The noise and smells of walking through the sheep pens for the first time at the Canterbury A&P Show has stuck with Brent Chamberlain to this day.
Coming to town was a big occasion for the wide-eyed youngster who gained his first taste of exhibiting sheep and cattle with his father and uncles.
The family farm might have come and gone and farming has since made many changes, but the thrill and pull of the show has never left him.
Donning suit and tie, the rural man cut ribbons, shook hands and took on the figure-head duties over the three-day event in Christchurch as the president of the Canterbury A&P Association.
Chamberlain said his earliest memory of the show at the former Addington showgrounds was in the 1970s.
‘‘The first time I went to the show would have been as a child. I remember the old showgrounds and my uncle Nigel showing Romney sheep, uncle Brian showing Hereford cattle and my father was there helping them so that would have been when I was eight, nine, 10, 11 or 12, somewhere around that age. I can still remember the sheep pens and seeing all the Romneys. I had often
heard about a Royal Show when the blue-ribbon Romney class which, from memory, could have had 70 or 80 rams in it. To make the actual final line-up was a feat. That sort of stuck with me for many years.’’
Both his uncles were stud breeders with his father in partnership with one of them running the family farm and stud in Springston.
His parents shifted to a hill farm at Russells Flat, near Sheffield, in 1970.
The property was later sold for a mixed cropping and sheep and beef farm and this became a hub for Chamberlain and his brothers for running fencing, farming and spraying businesses.
In 1979 he went to Lincoln University for a diploma in agriculture and before that worked for the James family at Ben More Graziers beyond Springfield.
‘‘I worked there as a pre-Lincoln requirement and it was my first time actually showing cattle at the show with the James family. They had Limousins and Luings ... and the Luings were from the Isle of Luing from Scotland. They are a Shorthorn and Scottish Highland cross and I’m not sure if they are still around, but they were nice cattle and I enjoyed working there.’’
Asked to become a steward at the show at Addington, he progressed to head steward in the cattle section in the 1980s before becoming chairman of the sheep section for about 10 years.
Over many years new breeds have come in and classes added as more composites and a commercial-style sheep have appeared in farming, but traditions have remained.
Traditional breeds such as Romney, Merino, Corriedale and others continue to be exhibited as farmers know they need a genetic base, he said.
Each year he returned, attracted by the pull of working with a team of good people and getting to know many of the breeders and larger-than-life personalities.
A show was missed when he was in Australia working on combine harvesters and carrying out other work over a two-year stint.
‘‘Then I came back and really focused on working casually for 12 to 18 months and that got me through 1987 when Dad sold the farm and I took up the role of an insurance job at National Mutual Commercial Union at NZI. That was a huge change. It was life, fire and general insurance. I worked for three companies which had agencies. The agent said he was looking for someone and I was considering making a change and it probably taught me a lot about listening.’’
A return to his rural roots saw him join the animal health sector as an area manager for Swiss pharmaceutical company Ciba-Geigy - later Novartis Animal Health - selling products to veterinary practices, farming co-operatives and rural supplies stores, in 1993.
Over a 20-year career with the company he held many roles taking him to many corners of the South Island.
That included being part of the trial and Queenstown launch of Zolvix sheep drench, the first in a new class of anthelmintics for treating worms in sheep which works against strains resistant to older drenches.
Working as operations manager on a large dairy farm was then followed by another switch as animal health manager for Ravensdown for five years before taking up his current position as an on-farm account manager at Ruralco.
His patch covers mainly the area north of the Rakaia River, and he is out on the road, checking in with clients across sheep, beef, mixed cropping and dairy farms.
Experience earned in the animal health sector was not lost as he looks after the company’s formulated livestock health and nutritional supplements.
The variety of work keeps him busy and satisfied and a big attraction is meeting old and new clients and seeing the next generation come through.
And he’s grateful for Ruralco’s support while he has poured so much energy and time into the president role.
In between these career shifts, the show has been a constant for him, helping shift from the old to the new showgrounds and 15 years ago being elected to the general committee.
‘‘I just enjoyed it, catching up with people we see at the show each year that we might not see through the year, but you rekindle those old friendships at the show over a beer or whatever. We get to reminiscence over the year. I can still remember some of the conversations before the sharemarket crash of how well everyone’s shares were doing and how much money everyone had made and the next year it was a lot different.’’
That social interaction, albeit intermittent, has a huge value for country families.
He is not alone in having a long history with the A&P movement with wife Wendy serving as president of their local Courtenay A&P Show at Kirwee.
She comes from the Jenkins family at Floridale Angus Stud and they like to keep their hand in farming.
Living at Darfield, he runs 60 Dohne merinos on four hectares as well as 30ha of leased land. The Dohne comes from South Africa and produces 18-21 micron wool with lambs taken through the winter and sold as hoggets in the spring.
Another hobby is their garden of more than 100 varieties of rhododendrons which are maintained in between jetboating, camping, fishing and family time with their children and grandchildren.
While many good memories were made at the Addington showground, the shift was overdue as the site had just got too cramped.
Sale returns helped fund Canterbury Agricultural Park until the association came under financial pressure and it was sold to the council and leased with the rest of the land becoming a multi-use sport and club facility.
‘‘A lot of the decisions that are made are done at the time with the information in front of them. We can always look back and say ooh we should have done something different, but you make the call at the time.’’
More lately, the show has gone through financially tough Covid-19 years and at one stage last year came close to being cancelled.
This was salvaged by a scaled down event after the council injected $5 million and a new-look board was joined by events company Event Hire.
Chamberlain said they did the best they could to run a show on 90 days of limited preparation.
‘‘I suppose to sum it up we had some challenging times and Covid-19 was possibly the catalyst. There have been a lot of challenges over the last three or four years since 2019 and we have moved through that and come out the other side. We have got a good functioning board and committee and are excited to be able to continue the show on and are looking towards the next 100 years. That’s our goal to secure the future of the show. We are determined to keep it going and I’m honoured and privileged to have my opportunity to put into that and pass the baton on and still remain in the team.'’
He is confident this year’s show is back on track with its back-to-basics approach of strong livestock competitions and bringing country to town.
A Royal Show, held in high esteem, helped attract livestock exhibitors with the line-up of 380 dairy cattle entries, 267 beef cattle entries and more than 700 sheep entries up on last year’s reduced format, while there were about 1700 horse entries.
Dear to his heart is the development of a designated wool zone, bringing farmers, professionals and companies together for this ‘‘amazing’’ fibre.
So, do we really need an A & P Show?
‘‘Of course we need a show. It’s Cup and Show Week. There’s a tradition and it’s a legacy that Canterbury has got. It’s unique to Canterbury and allows town to go into the country and the country come to town and our focus is to never forget we are an A & P show and to maintain that rural focus. It would be very easy to slip into entertainment. A lot of city people come to see some animals. If we went back 20 to 30 years most people in the city would have a link with rural. That percentage now would be quite minimal so the show is our opportunity to bring country to town.’’
