Introduction by Sid Parker
Things are now very different in the Top End cattle country, compared with the way things were fifty years ago. The Townsend family has played a very large part in making the difference, making the north into what it is today.
I have known the Townsends right from the time that they arrived in the Territory to settle at Stapleton station. They hadn’t been there long when I flew down to see them, to make myself known and to see if I could buy any cattle from them.
I met all the family and immediately I was impressed. ‘There was movement at the station’ – there was also confidence, efficiency and progress. They were not the sort of people who spent time in pubs skiting about how good they were and what they could do, they just got into it and did it. And they had the courage to do things their way, no matter what other people said.
They got stuck into things very quickly. Before long they had some paddocks and yards and already they were ahead of other people who had been on their stations for decades. A lot of local people just smiled and waited for the Townsends to go broke but they didn’t. It wasn’t long before the local people watched the Townsends with respect; they realised that these Americans could teach them a thing or two.
Wherever there are cattle in north Australia, there are stories of Sid Parker.
For more than forty years he has been one of the most significant figures in the northern beef industry.
Through those years, Sid has met and dealt with almost everyone in that industry.
He has special regard and affection for the Townsend family
Asa Townsend, the head of the family, was an outstanding man who showed remarkable foresight. Stapleton had been on the market for a long while but nobody wanted it, nobody could see any way to make it work. But Asa knew he could make a success of it, he knew it was the place that had the scope to fulfil all his ambitions for his own family and his extended family.
He had been very successful as a cattleman and vegetable grower in Florida and he could have been very comfortable had he stayed over there but it was getting quite suburban and he felt he was getting crowded out. He was determined to move to Australia where he thought there was a new frontier with more land and better chances for himself and his family. So he sold everything he had and brought his clan to the Territory. For him, there was no going back.
They had money and they had faith. Above all, they had great skill. They were very competent men with cattle, great horsemen and cattlemen but good all round men who could do anything. Local ringers heard about how
capable the Townsends were and they wanted to work with them.