When farm comes to town: Inside Hamilton's Frankton sale yards

Wednesday, 15 January 2020

Micheal O'Toole spent all his working life at the saleyards, and recalls farmers arriving to the sales with pigs in the back seat.

You tend to smell the Frankton sale yards before you see them.

The stock trucks rattle into the gravel car park - an orchestra of moos and baas fills the air while your nostrils are treated to the sting of animal effluent.

This is all within just a couple of kilometres from Hamilton's CBD.

It's one of the busiest sale days of the year when Stuff visits the Frankton site - there are around 2500 animals that will go under the auctioneer's hammer at some point during the day.

Frankton sale yards are just three kilometres from Hamilton's CBD.

There is the chitter-chatter of farmers young and old as they cast an eye over the day's offerings - it's punctuated by the odd moo of a bewildered calf.

The sale yards opened in 1917- the same year the Frankton Borough Council merged with Hamilton.

There are plenty of stories of people walking their sale herds through the streets along with the odd bovine escape artist - including one as recent as 2017.

Michael O'Toole is at the sale yards once again - he's been coming to Frankton since he was a youngster .

'I come and buy a few still but I'm virtually retired. When I started work from school I started with GW Vercoe and Co … I probably did about 55 years.'

Frankton sale yards are over 100 years old ,having been opened in 1917.

O'Toole started as an agent in Te Awamutu but persuaded his boss to take him to Frankton to teach him how to be an auctioneer.

'He said you are a damn nuisance Michael, but he said okay. So I came and I started to sell here (Frankton) and after a couple of months he said you're going alright you can pick up a car in the yard.'

O'Toole started as a stock clerk and then sold pigs before moving on to selling everything.

'It was a great occasion in the years gone by. The farmers would come in the big old cars with pigs in the backseat inside and they would pull up to the race and let the pigs run out.'

Michael O'Toole has spent much of his life at the sales as an auctioneer.

O'Toole did 40 years with auctioneer's hammer.

He's seen plenty over that time, including the deadly tornado of 1948.

'I was here one day as a junior doing the book work when a tornado came across. There was a grocery shop on the corner and the tornado whizzed across the street and took most of the bricks off the front of the grocery shop. Then it went up the road and went up to the sheep yards and blew half the boards away and there was a timber company and one big pack of timber fell and killed one fella.'

He's surprised the yards have stayed as long as they have in Frankton.

Young calves being sold at Frankton sale yards.

'As long as I remember they were going to shift them [the sales]. they were going to shift them out to Horotiu.

'Now that is years ago when I was only a junior but they haven't gone far, they haven't gone anywhere.

'The rental to the council is high and the effluent goes down the drains and maybe down the river. I've been saying for ages they won't get away with it, someone will stop it.'

O'Toole has seen a few physical changes as well with the yards now steel instead of wood.

'I hope it will never go altogether. I will keep coming until the old fellas that I buy a few to pass away or something and then I won't worry too much.'

Bruce Ram used to buy the unwanted lambs when he was high school, fatten them up and sell them on.

Another stalwart of the sale yards is Bruce Ram, 79, his affiliation with the Frankton site began back in the '50s and '60s and continued when he was in high school.

'I was buying lambs they couldn't get rid of for about 50 cents - which would have been half a crown - the odd ones I used to keep and I brought calves - fatten them up and sell them for about two or three pounds.'

On the day he's standing outside a pen where the lambs are expected to go for $250 per head.

'But good lambs are worth it. Sheep breeds have changed a lot of the years. Perhaps for the better with better breeding stock in cows and ewes and beef.

Sheep were expected to go for around $250 per head at Frankton sale yards.

'One time a lamb used to be fat, fat, fat but now they are much lighter, longer and bigger.'

Ram is also surprised the 2.35ha facility has remained in its prime location.

'It's very valuable land for the industrial area. It would bring top price.

'But I don't think we should lose the heritage of the farming community and what it has to offer.'

Allan King, 76, is minding one lonely pig which is waiting for its ride out of Frankton.

He's been coming to Frankton for close to 15 years and he looks after the pigs.

