Manawatū legend Freebairn proud of how life turned out for him

Peter Lampp is an experienced sports commentator and former sports editor based in Manawatū.

OPINION: Stuart Freebairn did rather well in life after coming from humble beginnings in the Great Depression years of the 1930s.

He became an All Black wing and a respected Feilding pharmacist who married the very athletic and sporty, Coleen.​

He was proud when daughter Sally became a pharmacist too, when son John became a lawyer in Palmerston North and Ross an intensive care specialist in Hastings.

Stuart is the ninth-longest surviving All Black, still in good health in Havelock North. His All Blacks’ journey was the five-months-long 1953-54 tour to Britain, France, Canada and California.

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He and Southland loose forward Bill McCaw, 95, are the only survivors from that team.

At 91 and with his memory sharp, he puts his longevity down to good luck, simple living, never smoking, gardening, running and playing squash, golf and tennis.

Freebairn was one of those rare All Blacks who never played in his 1st XV.

At Feilding Agricultural High School he was in the 2nd XV and in the cricket 1st XI where he remembered facing fearsome fast bowler Tommy Downes in club matches.

Freebairn is at pains to point out how lucky he has been that many people helped him along the way, such as elderly Feilding lawyer Tom Seddon who paid his way to the 1949 Scouts Jamboree in Australia.

Freebairn was born in New Plymouth and while never deprived, it was tough going for his parents during the Depression.

They never owned a car or house, and he didn’t pedal a bike until he went to high school.

Which was why he ran everywhere, including around the Pukekura Park track while his mother and grandmother tended the kiosk there.

A neighbour was an athletics club president who bought the young lad a pair of running shoes.

In rugby, he was never out-sprinted by anyone.

He represented West Coast North Island at the nationals in Dunedin in the long jump and sprint relays and was reputed to be quicker than famous All Black Ron Jarden, although he had a rapid take-off.

Freebairn’s father was training to be an optometry technician until he lost his job during the Depression and went to work on the roads.

The family shifted in 1939 when his father got a job at the Feilding freezing works and for a year they lived in Longburn where Stuart became acquainted with famous 1905 All Black Bunny Abbott who was a farrier-blacksmith there.

It was he who demonstrated to the young Freebairn the art of the sidestep and the swerve without losing pace.

While Freebairn went on to play for the All Blacks and 84 games for Manawatū (53 tries), becoming a pharmacist became a better lifetime choice than rugby.

He enjoyed schooling and when a local chemist approached the school looking for an apprentice, Freebairn took it up. He might have gone to university, but his family couldn’t afford it.

He joined Feilding Yellows in 1949, working on Saturday mornings before rugby in the afternoon.

In his first season of senior rugby in 1952, he played for Manawatū and a year later was winging away with the first All Blacks to travel by air, on a journey which bunny-hopped from Sydney to Darwin, Indonesia, Calcutta, Cairo, Switzerland to Shannon in Ireland.

”The trip [alone] was an experience.”

There was nothing of him at 11.6 stone (73kg), ultra light by today’s scales, and he wasn’t the smallest All Black.

He didn’t feature in any of the tests; those were mostly the preserve of senior wingers Jarden and Morrie Dixon.

Freebairn didn’t even get to be a test reserve because they didn’t have reserve benches in those days and injured players weren’t replaced. He played in 14 of the 36 games scoring 10 tries.

That was the last All Black side to lose to Wales who Freebairn admitted were a great side.

The brilliant Cliff Morgan later returned to New Zealand as a commentator and dined with the Freebairns in Feilding.

Stuart’s only loss as an All Black was in France where the French liaison officer confided ”the referee was beyond belief”.

When Freebairn played Combined Services at Twickenham and the All Blacks whipped the ball expertly through the backs, he was startled when an English player said, ”well played”.

In Freebairn’s estimation, that was ”the mark of a true gentleman”.

Many claim the selectors never forgave him for taking 1954 off to complete his pharmacist studies in Wellington where a condition was that he not take time off for rugby.

He never wore the black jersey again.

He still wonders if the year’s hiatus was a factor because he played seven more seasons for Manawatū, had four All Black trials, and scored tries galore. Playing for Manawatū was when he played his best rugby, he said.