One of the best known identities in the north western stock industry, agent Len Sevil, has climbed the catwalk at Narrabri saleyards for the last time.
Mr Sevil has called it quits from saleyard activities after 60 years spanning the buying and selling of innumerable cattle, and building an unequalled knowledge of the industry, the markets, the producers, buyers and agents of six decades.
However, although Len has announced he will no longer be attending the Narrabri cattle sales, retirement is certainly not on the agenda.
“I am just retired from saleyard activities,” he said.
“I am getting away from the yard work at the saleyards, but will still have cattle there through Davidson Cameron.”
Yesterday was the day he decided to step back from the yards.
“I started in October and I reckoned I would finish at the end of September,” he said.
Any sense of nostalgia?
“Not really. The sun still rises and sets,” he observed.
He started work at the same yards 60 years ago, although the original Narrabri timber sale yards are much refurbished with steel and enlarged since he first began work.
“In future, Hunter Harley will sell my cattle for me,” Len said.
“I haven’t retired, I have ceased saleyard activity,” he said, adding he has no trouble still scaling the catwalks and steps at the yards.
Len began work at 17 years of age as a junior with Goldsboro Mort and Co. at their Maitland street offices where Baguley’s Jewellers are now.
“I was stamp licker, messenger boy, the works” he said.
He then went to Burren Junction with his brother Leon Sevil at the end of 1959.
“Peter Tapscott’s father, Arthur, the manager of Goldsboro Mort, was my first boss,” Len recalled.
The Narrabri Saleyards will continue their role as a key industry in the shire but without the familiar face of one of its long respected identities, Len Sevil, not gone and not forgotten.