'I take them off the trailers, do all the paperwork and put them in the pens.

'People always want pigs, but in the last little while they are dwindling a little bit because there are not the sows out there anymore and the sales seem to be getting smaller and smaller.'

Allan King is known as the pig man at Frankton sale yards.

He enjoys the companionship the routine of the sales offer.

'They're your mates, you talk a bit of bull…. and have one another on. It's quite good.'

Dairy farmer Allen Collinson, 35, and his son William, 2, have come from Matamata for the first time.

'We are selling some dairy cross beef calves - this is the first time to the sale yards. So far so good. I will tell you once I get the prices. I think they are pretty good prices at the moment.'

William Collinson, at the Frankton sale yards for the first time with his dad Allen Collinson from Matamata.

He normally goes to a sale yard with more dairy rather than sheep and beef but is enjoying the new experience.

'It is quite unique [being in the city], my wife spent a lot of time here as a kid but I had never been here before. So when you come here you are stuck in traffic with a trailer full of calves.'

It's time for lunch and luckily we've heard the cafe on site has amazing food.

Kaylah Marston, 25, is behind the counter - where she's worked there for just over two years - and has had the contract for the past six months after taking it over from her mum.

The creamy mushroom pie is a sale yard favourite

'We provide lunch for the stock agents and the buyers and sellers. We hand make everything here - the pies, cakes, sandwiches everything.'

And while it was thought some type of meat pie would be the star of the cafe, it is in fact creamy mushroom.

'It's literally just cream and mushroom but it's our most popular one - there is no meat in it - it's fully vegetarian. Surprisingly with the farmers, it's our most popular pie - they love it, they're not very happy when we don't have it.'

They generally sell about 200 pies in the two days they're open along with eight trays of cakes.

David Whelan looking for some stock for a few of his clients.

'We do have quite a basic menu for them but they keep coming back every week so they obviously like it.'

There is a social aspect for Marston as well.

'We know about 90 per cent of the people's names so it's nice seeing everyone back every week. Everyone is very nice, they will always ask how your day is and have a chat. I can have my kids here and they will take them out and wander around - it's a really good place to work.'

Dave Whelan,79, has been heading to Frankton sale yards for the past 62 years - he used to work for a meat company buying cattle, sheep, and lambs.

Michael Sharp is at the Frankton sale yards one or twice a week to transport animals all over the North Island.

'I buy a lot of stock for people to fatten up. I am independent now,I am semi-retired but I still have quite a few clients I still look after.'

He's seen a bit of change during that time, such as the selling by weight and changes to the yards themselves.

'When I first started we used to put the stock on a train to go to Auckland…. but gradually the trucks started.'

He's also noticed a change in the number of animals that are heading to Frankton these days.

It's all action once the sales get underway.

'There's not nearly as many sheep as there used to be - there's a big swing to dairy cattle these days.

'Sheep numbers are down because the farmers got sick of the problems with eczema they used to get but not so much now. And nowadays the wool is worth nothing. The only thing that is getting a lot of interest now is the fact that the prices for lamb and beef have risen because of the interest from China - so it's good overseas which affects the local market.'

It's getting towards mid-afternoon and it's time to head off.

Truck driver Michael Sharp, 45, who works for Midlands Rural transport is backing his rig into a race entrance.

He's getting the truck ready for 450 lambs he's transporting to Benneydale - he cheekily asks if we want to help load.

'I've been doing it on and off for 15 years. I am originally from Taranaki but the truck is based in Te Kuiti, we are based all over the North Island.'

He comes to Frankton 'too often - once or twice a week, it depends on who is in the area.'

He's something of a roving link between rural folk.

'It's one of those things you've got to love it to do it - I do love it - just getting around the tricky places - meeting new people, meeting farmers - seeing them in their unhappy times and their happy times.'

He often doesn't know where he's going to end up each week.

'I definitely do some k's and you've got to have a good partner to do this job.'

Sharp disappears behind the truck as the bleating steps up a level - the lambs are set for a couple of hours in the back of the truck as the trailer gate rattles shut.