Queen Sarah

Sarah Packer was at the peak of her career - strutting the catwalk as a livestock auctioneer in Australia’s largest saleyard - when life hit her with something she didn’t see coming. 

Brought to you by The Queensland Writers Centre and supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland.

Produced by F&K Media.

Transcript

 Telling Our Stories to the World is a series from Queensland Writers Center. We acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which this podcast was made. Heads up. There's a bit of language in this episode, so if you have little big ears listening in, pop on your headphones.  Welcome to Queens of the Land, the podcast about women carving out their best life on the land.

I'm Helen Roche. And I'm Jane Holtgren. Jane, how are you with tongue twisters? Fantastic. Red leather, yellow leather. Red leather, yellow leather. Red leather. Actually nailed that, didn't I? And that's relevant because today we're meeting an auctioneer. 205 5 5 5 5 2 75. Right here in front. That's what you're gonna get.

2 75 beating  2 75. Let's get a round of applause. Woo.  Let's get a round of applause. I have no idea what just happened, but I'm really excited by it. That is such a skill, isn't it? I talk fast, but I couldn't talk that fast if I tried and I probably would've bought myself five cows 'cause I don't know what was going on. 

This is Sarah Packer. She's a livestock agent, and auctioneer from Roma who has had to overcome some pretty big challenges. Question: what is a livestock agent? Um, I'm gonna let her answer that. You are the in-between person, I guess. So if someone's breeding cattle, they aim to sell their wieners. So we work with them.

We find the best avenue to, to sell that wiener onto the next stage of, of the business. Wiener.  I could see you giggling then. How does she not, how does she not? I have an 8-year-old son. Okay. Yeah. It's an occupational hazard at this stage of my life. Wiener.  I don't know if you know this, Jane, and you might, because you live in Dalby.

But Roma Stockyards are a really big deal. Roma's got the biggest selling center in Australia. It's very, very competitive. Like there could be 10,000 head at the Roma sale yard, but yeah, being in Roma, you're sort of, you gotta, you gotta have a go at auctioneering, so be, be a bit of a shame to, to miss out on that one.

So paint me a picture. Sarah's wrangling all this cattle to be sold, so like, yeah. How does it work? Yeah. She's actually standing up on what they call the catwalk. When you think of catwalk, what do you imagine? I imagine ‘I am a model, you know what I mean? Do my little thing on the the catwalk.’ What do you shake? 

Yeah. That's not what it is. Basically at the saleyards, the selling pens. So where the livestock get held, you are actually above those pens up high on a catwalk. So you are looking over the cattle and you're also looking down at all the buyers. You could be there in a day when there's, you know, a hundred people standing in front of you and not everyone's a buyer.

So it's a, it's a big area and you've gotta be able to keep your eye on everyone and make sure you don't miss anyone that could flick their finger up or nod their head and yeah, try to get that cheeky steal of a, of a buy. So Jane, how do you reckon you'd go standing up on that catwalk, selling cattle to a hundred odd old mates?

I think I would have more success actually modeling, which is to say none. None at all. Sarah says that the first time was really scary. Oh, very nervous. Probably thought I wasn't gonna breathe or thought. I still get nervous now, like I get. I get, I still get nervous. Sense of adrenaline rush before every sale.

You know, you could still stuff up. You dunno what's gonna happen. You just gotta get up there and give it your best. But yeah, a lot of breathing techniques. And as you can imagine, there's not a lot of women livestock auctioneers getting around. Yeah. How did you get into it? Well, she grew up on the family farm, but you know when times are tough, you've gotta get a job off the farm.

So she started driving road trains between Queensland and South Australia. Hang on. So road trains as in those things that overtake me on the Warego Highway all the time. That are basically just buildings on wheels. Yep. Exactly. That is insane. She must be tough stuff, hey. Oh, the first time I got behind the wheel of a road train. I didn't actually have a license, and it just happened to be a, a local cattle carter who was doing paddock shifts for my parents. So from one property to another. And he goes, you could probably drive this. And, well, I've driven my dad's truck, and they've either got no brakes or no clutch or both. So to have something with good breaks and a clutch was definitely a bit different.

