Dannevirke aircraft engineer shears a life in England

Michael Churchouse, from Dannevirke and who trained as an aircraft engineer, in England where he he's a shearing showman and now a blades shearer. Photo / Angela Pearson

It seems an unusual path, but for Michael Churchouse, from Dannevirke, it's in his genes.

He left New Zealand 22 years ago as a qualified air force-trained aircraft engineer. But he's blossomed in the UK as a showman-shearer hoping to represent England at the next world championships, as a blade shearer.

As it happens, he comes from sheep shearing stock, rather than aviation. His father Warren Churchouse, who died in 2001, was a legend in farming and shearing in southern Hawke's Bay and a Golden Shears senior finalist in 1964.

His dad's cousin, Neil Churchouse, was a Golden Shears finalist across the lower grades in five out of its first six years, including winning the intermediate title in 1962 and a trip to England as senior winner in 1966.

Michael Churchouse, who is 49, grew up on "700 acres of playground", a farm east of Dannevirke, and went to Rathkeale College, near Masterton.

He had learned to shear, but went into an aircraft engineering apprenticeship with the Air Force, based at both Woodburn and Ohakea. And that nine years of learning stood him in good stead, he said, speaking from home near Kempston Hardwick, Bedfordshire.

"Everything you do in life is about engineering."

After a season with shearing contractor Dean Te Huia in Marton, and some time shearing for Andy Scott, near Pongaroa, he decided he headed for the UK and got work in North Yorkshire.

Apart from a few weeks back in Dannevirke with contractors Paewai Mullins in 2009-2010 - ostensibly a season to get together with old mates - he returned to England, where he runs a small flock of finewool saxons and has developed the show routine, as well as shearing sheep for small runholders.

He shears at such diverse events as the Blisworth Canal Festival in Northhamptonshire and recently the more wool-specific Fibre-East, an annual event in Ampthill, Bedfordshire, celebrating "all things natural fibre and handmade", with a focus on British wool.

The blade shearing blossomed this year as he and fellow Kiwi Allan Oldfield, son of New Zealand world championships team member Phil Oldfield, formed the Two-Stand Blade Gang to work their way through the early English summer.

They then formed an unofficial New Zealand team to win a three-way international at the Royal Bath and West Show, beating the Wales and England world championships teams. And later that month Churchouse was third to Oldfield in the Royal Highland Show blades final in Edinburgh.

England have an established blade shearing team of father-and-son George and Andrew Mudge, but time is moving on. Mudge Snr first represented England at a world championships as a machine shearer in 1980.

Targeting a place in the England shearing team for the 2019 world championships in France, he doesn't have particular plans to return to Dannevirke, where mother Lois still lives.

"I've made my life here in England. It's not a bad life."