Bruce is still very much hands-on despite his age and only has trusty sidekick Tom McConachy who moved to town after managing the Bristol-owned Auraki Station on SH4 on the Parapara for 24 years.
Bruce and his siblings, younger brother Don and two sisters, had a rough start after both parents died within three weeks of each other in 1946 when Bruce was just 19.
"Don left school at Feilding Ag and we farmed in partnership until Don's death in 2004," Bruce recalled.
The Bristol family was well-known as butchers way back in the day and Bruce worked in the family business, particularly in the large butchery in Victoria Ave next to the Rutland Hotel.
"I knew every back alley in Wanganui. But Don and I needed to partner up when the parents died. We started growing spuds in a gorse paddock and got our sisters to pick them up. Then we bought a cow to graze on our grandfather's property in Tayforth Rd."
That block is still in the Bristol family and includes what was the Petre Pony Club, now operating as the Wanganui Petre Pony Club.
The block was put up for auction by the grandfather's trustees in 1947 and if sold would have left the young Bristol siblings without a home. However, Bruce and Don managed to buy it cheap. To this day they are convinced people let them buy it cheap because they knew their situation.
Probably learning from the best, Bruce and Don began trading livestock and worked as drovers across the North Island.
Bruce worked for Arthur Gudsell for a time and he was one of the largest cattle dealers in the country, often shipping stock around New Zealand by the railway wagon.
"I quickly learned hard work never killed anyone," Bruce said.
"We started to dealing in cattle in quite a big way with Don going to sales in Gisborne most weeks and Stortford every other week. I went to Stratford and Feilding."
Both were regular fixtures at Fordell it its heyday.
By this time the Bristol land bank was growing just as quickly as the livestock dealership.
"I went up to Karioi one day to buy some ewes and ended up buying the farm. I'm a bit of a hoarder, especially with land. Apart from a few blocks, the farms we have bought we keep," Bruce said.
They started with the sand country family blocks of Tayforth and North Grange, adding Storey's in 1973. In 1976 they bought the 73ha block they call Aramoho, which includes 3ha inside the city boundary, and the 36ha block in Blueskin Rd, The Toft, where they have lived for 41 years.
There's also a 71ha block called Westmere, which Bruce says has soils among the top 2 per cent in the world - that's the farm across the road from his latest acquisition.
The breeding side of today's operation is Auraki.
"We bought Auraki in 1990 then added McCarthy's on the Raetihi side in 1991 and The Falls on the Whanganui side in 2001 to make the overall property 1494ha.
"Years ago, Auraki was all one farm but had been split up by different generations over the years. Now it's back together."
There's also a 153ha block near Havelock North that finishes cattle from Auraki. "I'll continue working the farms until I drop dead," Bruce says defiantly.¦