But yeah, no, he, he gave us a quick lesson and we poked along and thought, oh, well that wasn't too bad.  Yeah, definitely sort of fell into it. Uh, driving trucks from, yeah, South Australia to Queensland, carting hay.  She was 23 at the time that she was driving road trains. You know what I was doing when I was 23? Driving my Mazda three into clothes lines.

That's what I was doing.  So I gotta see a lot of, a lot of country and a lot of dry areas. And then I just wanted to come home. I just missed it. I still needed that off farm income and I just applied for everything that I could closer to Roma and I just. Yeah, I actually applied for this livestock agency role and I got the phone call and got the job and yeah, it was a learning curve and it was exciting and I definitely, definitely didn't think I'd ever be an auctioneer.

It wasn't something that even I thought about prior to, to chucking my resume in. Roma is one of those places where it doesn't surprise me that she got homesick because the people of Roma. And quite rightly, love Roma. There is this beautiful town pride there that I was just inspired by and in awe of. So yeah, I can completely understand why she wanted to go back there.

It's a beautiful place with beautiful people. I also love the fact that she was just like, I'm just gonna chuck a whole bunch of resumes in and see what comes up. Like she is just obviously one of those people that is gonna go and live this extraordinary life 'cause she just says yes to things. Yep. I'm gonna have a go.

I'll just put in, I wanna go home, see what's out there. Yeah. Livestock auctioneer, of course. Okay, so my question is how do you train to be an auctioneer. Is there an auctioneer school? The Australian Livestock and Property Agents Association they actually provide training schools for young auctioneers.

So they get speech therapists in. They get very experienced agents in that are auctioneers and they fine tune you. You know, you're not breathing right or you're trying to go too fast, or they get you down to basics. But at the end of the day, it's just a lot, a lot of practice, a lot of tongue twisters, a lot of counting, and just a lot of repetition.

It, it takes years. You feel like an absolute fool when you're starting. That doesn't go away quickly, but with a lot of practice and it is a lot of fun and it is very, very rewarding. I love that they get, like it's, you know, livestock auctioneer sort of vibe, you know, quite hyper-masculine environment. But now at our auctioneer school, let's get in some speech therapists and some, and some breathing professionals and we'll work on the tool that is the voice.

Yeah. Red leather, yellow leather. That's like just such an interesting juxtaposition. Yep. And as you can imagine, there aren't a lot of women doing this kind of work. I worked for my father, so if I can handle him, I'm not too worried about some old fellas in the yards.  But, but in saying that, I got a lot of advice from a lot of those men in the yards like. 

If they wanna help you, they will. If they can see that you are trying, I'm nowhere near the auctioneer that I am now if it wasn't for a couple of great blokes in the yards that gave their time and gave their advice. So there are definitely gentlemen out there that will help you out if you are willing to put in the hard yards and, and actually have a go at it.

You are there to do a job and you're there to do it well. You shouldn't be looking up there and, and thinking that you look good on the catwalk and you sound great. You, you should be thinking about the outcome for your clients and getting the best possible return for them, because at the end of the day, they've done a lot of hard work to give you a small amount of time to, to get the best result for 'em. Instead, this high pitched girl yelling from the catwalk, it was, yeah, we are here to buy, here to sell, and here to get on with it.  So in a way, it's kind of like a real estate agent on steroids and you've gotta get the best money that you possibly can for, for your cow.

Yes. That is amazing to think about when you put it like that, that pressure of getting the best result. I also really love how she talks about how the men, once they knew she was serious, took her under their wing and taught her everything she knows. That's that's really heartening to hear. Yeah. Also, shout out to all those dads out there who gave us a hard time growing up and thus, you know, made us who we are. 

That's for another day. Yeah. So Sarah's career was going great. She was winning awards, working a butt off in the saleyard. When something happened that she didn't see coming, Everything was going good. Probably too good. So anyway, crikeys about four years ago. Yeah. Side of a crush let go and, and hit me.

And I've, yeah, just, I've done a bit of damage to my back. What's a crush? It's what they use to hold a cow in place. It's like a metal box and yeah, unfortunately the side gate let go. So this big metal frame let go while the beast was inside and came around and, and yeah, hit me on my left side. I didn't think much of it at the time.

