ‘clobber’ for me was double pocket, short sleeve shirt with tie, shorts and long socks.

We eyed each other off for a few seconds and then the conversation went something like this: “Good morning Mr Dickenson; my name is John Wade from BP.”

He replied, “That bunch of bastards. I suppose I owe some money?”

“Yes” I replied, “$278” (or thereabouts, as I recall).

He said: “I only ever see anyone from BP when I have not paid my account.”

I then attempted to get a conversation going about farming and every time I opened my mouth he shot back some negative comments, so the conversation was ‘hard going’ and I thought I should try another tack.

Just then a small mob of sheep came around the corner of the house fence. They were a sorry sight – some were ‘daggy’, some had long tails, and some had not been shorn for a lot longer than 12 months. I recall there were about 20.

As I had a rural upbringing and work background, I made the suggestion: “Mr Dickensen, they need a bit of a haircut.”

And he replied, “Yes, I know but there is no one around here who can shear them”.

I said, “I will do a deal with you. I‘ll come out on Sunday morning and shear them for you and you can give me the cheque to square up the account at that time.”

He looked me up and down and ventured, “You couldn’t shear them!”

I shot back, “I’ll be here on Sunday at 9 o’clock.”

This got his attention and he asked: “What will you need?”

I said, “A pair of hand shears and an oil stone”.

He said, “Okay.”

And we left it at that.

I arrived at the farmhouse on Sunday morning, just before 9am and called out, “Hello! Anyone about?”

Sid appeared with some children and he seemed quite surprised to see me.

I asked, “Where are the sheep?”

He looked a bit nonplussed and told the kids to fetch them from out in the paddock and when they came up we put them in the dairy yard. I then asked for some tarpaulins and we spread them on the ground to keep the wool clean.

Next thing was to get a decent wide board and two kerosene tins. The trick in hand shearing is to sit on the board set up horizontally on the two tins and with one leg extended along the plank: the shearer then cradles the sheep being shorn on his lap.

This is a comfortable position for both the shearer and the sheep and far easier on the shearer’s back than bending over in the traditional shearing position. I learnt this sitting-down trick from an English calendar Margaret Bell had given me some years previously when she worked at the British Consulate in Brisbane.

One photo showed a shearing scene in the UK with a few waist-coated, crusty looking countrified gents with tweed hats and caps standing around, not even trying to look busy. To an experienced Australian eye, a more unlikely and inefficient shearing scene could not be imagined. The onlookers were observing the shearer sitting on his plank with a sheep being shorn and he was doing a very clean cutting job. Any time after I first saw the calendar, whenever I needed to shear a killer, it was an easy matter to do it by hand using that method without the necessity of preparing and starting the engine in the shearing shed.

Anyway, back at the Dickensen farm, we all got into the swing of things: the kids were putting the wool into clean wool packs as it was being ‘peeled.’ I was ‘pinking them’ beautifully and the ‘big shearing’ was all going well.

Sid looked very surprised and pleased. Later, Mrs Dickensen came over with morning tea and we were all getting along well.

When I had finished, we went over to the house for a late lunch and I became good friends with that family. Anytime I was going past and a cheque needed to be collected I would call in and Mrs Dickensen used to let me have some eggs or vegetables or a jar of jam or some other small gift or invite me to join the family for a cup of tea.

So, this was a good lesson in customer service and an example of how to approach a problem from a completely different perspective.

It was a prime example of the Dale Carnegie way of communicating with people which I had learned from his book, How To Win Friends And Influence People.

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