engaging your mind and body with a fascinating, yet surprisingly affordable
hobby, you’ll also be helping to preserve our
rural artifacts for future
generations. And that’s a win-win situation. FCan old-fashioned smallhold-Josephine Roberts lives on
ing in Snowdonia, North
Wales, and has a passion for all things vintage. Email
her at [email protected].had spent its life in their area of Wales. They were successful with their bid and
the pair happily took their new trac-tor home. The registration plate of the
tractor is “5807 UN.” UN designates a
Denbighshire plate, but as it happens, it is also Welsh for “one,” which is also
significant in that this was John’s first
collectible tractor. As soon as John and Gwyn brought
the 35X back to John’s yard, they em-
barked on the restoration project. Days of relentless preparation – in the form
of stripping the tractor down, clean-ing and sanding – took place. John
decided he wanted to finish the trac-
tor in time to take it on the Flintshire Vintage & Classic Tractor Society Road
Run. It was a real goal to aim for, and
something positive to look forward to. There was a lot of elbow grease in-
volved in the restoration, plenty of fid-
dly work and a bit of shopping around for replacement parts, all of which
proved to be no small achievement for someone who was going through
chemotherapy and frequently suffered
from bouts of sickness.However, the fact that John had
something to focus on and look for-
ward to, something other than can-cer and hospital appointments, really
helped the dark days fly by. “It was im-
mensely therapeutic for me,” he says, “and above all, it took my mind off
what I was going through, and stopped
me brooding.” John managed to get the tractor finished, and attended the
Road Run with his new gleaming trac-tor, much to the pride of his family.
John went on to beat cancer, but he
will never forget how it felt to have that question mark hanging over his
life. Today he is grateful not only for
the support of his family, but also for an old tractor that gave him some-
thing to focus on for a while. The 35X
also launched a new hobby for him. John went on to buy a second tractor,
a 1947 David Brown Cropmaster, with which he began to plough competi-
tively.
has ploughed thousands of acres of As an agricultural contractor, John
land over the years. But he had never
ploughed competitively. “There are a few of us older lads who have just tak-
en up the hobby,” he says. John is also
proud to be a member of two local vin-tage tractor clubs. He says that tractor
clubs are like a lifeline to people who wish to embark on a new hobby. They
offer support and friendship to many
people who are elderly or who live alone and they also help raise a huge
amount of money for charity.
A refreshing change
My brother Pete has always claimed
that ploughing on a vintage tractor is good for the soul. Sometimes on days
off from his job working on the high-
ways for the local authority, Pete will go and plough a field. He has found
that some large contractors don’t
wish to bother ploughing small par-cels, and he is more than happy to fill
the gap in the market. He claims that
he enters an almost trance-like state as he completes furrow after furrow,
and that it is impossible to be stressed or in a bad mood whilst ploughing.
Eating your lunch leaning up against
a tree beside your favourite tractor makes for the best picnic ever, and
at the close of the day, being able to
stand and survey the neatly folded brown furrow gives one a real sense of
pride. “Good honest work, that’s what
it is,” he says. Sometimes a change really is as good
as a rest, and for people who live and work in towns and offices, the oppor-
tunity to get away from the desk and
do something completely different is therapy in itself. Whilst many people
involved in the vintage tractor hob-
by come from farming backgrounds, some enjoy the hobby because it is so
utterly different from what they do in
their day-to-day lives.Consider accountant-turned-com-
petitive ploughman Robert Godfrey,
who spends every available piece of spare time ploughing on his Fergu-
son tractor. “I’m always pleased to get out of my suit, away from the desk
and behind the wheel of the tractor,”
he says. When he started “messing around with tractors” in the 1970s,
he says, he was unusual. Nearly all the
other enthusiasts were from the agri-cultural community. “I really was the
oddball in those days,” he says with a
laugh. “A chartered accountant in the middle of all the farmers!”
ploughing enthusiasts are an extreme-Robert has found that tractor and
ly friendly and utterly genuine bunch
of people, “the nicest people you could hope to meet.” Part of what’s
wonderful about competitive plough-
men, he says, is that they participate simply for the love of their machines
and for the appreciation of the art of
ploughing, not for any financial gain, and not for any recognition.
simple pleasure from tinkering with If you are someone who can gain
an old implement or machine, then
you probably have your life sorted. You’re the kind of person who never
gets bored, and whilst you’re busyBritainBritainGreat GreatSnowdoniaSnowdoniaNorth North WalesWales
✭- therapeutic. Shown here is accountant Hobbies can be extremely
Robert Godfrey, competing at a ploughing match on one of his
Ferguson tractors. Robert says he loves
to be able to do something completely different from his work on weekends. - Robert in his office with some of
his numerous ploughing trophies. He is the ploughing coordinator for
the Friends of Ferguson Heritage,
an international organization that celebrates the engineering genius of
Harry Ferguson. - of my suit, away from the desk and “I’m always pleased to get out
behind the wheel of the tractor,”
Robert says. - John is a popular name here, so to
distinguish one from another, John
Davies’ nickname locally is “John the Farmer.” Coincidentally, his David Brown
Cropmaster’s registration letters are
“JTF.” Some things are just meant to be! - Sometimes hobbies can be real
lifesavers. When John Davies was
diagnosed with cancer, it was the start of a dark and difficult time for
him. With the help of his son, John purchased this Massey Ferguson 35X
in an auction and set about restoring
it. Both man and tractor are now in fine working order. - The registration of John’s Massey
Ferguson 35X is “Un,” Welsh for “one,” quite appropriate since this was
John’s first collectable tractor, and the
start of a whole new hobby for him. - In addition to the satisfaction of
preserving artifacts from our rural and
industrial past, Paul Jones also gains huge pleasure from just tinkering.
He is shown here with his No. 2
corn-grinding mill built by Henry Bamford & Sons of Uttoxeter with
a Colonial sifter, which sieves the flour into three grades.
http://www.FarmCollector.com March 2016 15