It, it bloody hurt. But anyway, the job needed doing so. Just, yeah charged on and tried to have a go and yeah. Bit of pain just kept turning into more pain and I wish I would've broke something and fractured it. That would've been the simple thing. I've had bilateral radio frequency ablation, so basically I've just burnt out all the nerves in my lower back, so the lower base of my spine and all my sacro joints and just everything in that lower region I've burnt out just to try to reduce that stabbing nerve pain, I guess you'd say. Oh my God, that's that's a tough woman. Oh, she just kept going on with it and to the point where now she's had to have  her nerves ablated so she doesn't get the pain. That's really, really heartbreaking. Yeah, and it's meant that Sarah can't be up from dusk till dawn selling cattle standing on the catwalk because she was doing that, plus managing the family farm.

So she was working her guts out. So I'm not going to the sale yards and walking for 12 hours a day and drafting cattle and, and staying on my feet all the time on that hard ground. So basically now I just get to deal with a hat full of clients that I thoroughly enjoy their company and it's not a big workload.

So it's, you know, they're quick visits and if I need to just sit or lay down, I can just sit or lay down, you know, I can still keep my feet in the game a bit. Wow. That sucks. And how is she dealing with the pain? Yeah. Well, she was only 28 when she got hit, and it's been four years now, so she's still only 32 years old.

I came across a very good pain psychologist, and obviously when you're off the land and you think pain psychologist, you just, I. You know, I think bloody hell, why would you even bother doing that? But anyway, push came to shove and I ended up talking to him and he was really great. It was no bullshit, like you'd be talking to him and it's just the frustration.

He is like, well, if you're gonna go out and do that work, it's fucking gonna hurt. So you're just gonna have to make peace that you're, you're not gonna be able to do anything for three days after that. But it was just that common sense, like pull your head in. You just, you're just gonna have to accept it, be happy with what you got, you know, call for help a bit more, and yeah, I don't know if it's the place to say, but medicinal cannabis is a very good thing. I utilise that oil. I've got a script from a wonderful doctor down in Sydney, and, and that helps astronomically you most of the time. I rub it on, it basically replaces the massage oil. You can get the CBD oil with low THC content, so there's definitely options out there.

Don't think you, you're gonna be going around high all the time by any means. Wow. Uh, good on her. I have full respect for her putting that out there. You know, the THC oil and the, and the pain psychologist, she was forced in those moments, like we all sometimes are in life to choose something that we never thought we would have.

It was brave and courageous and she went and did those things and that's amazing. And can you imagine, I'm, I'm also thinking too, the pain psychologist. I think that's such a fabulous country reaction. 'cause I can't imagine in the  Wickham Street end of town here in Brisbane that if I went to a pain psychologist and he said, well, bad luck.

Suck it up. You chose that. I just think it's, it's such a different reaction to what we'd be used to, but that's what she wanted. Like she's no bullshit, just.  Tell it like it is and we are getting on with it. Yeah. My mother-in-law takes, sorry for outing you on national, international television, but my mother-in-law who's 91, takes cannabis oil for her arthritis and it has changed her life from a pain management point of view, really.

And the same, there's no THC in it, so she's not high. 91-year-old lady could going round on a little wheelie walker high. I can't think of anything else I'd rather do with my last decade to be honest.  But it has absolutely changed her life. She's still living at home because she could use that.

So yeah. That's fascinating. It is fascinating. Yeah. So has she had to give away auctioneering? Well, she's not at the Roma saleyards at the moment, but she's found another avenue for her auctioneering skills …charity.  Oh, well you can have a beer in your hand while you're doing it for one.  They definitely are my favorite thing to do as a charity auction 'cause you get to work with the committees that are holding these events and they're great local people that just want nothing better than a good time for everyone in the community. Plus to raise some funds along the way 'cause I do miss standing on the catwalk.

I do thoroughly miss that so, I guess I'm substituting that for, for these charity auctions, they're a ball of fun and everyone's there to have a good time and it, it's still a challenge in itself. It definitely is always a challenge. You might have a rowdy crowd or one that's too busy drinking, so you gotta gotta keep it active.

Gotta keep it lively. The three, the polished horns. Ladies and gentlemen, kindly donated by the Polish Horns Australia. Brian and Wendy, ladies and gentlemen. That is great. The polished horns.  And the polished horns Australia, that's yeah, not surprising at all that she has then gone, okay, what am I gonna do?

