John Sinclair on making a home at Nutfield farm

JOHN Sinclair first came to Molesworth in 1968. He explained, “My father started me on 500 acres. Dad wasn’t a farmer, he was a doctor. I batted away here for a while and then I finished up going to Roseworthy College and did an agriculture course there for three years. I came home in 1961 and have been here ever since.

“We initially ran sheep and a few cattle and improved the property and added to it. We worked pretty hard, and didn’t have any money. We got married, had three children, and educated them. Now I’ve got grandchildren. We’ve been here for, as I say, a very long time. It’s not the best farm in Australia, but it’s ours.”

The family farm is called Nutfield, named after a county in England where a family friend had come from. John said that his father was very close to this person, “So when we started off, that’s how it got the name and we’ve just added to it and added to it.”

John describes the landscape of the farm as mostly hill country, but the family also has country on the river and flat country as well.

“The river country is fairly good but we’ve had terrible trouble with the floods in the last couple of years. We had cattle marooned, and with the help of local people we swam a hundred head of cattle out and didn’t lose any.”

John said that during the floods he was so impressed with the help he received with the cattle. “You get these young fellas, and they’ll do anything,” he said. “They’re very capable, very courageous, and very generous.

In fact, a cow got stuck in a fence, and someone jumped out of the boat and swam out….