Pearces Creek Hall’s annual Harvest Produce Auction outbids urban ‘convenience’ by a country mile, writes Craig Patch-Taylor.

It’s a Saturday evening at the start of spring and the little community hall in Pearces Creek is buzzing. The timber stage is packed high with fresh produce: a forest of cut flowers and potted plants, boxes of fruit, cartons of eggs, still-warm baked goods and preserves — all donated, all local. It’s the Pearces Creek Hall Harvest Produce Auction and it’s all that remains of a tradition that was once common across the region.

Many church congregations used to celebrate the arrival of spring with a Sunday Harvest Festival. Pearces Creek Hall became the local church on Sundays and so was smartly kitted out with the donated version of God’s plentiful bounty: corn stalks lining the walls, boxes of stone fruit and winter veg, buckets of dairy produce and pork. On the Monday, rather than a tiresome cleanup, an auction was held. Everyone showed up, shared supper and then playfully bid for the right to take home each other’s stuff. It got the hall cleaned up, gave folks a fun evening out and raised funds for maintenance.

Now held on a more accessible (and more secular) Saturday, little else about this long-held tradition has changed. Farmers, families and local businesses still donate everything, a community supper is prepared and shared, followed by a noisy, action-packed and fiercely competitive auction.

So, while the little ones tear around outside, energised by the fading light, their adults jostle amongst the bounty, mentally setting aside the must-haves, estimating hammer prices and setting bid limits.

With three auctioneers (three!), including lead spruiker Matt Savins, young gun Flynn Formaggin and old hand Ron Chittick (cautiously letting the new kids have a crack after ‘twenty-something’ years of Pearces Creek auctions) — there was plenty of action on the stage. Matt’s local roots go deep, part of the Savins family from Nashua, and he started auctioneering young. “I think I was about 13 years old when I had my first go at a Bangalow poultry auction with Jim Hanley, who has now passed away,” he said.

Pearces Creek presents a rather different challenge for an auctioneer, with everything from plants and produce to jars of lemon curd and pickles going under the hammer. “It’s a pretty different style of auctioneering compared to cattle, that’s for sure,” Matt said.

Bruce McKechnie (another local legend) was out on the floor, showcasing and hand delivering sale items, and unwittingly stealing the show, whooping and pointing to each live bid whilst balancing whatever was on sale in his free hand. Bidding was feverish, frequently reckless and occasionally outrageous — kids throwing in sneaky last minute firecracker bids with or without parental go-ahead — but everyone knows where the money ends up and it doesn’t trouble a soul.

We’re taking home the things our neighbours have grown and made, benefitting from each other’s excess. It feels complete and cyclical, a million miles from the ‘convenience’ of supermarket shopping. We took home a bootload of absolute treasure and enjoyed a Sunday breakfast rich with the spoils of a night well spent.

Despite numerous attempts, no one could provide a definitive answer on how long the Pearces Creek Hall Auction has been running. It might be 100 years, or 85, it’s definitely more than 50, but actually, I no longer want to know. It’s kind of refreshing in these times for a simple fact to be so sweetly out of reach.

See you next year.

Craig Patch-Taylor

*a condensed version of this story first appeared in the October print edition of The Bangalow Herald