I'll do these charity auctions and that that is something that is filling her cup now and that speaking of cups, she can have a beer in her hand while she's doing it. Exactly. Makes you, it'd be making you feel good. You're raising money for other people. So yeah, good honor. Good honor. And she's actually raising quite a lot of money.

I couldn't tell you an exact figure, but it'd be, yeah, it. Hundreds of thousands of dollars you could raise anywhere from 15 grand to to a hundred grand. It's good to know that you can do something you enjoy and help in such a big way. It's pretty amazing that she's taken this injury and channeled it into something positive.

I've been very fortunate in my life to come from a great family and, and Nana and Pop have always led the charge and they're always giving back to others, I guess I just see them and see the life they've built and, and I'd like to do that too. Like I cannot count on my hand how many times I've been given help by others.

So it's, it's good to just keep it an ongoing circle. Just recently, uh, a few of us got together and we started the community care fund, so it's based in Surat and it's just basic. It's, it's very simple. It's just about raising money for those that have had something life changing happen to 'em, something completely out the woodworks that you just wouldn't even anticipate.

'cause we actually had a close mate go through something pretty terrible and you know, there was nothing you can do to help, but, you know, hopefully by giving 'em a few dollars, they didn't have to stress about bills. They could just focus on family time or recovering. And, you know, for a, for a very small town of Surat, we held a family fun day.

And, and everyone came out and everyone helped. And oh geez, I think we raised $29,000. And that's a, that's a pretty big effort for, for little old Surat. And little old Surat’s just also had those terrible floods. So you know, they'll be wanting to raise more money for people that have been affected by that too.

Absolutely. That is a massive, that is incredible to hear. Surat like that's a street, pretty much - welcome to Surat. Yeah, it's is a street and you've got the surrounding areas, but again, like Roma. Proud. So proud and like amazing community. And I just love that all of them come together and that idea of actually starting up that, uh, charity that they have for when something really terrible happens to people.

Mm-hmm. Because I know in my life, whenever a mate goes through something and there's always the group chats that are like, how can we help? How can we help? Sort of thing. And it's one of those things that you can kind of overthink yourself into doing nothing sometimes, and to think that there's actually, they've gone, we don't wanna do that for when our community members go through something really big, we're gonna do something super practical and have something in place where we have this model of what we do when something happens and how we can actually practically help.

It's such a country thing, isn't it? Oh it is. It's like, don't just cook a lasagna, like have a massive day raising chunks of money and that can really make a difference. I just love that. It is, it's really incredible. So what I love about Sarah's story is that she took something, an injury that knocked her down on her ass at 28.

Peak of her career, and instead of letting that get her down, she's put that energy back into the community. Also, if there's anyone, uh, listening who's interested in auctioneering, she's got some advice. Reach out. Like, just reach out to, to me, I will give you a rundown of like how I trained, how I practice.

I'm more than happy to share that, so. Don't be afraid. I've asked you to reach out. You can definitely reach out. I'm not going to get annoyed by any means. Hassle me as much as you want, probably hassle me a few times. Got very bad service out here at times, so, but just. You know, you, you may need to have a little bit of thick skin and at the end of the day, if you stuff up, it doesn't matter.

Like most people aren't gonna remember what you did a year ago. You might, but they won't. Like, just have a lot of fun while you're doing it. Enjoy yourself and have a sleep and go again tomorrow. Just keep having a crack. Great life advice in general, I reckon so too. Have a sleep and go again tomorrow. 

And for someone who's only 32 years of age, that's the thing that I find extraordinary. At 23, she's driving trucks at 28, she's an auctioneer and something terrible happened and at 32 she's pivoted and she's now doing charity stuff. So there, there is still a lot of life in this woman. Next week on Queens of the Land, we are finding romance in unexpected places.

I get a bit teary when I talk about it 'cause it was just so special. You are listening to Queens of the Land, a season of the Telling Our Stories to the World podcast, brought to you by the Queensland Writers Center and supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland produced by F+K Media.

Stick around to hear what we've got planned for next season of telling our stories to the world. 

