The Old Man

The publication The Old Man came about as a response to some humorous stories told by Lance, Frank and Max Lamond at Lance’s 70 birthday gathering at Cowra in 2001. They were recalling some memories growing up with their father Ross Bernard Lamond, or as he became known, RB, RBL and The Old Man. I generally referred to my father as RB throughout the text.
Ten years passed and the boys said to me (Ross A or youngest son of RB), “You had better do something about getting some of them into a storyline before one of us passes away.’’ So, here they are.
Ironically, when the boys grew up with RB (including his eldest son Don), farming life was changing. Tractors were becoming available to take over the work of the horse and plough; dairy cattle becoming milked by electric milking machines rather than by hand; cattle were starting to be moved by truck rather than rail or droving by horse and dog, and the motor car gradually replacing the horse and sulky. The boys experienced the horse and plough, sulky and droving periods.
It heralded a time when progressive farmers such as RB diversified their farming operations beside milk production. RB saw potential in trading livestock, breeding purebred Friesian cattle, buying and leasing farms for growing out and holding cattle, and transporting cattle to conserve and find feed for them. In doing so, RB began relying on his four sons to support him, which they did.
RB, or The Old Man as the boys sometimes called him, was someone who saw opportunities and took them. He wasn’t content to milk the cows twice a day and maintain life within the boundaries of a single farm. RB was a farming entrepreneur if there’s such a term. He was the first dairyman to own a motor car in the Shoalhaven. He became the first dairyman to dehorn his entire milking herd in the Shoalhaven. He was the first in the district to install electric Alfa Laval milking machines. His uncle A C Lamond owned the first Friesian herd listed in the Herd book of Australasia including New Zealand (the prefix was Brundee), and RB maintained the tradition as breeder and respected judge of purebred Friesians. RB saw the merit of drought proofing farming by moving cattle onto the Lachlan Valley at Cowra in the central West of NSW as a safeguard to combat dry conditions on the South Coast.
RB in a way became a reluctant farmer. As a young man of 24, he was offered a job as book-keeper with a stock and station agent at Canowindra in the central west of New South Wales, but his elder brother Mark decided he didn’t want to remain on the Lamond Estate farm at Terara and RB returned to Terara to commence life as a dairy farmer. Following his marriage to Ellen (Nell) Madden, RB started to seek opportunities to expand his farming base.