Tractor tragic's jack of all trades

LEO Barwick got his first toy tractor at five years of age – and it started a lifelong interest in machinery.

After growing up on farms at Oatlands and the West Tamar, Mr Barwick still remembers the first tractor his father purchased when he was just seven years old. 

“He would get up at about four or five o’clock, pretty early, and hang a hurricane lamp on the front of it and he’d go ploughing,” he said. 

“I would get up and get the fire going and get breakfast ready then go over at eight or nine o’clock and he’d say now keep that furrow straight ... then he’d come back and keep ploughing all day until dark.” 

Mr Barwick bought his first tractor, an Oliver 70 built in the 1930s, and has recently bought it back. “I started on the tractors pretty young and then when I got old enough, I bought my own,” he said.

“I bought it for $20 and sold it to someone who wanted to drag wood out of the bush which was what I was doing with it then I bought a W6 International.” 

After that Mr Barwick bought his first John Deere which he sold not long after.

Years later he tracked the machine down and once again bought it back. 

He started contracting with his second John Deere at about 15 years old. 

“I was doing a little bit of it and cutting wood and doing all sorts of things there was money in,” he said. “There were a lot of opportunities out there a bit like today, there are opportunities out there if you want to have a go.” 

He bought a five-yard truck and returned to contract work and gradually upgraded his truck and eventually bought a backhoe. 

Mr Barwick worked on big public works projects like the Southern Outlet near Launceston and the Gorge bridge. 

After expanding the business, he worked for APPM and spent 30 years putting in roads in logging areas. 

The 1980s, when interest rates went sky high, were tough times, says Mr Barwick, but he worked hard to pay for everything and made it through. 

While his father was keen to see him work on farm, Mr Barwick said he had always been interested in machinery and decided that was the career for him. 

“I worked all over the north and I’ve seen a lot of back country,” he said.

After selling his main businesses Mr Barwick spent about 12 years carting out wood logs following forestry operations. 

“I’ve done a fair few things in my life and I’m still sort of doing it,” he said.

“I’m doing a lot more work in my head now though.” 

Nowadays, Mr Barwick lives on a property near Holwell where a number of large sheds house his extensive collection. 

“I’ve collected things for most of my life,” he said. 

He has about 60 tractors and in more recent years he has added large collections of jacks, old wrenches and different tools. 

“The jacks, that’s only been the last 10 years or so, but I thought I’m going to start collecting a few so I went around a few markets and tip shops and tips,” he said. 

“I started with one or two and then I got another one and then it just went on.” 

He now has about 700 jacks with the oldest one being a stage-coach jack he found at a clearing sale. 

“Every car had a jack and every jack, if you knew about it, could tell a story for that car,” he said. 

His collection also includes a convict-made axe head he found in the bush at Eagle Hawk Neck. 

“I don’t think too many people would have one of them, it’s got the arrows in it,” he said. 

In 2017 he embarked on a trip around Australia covering thousands of kilometers in a small truck with a purpose-built caravan on it. While on his trip, Mr Barwick visited a number of machinery museums and also added items to his collection along the way.

While he owns a number of different tractors, John Deeres are his favourite. 

He said while modern tractors have plenty of technology they are not built to last like the old models which are still going today.

Mr Barwick likes to restore some of the tractors and in the past has regularly taken them to Agfest, including the first event which included a ploughing competition.

“I went to the first Agfest before it was Agfest and then I started going when they first started out here at Carrick too,” he said. With plans to build another large shed, Mr Barwick said he has no plans to stop collecting things anytime soon. 

“A few people have said what’s going to happen to all this stuff and I said well I won’t know about it when I’m dead,” he said. 

“I’m just enjoying my passion while I’m alive.”

Gallery of Leo's collection below