General News
8 May, 2025
Blue turns 100!
Kevin ‘Blue’ Milgate celebrated his 100th birthday with family and friends at Gilgandra Sporties on Saturday, May 3. It was a very special occasion to mark this remarkable milestone.
Blue was born in Gilgandra at the Chinnock Hospital on May 3, 1925 and has lived all his life in the Gilgandra shire.
His brother and sister, George and Leila predeceased him, and they both also lived to good ages.
In recent years, Blue has called Cooee Lodge his home after being a born and bred farmer for most of his life.
Blue loved farm life and his sheep, cattle, and working dogs.
Blue’s family would have been what you could call one of the original share farmers when his family had a tractor and the Don Rogers family had a header.
Between the shared tractor and header the harvest was done and that’s how people got things done in those days.
A few stories of Blue’s life came up during the afternoon one of which being when his good mate Mick Harvey went to Blue’s farm and couldn’t find him.
His wife advised that his was in the shed or on the tractor.
In going to the shed there was no Blue or no tractor to be seen.
Further investigation found that Blue had decided to jump start the tractor which then proceeded to go through the back wall of the shed through a pile of steel and came to a sudden halt when he hit a power pole.
Mick commented that Blue was ‘ok’ but he was very pale.
Blue has had a couple of very close calls in his life in having to learn to walk again three times after illness when he was young, and a bad car accident many years ago, but he always came through.
One of Blue’s great memories in life was his sporting days taking on cricket, tennis, golf, and lawn bowls.
Blue’s great friend of over 60 years won many bowls tournaments over the years.
He modestly claimed to have not been the best sportsman but the great friends he made along the way was a big highlight for him and something he has appreciated all his life.
One of the cricketing stories was him opening the batting with Don Rogers and neither of them ever got run out as they wouldn’t leave the crease.
Not sure if that is totally correct as Blue has had bad hips the last few years and it was suggested that if he had hit more fours and sixes during his cricketing days and not so many singles his hips wouldn’t be worn out now.
One of his good mates Bruce Rogers advised that Blue never made a hundred at cricket so he made up for it in birthdays.
Rambo also told the story of Blue inviting the Glenbrook bowlers years ago out to his farm to see a few sheep being shorn.
In lining up Mick Harvey and Rambo to do the shearing the lads arrived to Blue’s in finding that he had penned up a 100 crossbreed ewes for the shearing exhibition. Good thinking Blue. In life, Blue has had some ups and downs, some good times and same bad times but overall he has had very good life with a lot of very fond memories. When asked, one of the biggest things in his life was the invention of electricity which made life so much easier.
In cutting the birthday cake Blue thanked the many friends and family for helping him celebrate his 100th birthday.
Happy Birthday Blue!