Hi, Lori-Jay, welcome to the podcast. Thanks, Helen. Thanks for having me. You are the CEO for the Queensland Writers Center. Can you tell us what's in the works for next season of Telling Our Stories to the World? Well, it's fingers crossed at the moment. We are desperately looking for that kind of funding for it, but we are very excited by this one.

It's Mornington Island. We are looking up in the Torres Strait Island. We are looking at Indigenous and First Nations writers, capturing their stories, how they wanna capture them. Really excited. This is, uh, a long way away. So we've gotta get our bums up there, get our writers up there, put the tools up in place for those people to be able to capture their stories and then to disseminate them and share it with people.

Wow, that sounds so exciting and hot. Exciting. And hot and hot. Yes, I'm very excited to be part of that.  Now, what's the idea behind telling our stories to the world and how long have you been doing it for? So this cycle is number three. Mornington will be number four. We started off with Telling Our Stories to the World as social prescription with Department of Health in Queensland.

So we went out into Longreach, Winton, Blackall and Barcaldine and we were looking for people who were struggling with mental health and using the small act of writing to be able to get them talking about their stories. We quickly understood that there's gonna be people who can write a postcard for us or tell us a story.

And then we found a couple of people who are writers, and that was very exciting. We've got a couple of people now who are published authors from that first wave, and that's from finding them, giving them the tools, like I said, and then they're just off and running with their own stories. Uh, so with the postcards, I did this first session.

And we took a book about the Lost Crayons and when the crayons got lost, they sent a postcard back home. So I had all the little kids. And in these towns you've got children from like four years old up to 14, 15 in the same classroom. So you need something that everyone's gonna be able to do. So we had them just write one or two sentences about, I love living in Longreach because, and this is what I do with my family.

We told them we were gonna share this postcards we're gonna post them, uh, around the world. And the first year we went to Germany and Japan and we sent them to classrooms over there and they wrote stories back as well that we then sent back to those schools. So it really was like a postcard exchange, uh, between two different very different groups of children across the world. This allows us to talk to the children and the children. Go, mum, I really liked this. Take me to the library this afternoon where those trainers are gonna be. Then we get to speak to the parents. So it's really a double kind of, you know, it's a folded environment where we start off here with the aim of like, let's speak to the parents about what their worlds are like out here, and do they have any in this particular instant mental health issues that we needed to tackle. 

Second Wave was working with climate deniers, so the Department of Science and Environment. Really exciting. You're talking to kids in schools. Trying to speak to their parents so that we can have that really deep conversation about what does it look like when we tackle climate, when we have to endure it, when we are living with it, it's not going anywhere.

So what are those changes? Using the kids to get their mums and dads down to the libraries. And again, the small acts of writing. And we found some great stories that we shared through anthologies and things like that.  And then last year? Well last year was Helen's year.  We met with camels. We met with women on their farms, women in rural and regional Queensland, in that southeast region.

And I think what's really important here was these stories need to be told in their voices, we haven't homogenized these stories. They are very clearly coming from the land of those, um, people and sharing it with, uh, the rest of the state, the rest of the country. And now on our podcast. We're very excited.

What a wonderful project, Lori-Jay, and I think everyone should get on board with it. Now, if people do have an idea for any seasons, would you like to hear from them? We would love to. In particular, if you know something about your region that the rest of us think we know, but we probably have the wrong end of the stick.

'cause you know, we are from the city, or we're from, you know, the coast or something like that. We really wanna find. Did you know that this is what happens out here? One of the things that was very exciting with the first Telling Our Stories to the World was we asked kids what's it like to live in Barcaldine?

And they'd be like, I go piggin’ with dad and we have meat and three veg and we are, we will like from the city. We were like, oh really? And is that the same when we send those postcards to the children in Japan? And the kids were like, yes. I'm like, do you think they've got guns?  Oh, wouldn't they? Do you think they go pigging, do you think?

And it was very much this broadening of their world as well as they come in. And that's something we wanna keep their stories, but share them with, uh, the rest of the world and then vice versa. So I think that's one of the most powerful things that this project does is share those stories. Thanks so much for that, Lori-Jay.

It's a really exciting project and I'm very, um, interested in seeing where it goes to next. Well, if anyone calls from Hamilton Island, we are free to also help with those stories. Definitely.