Fathering a lot of sheep was a very serious and important job, but it did have plenty of lighter moments. One of those came after my trip to Australia learning to freeze semen and to use the laparoscope to inseminate.

Rick Lee, my mate from Waipukurau, and I had about 10 days at Albury Wodonga, mostly apart, as Rick went off to the Riverina with one of the vets for on-farm inseminating, and I stayed at the centre learning to collect and freeze. Then we changed roles, and I had a wonderful three days near Jerilderie on one of the large polled merino studs. It was hard work, and while I was mostly the vet’s assistant, I learned I had to concentrate very hard. It taught me to do the job for which I later had to train several assistants so the time spent was invaluable. It meant that I understood the job I was asking my assistant to do.

Every 15 or 20 ewes, Neil Holt, the principal of the facility, would say, ‘Your turn to do the next three’ and under his watchful eye, and the anxious scrutiny of the farmer, I would struggle my way through, handling the very fragile glass catheters that they used then to inseminate. I found the few I did each day to be really hard work. Back in Marlborough it took me a whole season before I felt really capable, and I could relax a little bit more as I did the job each autumn. But for several years, most nights I would come home with a headache, after six or eight hours peering hard down the ’scope.

When our time at Albury was finished, Rick and I bought some gear from the Holts. We didn’t have artificial sheep vaginas at our practices in New Zealand, so we bought a couple each of those, and several of the latex liners and the glass collection vials that went with them. We embarked on a roadtrip back to Sydney, staying with a family friend in the Blue Mountains. A radiologist with a string of practices in NSW, David Badham was a delightful character, and his wife Bette a gracious and thoughtful host.

Dave put us on motorbikes to tour his rough bush farm, filled us full of beer and wine and let us know his thoughts on royalty in a very Australian way. When we learned it was Australia Day we started to sing ‘God Save the Queen’. Dave leaped to his feet.

‘Fuck the Bloody Queen!’ he shouted, and stumped off to bed. (For years after whenever Rick was writing to me [before emails and the internet], he would put somewhere on the envelope, FTBQ, a reminder of that funny night.)

Coming back into Christchurch Airport I said to Rick, ‘It’s usually faster to declare we’re vets and go through the MAF quarantine people. They’re usually very good to vets.’ So we did.

Ten minutes later I am standing in one of the two queues in quarantine, Rick slightly ahead of me in the other queue. There are a hundred people or more in the two lines. I watch as Rick is asked if he has anything to declare.

In a stentorian and very loud voice, loud enough for the whole concourse to hear, Rick says, ‘YES, I HAVE AN ARTIFICIAL VAGINA!’

There was a shocked silence from the large crowd, every conversation stopped, and every eye turned towards the source of this statement, fascinated. The MAF officer, obviously embarrassed, could be seen leaning towards Rick and saying something, trying to hush him down.

‘I SAID I’VE GOT AN ARTIFICIAL VAGINA!’ he roared.

‘Oh, that’s what I thought you said,’ muttered the inspector, puce with the attention of all upon him, and Rick was pushed rapidly out the exit door to freedom.