Alex Nelson has just turned 100, but you would never guess.
Hold tight - we’re checking permissions before loading more content
He is first to admit and eternally thankful that at such a grand old age his memory and hearing are still razor sharp.
The Stanhope legend lives in a Kyabram Warramunda unit these days, but his remarkable gift for remembering names, dates and history has never deserted him and continues to amaze.
Alex has carried the nickname ‘‘Yabby’’ for the greater part of his life, but admits he is not sure of its origin.
Raised in the days when horse and gig were the popular mode of transport, Alex ponders for just a moment when asked what have been the greatest changes he has experienced in his lifetime.
‘‘Everything,’’ he shoots back.
‘‘Just about everything is different now to what it was. I wouldn’t know where to start.’’
Born near Colac on June 3, 1922, into a farming family of three brothers and two sisters, Alex and his family moved to Stanhope in 1926 to continue farming.
His schooling days were spent at the Stanhope school and he recalls when leaving as a 14-year-old in 1936 it boasted 170 students.
His first job was working at Stanhope’s Lambdens Butchery — run by Clarry Brasher at the time — taking and delivering orders on his trusty bike.
But that stint of two years came to end when Alex arrived at work one morning to find the butchery had been burnt to the ground.
He then secured a job with a local carrier, Stan Collins, carting milk cans on horse-drawn lorries to the Stanhope cheese factory and afterwards steaming and washing the cans for hygiene purposes.
An offer from Bill Downing in 1939 to work with the State Rivers in the Stanhope area was readily accepted by Alex and led to 42 years in the irrigation distribution field.
After promotion, Alex spent the last 34 years of his working life as a water bailiff covering an area south-east of Stanhope that included the property of Sir John ‘’Black Jack’’ McEwen, a caretaker prime minister and ‘‘a good bloke’’ according to Alex.
Alex courted schoolteacher Joyce Wheeler, who taught at the Deakin school, a tiny country school between Tongala and Mt Scobie in those days.
They married in 1951 and spent more than 60 years together before Joyce died four years ago. They had no children.
While interested in all town activities in Stanhope and district, Alex was always deeply passionate about his sport, especially football, cricket and bowls.
He played in ‘‘about six’’ Stanhope premiership cricket sides in a long career with the club and rates the undefeated 1958-59 flag-winning team in the A-grade competition of the former Kyabram District Cricket Association as the best Stanhope side in his lengthy time at the club.
Alex recalls he was an opening bowler in his early days, but when a gifted youngster called Ellis Hicks finished his schooling in Melbourne to return to the family farm at Stanhope he had to adapt to being a slow bowler to keep his place in the side.
‘‘Ellis took over as the opening bowler, so I decided to bowl off-spinners. It was a lot easier, too,’’ Alex said with a chuckle.
Alex rates legendary batsman and captain Gillie Cochrane and all-rounder Hec Downing as the two best cricketers he played with in his 30 years as a player with the Stanhope club.
‘‘Gillie was a master batsman and a great captain, and Hec was a great all-rounder.’’
Alex played cricket until he was 47 and took 9-43 in one memorable game.
Alex was a bowler-batsman and remembers he often got promoted to opening the batting in one-day games.
His time with Stanhope Football Club is ongoing after 87 years and last Saturday week ago he was a special guest of the club for the clash between Stanhope and neighbour Girgarre.
His first introduction to the football club was as a 13-year-old schoolboy washing and scrubbing the rub-down tables where players had their muscles loosened with generous amounts of liniment oil before going into battle.
It was only a couple of years later that Alex started playing senior football with the club in Kyabram District Football League.
Alex was a member of Stanhope’s 1944 side, which beat Kyvalley for the premiership.
‘‘Tongala didn’t field a side that year, but most of their players joined Kyvalley and the grand final was played at Tongala,’’ Alex said.
Alex said he and Gordon Calley, now in his mid-90s and living in Shepparton, were the only members of that team still alive.
When he retired as a player he served in several administrative and executive roles with the club, including secretary and treasurer.
He rates Ken ‘’Snowy’’ Dunstall, a Kyabram league medallist with Girgarre and a Morrison medallist with Stanhope in its early Goulburn Valley League days, as the best player to have pulled on a Lions jumper in his time.
He said Aub Downing, Roy Barrett and Charlie Gustavson also rated highly in a lengthy list of talented players who had played with the club.
Alex gives his nod for the best sportsman in the western Goulburn Valley area in his time to Tongala’s Dave Newman Sr.
‘‘He was a great footballer and cricketer and could play bowls as well. Just a natural,’’ Alex said.
After his cricketing days Alex turned to bowls and played pennant with the Stanhope Bowls Club up until three years ago.
He is a life member of the Stanhope football, cricket and bowls clubs.
Just to emphasise just how ‘’switched on’’ Alex still is, all the information he supplied me with in an interview to write this story took less than half an hour and was virtually free of memory pauses.
You better believe it, Alex — you’re a dinky-di legend of Stanhope and the western Goulburn Valley, and congratulations on reaching the big 100!
Sports reporter