Sunday Roast - Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Magazine July 18 2004
RISE AND SHINE
Wil Anderson left farm life behind for more civilised sleeping hours in the city. So how did he end up in a job that dictates he rise at 3.45am? No, he doesn’t know, either…
If you are reading this over your breakfast on a Sunday morning, chances are I’m still in end bed. Don’t picture it, it’ll put you off your eggs.
I love sleeping in, but sadly as my day job for the last five years is co-hosting the breakfast show on Triple J, on every single weekday, my alarm has gone off at exactly 3.45am. (Yes, there’s a 3.45 in the morning, too.)
Let me assure you, getting up at that time of the day messes with more than your mind. Put it this way, there’s a part of a man’s body that – how can I say this nicely? – sometimes gets up a little earlier than you do.
Well, when your alarm goes off at 3.45am, even your penis is saying, “Seriously, dude, five more minutes!” The only reason Little Willy salutes at that time of the morning is because he is trying to reach the snooze button.
Sadly, apart from three years at university doing a BA when my idea of Good Morning Australia was being up in time for The Bold and Beautiful, I seem to have been rising early all my life.
Even as a teenager, when sleeping in is as important as breathing, I had to get up early to milk cows. Yes, that’s right, I’m a farm boy.
I grew up on a farm in rural Victoria just outside a small country town called Heyfield, population 2000. For those who don’t know, Heyfield is actually an Aboriginal word that means “place of limited job opportunities”.
My parents, Chris and Graeme, are dairy farmers, and I spent the first 17 years of my life in a small house on Andersons Road, which was actually named after my grandfather who built the road. Yes, cue banjo music now.
But that’s nothing compared to my dad who has spent all 60 years of his life living on the same road. People often ask me if my parents are proud of my success, I think they’re just proud I’m not married to my own sister. (I mean we dated, but it didn’t work out.)
Truth be told, I actually loved growing up on the farm, apart from two days a year – Christmas and my birthday. These were the days when it sucked to be a farm kid, because while our friends were getting bikes and toys, on every special occasion without fail, we would receive pets as presents.
Now I don’t want to seem ungrateful. I love animals, and I understand there’s plenty of city kids reading this right now who would have loved a pet as a pressie, but if you grew up on a farm, pets are the worst present you can get.
Because let’s face it, there are pets everywhere on a farm. A farm is nothing but pets. You can have a cow, sheep or chicken as a pet. So to piss off our parents, we would name out pets after what we really wanted for Christmas. We had a cat called Cricket Bat, a dog called Barbie Dream House and a couple of goldfish called Decent Bloody Parents.
But by far, the worst thing about farm life was getting up in the morning to milk cows. I just never understood why you had to milk the cows at 5am. Why couldn’t we do it at a more civilised hour like 10am? Let’s face it, the cows have bugger all else to do.
Never once was I milking a cow and saw it tapping its watch saying, “Hurry up, I’ve got things to do today! I’ve got pilates with the horses at seven, I’m helping the chicken across the road at nine, at 10 I have to vote with the donkey and then I’m having roast beef with the little piggy and going to the markets, and I’ve got to wee wee wee all the way home by five to be a steak and a leather jacket by dinner.”
Farm life would have been so much easier if cows were as lazy as humans. I would have loved to overhear my dad getting that phone call every Monday morning, “Yeah, g’day Graeme, it’s Daisy mate! Don’t think I’ll be coming in today. I had a huge weekend on the grass, and now all my four stomachs are playing up. I drank so much, one of my teets is leaking Kahlua and milk, and I might even be coming down with a little bit of mad cows. I think I might have to stay at home and milk myself!”
I still remember the day I told my dad I didn’t want to be a farmer because I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life getting up at five o’clock in the morning.
And I still remember what he said to me when he called me at 3:45am all those years later on my first day of work at the Jays, “Good luck today, son, I’m proud of you. Now I’m just going to sleep in for another hour…”
Wil Anderson is the host of The Brekkie Show on Triple J with Adam Spencer, as well as co-host of The Glass House on ABC TV
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