Search For A Love That Lasts Till The Cows Come Home

Newcastle Herald

Friday September 30, 2005

By FRANCES THOMPSON Upper Hunter Reporter

THEY come from places such as Bimbi and Bute, Peebinga and Paringa, Witchcliffe and our own Upper Hunter town of Aberdeen.

They are single, full-time farmers from around Australia who are part of the 2005 Australian Women's Weekly 'find a farmer a wife' campaign.

Scott Wheatley, 30, of the Hoi Maori dairy farm near Aberdeen, was nominated for the campaign by his sister Jane.

"Mum, Dad and I did it. I think it is a really good idea," Miss Wheatley said.

Her brother is getting used to the idea.

Mr Wheatley said he would like to marry a woman who had some appreciation of the difficulties of dairy farming.

"Someone who understands some of the pressures and the financial side of the business," he said.

Mr Wheatley cited a lack of time for not marrying, but he told The Herald he spent four months in Ireland on a dairy exchange program, attended dairy industry events and played a lot of sport.

Perhaps closer to the real reason, Mr Wheatley's sister said, was the lack of varied social opportunities in Aberdeen, as was the case in many country areas.

Mr Wheatley is happy for his prospective wife to have her own career.

He would prefer a woman aged between 20 and 32 who does not have children, so down the track the couple could start their own family.

His mother, Helen, and father, Frank, who also live on the farm, would spend more time at their Port Stephens address if the campaign found a wife for their son, but she would join a close, rural family if she married a Wheatley.

"He is intelligent and versatile and any girl would be lucky to have him," Miss Wheatley said.

And if her brother's favourite famous Australian woman, Democrats senator Natasha Stott Despoja, is anything to go by, he is a thoroughly modern man.

"She [Stott Despoja] is attractive, intelligent and able to speak her mind," Mr Wheatley said.

And she mixes family with a career, which is Mr Wheatley's ideal.

Speaking of work, there are 180 cows to milk while he waits for the emails and letters to arrive.

© 2005 Newcastle Herald

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