Skatey...The life of Les Skate

Skatey
The Life of Les Skate
My working life in The Yarra Valley
The Dairy Industry
During my life I’ve had various types of work. Always needed to put bread and butter on
the table I suppose. Wherever there was a job, if I was asked to do it, I’d go and do it. It
kept me in pretty good stead in later years, as I gradually acquired a lot of experience.
Wherever there was a job, if I
was asked to do it I’d go and
do it.
I had the shearing and the building but I also did quite
a bit of agricultural contracting. Ploughing, discing,
and sowing. It come about that we had a little
property at Coldstream that we were share farming.
We needed a tractor, so we bought one and my job
was to go out and earn enough money to pay it off.
At that stage, up around the Woori Yallock, Yellingbo area, a lot of properties were being
bought up by lawyers and doctors and such who were given quite a concession by the
Government, tax wise. They bought all this cheap land and I had the opportunity to go and
help clear it, plough it and so forth for them. That was quite an experience.
In those early days, the main industry in the Yarra
Valley was the dairy industry. At that time the
government had become a bit alarmed about some
of the very old dairies that had been operating for
two or three generations. In those days the milk was
pumped from the cows through brass pipes. These
We needed a tractor, so we
bought one, and my job was
to go out and earn enough
money to pay it off.
pipes picked up the calcium out of the milk and left a build-up inside the pipes. So, they
changed that to stainless steel. These were much easier to keep clean. The Dairy
Department said, ‘You’ve got to put in stainless steel, you’ve got to upgrade your dairy and
if you don’t, we won’t renew your licence.’
So, through people I knew on the land, I started to do up the dairies and that was really
where I got into a bit more of the technical side of building. I got to know the Dairy
Inspector in this area pretty well and he more or less just directed me from one dairy to
another. I ended up renovating or building quite a lot of dairies in the Yarra Valley.
I started to do up the dairies,
and that was really where I
got into a bit more of the
technical side of building.
I think there would have been more than a hundred
dairies in the area. Nowadays we’re down to about
two or three. Milk comes from other areas now,
around Gippsland and up north in the irrigation areas.
Yes, building those dairies was quite an experience.
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