State Highway 1 Stories

Collecting stories from ordinary people
and preserving our history forever

My Journey Thus Far - Murray Prattley - November 2008

My name is Murray Francis Prattley and I was born on the 7th January 1933 at Temuka and this has been my journey through life. My parents names are Richard (Dick) Luke and Marjory Helen (nee Pearce) Prattley. My brothers and sisters names are Marie, Richard and Colin.

I attended the Milford Primary School and the Temuka High School and left school at age 15 years. My father suffered from a stroke and I worked on my parent’s farm for 3 months. I then worked for Jess South from Winchester for 9 months driving farm machinery. I then worked for Ted Cribb for 16 ½ years.

It was a 700 acre farm running 2500 sheep on the Winchester Flat Road. I also helped him with contact bailing and heading. My first day of working for Ted Cribb the 2 of us put in 44 posts by hand.

On the 15th October 1955 I married Noeline Green in the Ashburton Anglican church. We had 3 children Christine, Judith and Nicola. I was president of the Temuka District Jaycees in 1967.

I became interested in engineering and I did a short course on welding. One day we were putting up sheep yards using wire netting willow stakes and it was a very unsatisfactory way penning sheep. One day a neighbour called in with a drafting race on a trailer and it did the job a lot better and quicker. A friend of mine Gerald Pemberton owned a portable welding plant and between us we built a better model than the neighbours. Ours was on wheels and it folded up.

The first time we used it was a disaster. We bought the ewes and lambs in and then had morning tea while we waited for the sheep to settle. Once they had settled we could not get then through the drafting race. The next time we used our new invention we did not stop for morning tea and the sheep headed for the race because they could see a way out.

We then set about trying to sell the units. We had our first display at an Atlantic Silver ploughing match. We gave a folding gate demo and we sold I unit. Ron Little made 6 units for us and I made one myself for Michael Gaffney. I put the 6 units on the back of a Cortina and sold them calling at farmer’s gateways.

While I was working on a farm my mates were earning 3 times as much as me per week at the freezing works. I intended to work at the freezing works myself but my passion was engineering and I could see the potential in the development of portable sheep yards.

We bought a house in Denmark Street and there was a big shed on the property. It was once a honey farm that belonged to Eric Robins. I built a tailing pen and added an extension to the pens. I also drove a tractor and header for Gerald Pemberton and made and sold 32 sets of sheep yards that year. I travelled around the A & P Shows from Invercargill to Hawkes Bay and sold 63 sets of yards.

Bruce Scott of Godley Peaks station asked me to build a special bigger set of yards. It was so successful we made an improved model and sold 5 of the super yards at the Christchurch Show. I was 6 years making yards at Denmark Street. We started making the yards using galvanised water pipe but later made them using the lighter aluminium.

Sales really took off when we invented the electronic weighing scales. Harry Mitchell worked for us for 25 years and became a partner in the Prattley Engineering company. Harry developed an automatic 3 way drafting race which was a huge market success.

National Governments tax incentives under the leadership of Rob Muldoon tempted us to export the yards overseas. Ted Cribb and I went to the Royal Show in Coventry England. It was their that we appointed Wrightson NMA as our agent for the yards and sales in England were very successful. We then attempted to sell into the American market. We bought a pick up truck and travelled 16,000 miles and never sold one set of yards.

We then started hiring our yards under contract and one year our weighing and drafting machine we weighed 40,000 sheep. We also supplied the yards for live sheep exports that went from Timaru.

Harry Mitchell designed the stock yards for the Christchurch Saleyards. We won the contract worth 1.2 million dollars for the Canterbury A & P show grounds in 1997 and it was then that we when we sold the business to Graeme & Wendy Ward from Newlands Ashburton.

Prattley Engineering was established in 1966 so I was 31 years in the light engineering business. I stayed on with the business for 6 months to help get the new owners established. I retired to Rangiora in 2005.

Photo News - The life of Murray Francis Prattley
	The photo on the left was taken at an National Field day in Hamilton which is one of many that we attended. The photo on the right was taken in the early 1990’s at Clayton Station. Owner of the sheep station Andrew Orbel held a special sale of 6000 texel lambs and he hired the yards from us which we assembled in less than 4 hours.

Prattley Family - Back - James, Leonard, Ruth, George Harrison (Son in law), Eli, William. Front - Elijah, George, Harry, Richard (Murray’s father)		Murray’s family - Richard, Marjorie (Mother), Marie, Richard (Father) Murray, Colin (in front)

Murray’s Parents headstone in the Timaru Cemetery. Their last residential address was 99 North Street Timaru

Murray on his first set of wheels as a child

Marie, Richard, Murray and Colin

Murray under his blossom tree at his home 6 Bridget Lane Rangiora in October 2008

		Mobile Sheep Yards The Prattley Mobile Sheep Yard folds up like a concertina and can be taken to any part of the farm for on-the-spot use. Set up against an exisiting fence, it will hold up to 200 lambs and ewes for drafting, drenching, tailing, mouthing or footrot treatment. A two-way hinge designed by the company allows great flexibility in arranging the yard to suit the type of work to be done. It is easy to set up, with no heavy lifting and no need for stakes, staples or pegs. One model has its own wheels and can be towed behind any farm vehicle. Another version, suitable for sem-permanent use, fits on the 3-point linkage of a tractor.