Stories from our saleyards

Photos and stories of John Martin and Clive Herbert have been added to the walls at the Central West Livestock Exchange, part of something of a hall of legends of the saleyards. 

The two men have more than 120 years of experience in the livestock game between them: Mr Martin started work in December 1953 and is still going strong; Mr Herbert started in 1957 and helped out at his last sale in January this year.

Mr Martin worked with his father at WR Martin and Co before taking the business on himself. Mr Martin Senior had been a farmer when the Great Depression hit and he lost everything, so started the business he later handed to his son. 

Mr Herbert started his career aged 15 with the New Zealand Loans Forbes office, worked for a time as Winchcombe Carson’s regional auctioneer and then joined WR Martin and Co as a partner in 1975.

The two had a very successful partnership and in 2000 decided to amalgamate with Wesfarmers Dalgety – they are now under Landmark.

In those years, they have seen incredible highs and lows in the livestock industry.

They remember pens of sheep selling for $5 the lot or cows and calves for $6 in the slump of 1975. On one occasion, 32,000 cattle were yarded. 

There were big yardings again in 1963 – Mr Herbert remembers three store sheep sales being held, yarding 40,000 head all transported in by train. 

Today’s sheep and cattle prices were almost unimaginable then. 

“The lamb market is unbelievable,” Mr Herbert said.

“At one stage I thought we might make $100 a head, to see $210 is incredible.”

The biggest price he’s seen was $268 a head for lambs from Pengillys at Eugowra. 

Mr Herbert will never forget the sights he saw in those early years of his career covering the west of the state.

Winchcombe Carson had two planes – one at Dubbo, one at Bourke – and they would land on the clay pans, on “pretty ordinary” runways or roads to look at sheep. 

The modern Central West Livestock Exchange and computerised tracking of every animal and its price was also beyond imagination for the agents.

Both remember the days before the yards were concreted, particularly in those wet years of the early 1950s.

“You couldn’t walk into the yards in your gumboots because the mud would suck them off your feet,” Mr Martin said. “You ended up barefoot – any shoes would just get stuck.”

“We’re fortunate to have the facilities we’ve got now,” Mr Herbert concluded. “It’s a great asset to the town. Every sale day, you see a new face here.”