Clunes’ Tony ‘Bushy’ Hill is renowned across the nation as a humble shearing legend but his life has taken a turn just as he was set to retire.
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Growing up
Tony was born in Clunes on December 28, 1952 to John and Nancy Hill. With six older sisters and a younger brother, he went to school in the town and played football for Clunes Football Club, of which he is a life member.
He learned to shear from his father, who he helped in the wool shed at shearing time by sweeping the board, picking up and throwing fleece, penning up for the shearers and branding the freshly shorn wool. He was even able to shear the last side at the end of a run. At age 15, his father offered him the job of shearing 2500 big northern wethers for a few dollars of pocket money.
He spent the remainder of his teenage years shearing locally. His mother, or local shearers, like Alan Baird, would pick him up and take him to the sheds as he was not yet old enough to obtain his license.
Shearing career
Tony shore his first 100, and then 200 sheep in a day at the shed at Hebuirn Park, while he shore his first 300 at Melville Charles’ property, Berrybank Farm.
He repeated this record on several other occasions, with his best at the Ararat Abattoir Shed where he and Philip Woods both shore 357 sheep each in six hours and fifty minutes. They only stopped because they ran out of sheep to shear.
Tony shore many sheep at abattoirs, with short wool, but the big tallies were racked up on Merino ewes in ten month’s worth of wool.
Tony’s career has spanned more than 50 years – 50 and a half, to be exact – and during that time he has established a reputation as a quick, clean and well-respected shearer.
For 31 years Tony worked for shearing contractors across the nation; Jack Healy in Wentworth, Allan Astbury in Wilcania, Frank Sutherland in Gascos and Melbourne, the Johnson brothers in Yass and the Bruce brothers in Mundulla.
Shearing has taken him all over Australia, from Victoria, to New South Wales, Southern Queensland and South Australia. For the past three years, Tony has undertaken ‘Mother’s Bed Shearing’ which has allowed him to travel from home each day and continue to support his family.
Diagnosis
Tony and his wife Andy are the primary carers for four of their grandchildren. With Matilda and Jaiden in secondary school and Ameekah and Brandon in primary school, they are very busy grandparents.
Tony was still shearing 200 sheep a day until he noticed a strange sensation in his left hand in August. He was planning to retire at the end of that month, to fill his days with fishing, hunting and travel, but that plan diminished after he lost feeling in his arm.
Initially diagnosed as a pinched nerve in his elbow, he pressed on. But the discomfort grew and one day while he was shearing at Peter Clarke’s, he was only able to use one arm.
“It was my hand… I couldn’t hold or drag sheep. I tried to do it with one hand but it didn’t work.”
It wasn’t like anything he had felt before.
“My hand was just weak. All the muscles had gone.”
With further medical investigation and rigorous testing, Tony was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease (MND). The disease has been aggressive and has progressed quickly, diminishing his mobility and drastically changing his and his family’s future in the span of a few short months.
“We started to get a general idea that it could be MND by the end of August. They did a lot of tests in Ballarat and then we went to Melbourne. Then they confirmed it.”
Tony didn’t know much about the disease before he was diagnosed, apart from reading about Neale Daniher and his own battle. But Tony’s MND has been described as “very different” to most cases.
“All my body is good as gold. The disease seems to affect fitter and healthier people,” he said. “Mentally I have accepted what is going to happen but my body has been so active all my life, now I’m just so restricted. I feel like I could get up and go and shear a hundred sheep down the shed, but I try to get up and I just can’t.”
Changes
The family is currently modifying their house to improve access for Tony and allow him to get around in his wheelchair. A cabin, with a wheelchair accessible bathroom and separate heating and cooling functions, will be added to the house, creating a space for Tony to be able to retreat to, without having to modify too many other rooms in the house.
“But when the time comes and he is bed-ridden and not able to move around a lot, he can be in there with the doors open,” wife Andy said. “It will give him some privacy but rather than him being isolated in the bedroom, he can still be part of everything that’s going on.”
Fundraiser
Clunes and District Agricultural Society is auspicing a fundraiser called ‘Bushy’s CutOut’ at Clunes Showgrounds on Saturday, December 8. The quick shears event will involve a number of A-class shearers visiting Clunes to assist in fundraising for Tony in his continuing battle with MND.
President of the fundraising group, John Drife, said he heard about Tony’s battle six weeks ago and decided he wanted to help “to make his journey a bit softer”. He said he had never been involved with anything that had “gained such a great response from the community”.
Donations can be made to the Tony Hill trust account: BSB: 633-000. Account #164143661.
Tony thanked the community for its support.