Tractor Time

It's time once again for the vintage tractors of Cambridgeshire to take to the road 

to raise money for the National Health Service

 - and to delight boys and girls of all ages.

We met up with them in the nearby village of Barrington

 where we saw them passing the church.

Here comes the convoy!

All very nice on a sunny day at the end of June

but not so much fun ploughing in winter. 

Somebody remarked, when I visited a steam show last year

that they never saw any women driving the machines.

These two photos show that they enjoy the old machines

just as much as the menfolk.

I like it that many of the tractors look as though they've just come off the farm.

A happy young man.

"Now woss that big owd bit o' tackle then?"

The puttering procession continues through the village.

Hey, that's cheating - having a cab!

Our Dad used to drive one like this on the farm,

though with a muck scraper on the back rather than a union flag.

Of course he drove other tractors, 

but somehow the little red Fergie was always called "Ted's tractor"

Dad passed away in 2010, but today 29th June 2024 would have been his 100th birthday.

Carrying on past the village green.

Down to the far end where they will park up on the green for their lunch break.

There were around a hundred tractors, as well as support vehicles,

but somehow there was space for everyone.

Then you can all gather round and talk about tractors!

Or just relax and enjoy the sunshine.

Meanwhile the photographer can wander about and notice those little details

that aren't obvious when they're rattling by along the road.

 

Or poke their lenses at greasy engines 

and pretend they understand what they're looking at.

And you can meet a real live bear

collecting money for Addenbrooke's Hospital!

*******

Ted Hagger,

our Dad.

Take care.

Stuff

We all collect lots of stuff on our passage through life. Most of it is useless junk that we could easily do without. But, oh, it's so hard to part with any of it! Amongst it all there are just a few items which have value beyond usefulness, beyond monetary worth and really beyond all logical evaluation. For these are items which carry memories, a story or connect us with our past.

When the last cart left the harvest field adorned with the "horkey branch" it was a sign that the harvest was over for another year - but was it? For the end of the men's labour was also the start of the gleaning season for the womenfolk. Young girls and women could then go out into the fields to collect any grain which had been left behind. The two vases above were bought by my great-grandmother from money earned in this way when she was a girl. Somehow they caught her eye and she just had to have them. They must be at least 120 years old, probably of no great value, but they charm everyone who sees them, just as they must have charmed a young girl all those years ago.

The old copper kettle was unearthed in the wood by my grandmother. She spent hours polishing it up, as has my own mother (and I must have spent an hour or two on it myself). When I was a boy the back of it was black from being heated on the fire but gradually even that part has become shiny. Dad always thought that his mother had probably thrown it out there herself years before but then thought better of it and retrieved it from its grave.

Sixty years ago my mother got married, an old lady turned up at the wedding that my mother had never seen before. She later learned that it was Dad's aunt, Aunt Sarah Radford as he always referred to her. The old lady told my mother that she made a beautiful bride then went home. She returned later with the plate above saying that she wanted my parents to have it as a wedding present. I have no idea of its age though it certainly looks ancient.

My mother's family came from London where my grandfather had a coal-delivery business. The photo shows the family on their way to a show in the inter-war years. My grandfather's horses often won prizes at such shows. He lost his father at an early age and had to deliver coal before going to school each morning, with the result that he often fell asleep at his desk. Despite being born and bred in the heart of the city he was something of a country man at heart. After the war he moved out of London and took over a country inn. Sadly he died before he had much time to enjoy it. He was only 49. 

My dad's old penknife. He carried it in his back pocket for years. The blade used to get sharpened on any handy wall or post. It reminds me of the time we worked together on the
farm.

Take care.

Foggy Bottom

If you enjoyed the recent trip to Bressingham Gardens and Steam Museum then you'll be pleased to learn that there's another part to the garden which you've yet to visit. It's a bit tucked-away and difficult to find but well worth the effort. It was Dad's favourite area; he loved all the trees and the different shades of green. Although it's still beautiful I was disappointed to see, on my last visit, that a lot of the trees have been cleared. Never mind, by the wonders of digital technology I can show you what Foggy Bottom, for that's its unlikely name, looked like when Dad loved it so.

The garden was the creation of Adrian Bloom, one of the founder's sons. If you manage a visit then you'll find very few people around - they don't seem to wander far from the tea-shop!

Take care.

Harvest

When I was a little boy Dad used to work for Old Tom Ayers, one of the last farmers in Cambridgeshire to use a reaper and binder. I remember seeing Mr Ayers, dressed in his farmer's smock, inspecting the sheaves being brought in on the trailer. But I was more interested in what was going on in the field next to our bungalow, for two combines had entered by the gap near the big oak tree and were progressing slowly around the headlands. One, going at a little under walking pace, said Massey Ferguson on the side, while the other, going even slower, was a Massey Harris; you could just make it out through the dust and rust.

My brother and I sat all morning at the side of the field watching the coming and going of tractors and trailers. Later that week we saw the field near Highfield Farm being cut using a combine which was operated by two men, one driving and one filling the sacks with grain and sliding them down a chute. Meanwhile, back in the other field, the baler was in use. A man drove the tractor and a young boy stood on the sledge behind the baler, stacking bales into heaps then pushing them off the back. The next afternoon men came with pitchforks and loaded the bales onto a trailer, secured them with ropes and carted them away.

By the time I was old enough to join in things had changed a bit. The combines were a little larger and faster, some even had cabs. The sledge behind the baler now had a gate on the back which was operated by means of a cord by the tractor driver and simply dumped the bales in rough heaps around the field. I got the job of stacking the bales up tidily till they could be collected.

Improvements happened every few years. The farm where I now worked in the school holidays bought a bale elevator which was a great improvement on pitching the bales up by hand. Red plastic string was now used to tie the bales. We tried plastic sheeting to cover the straw stacks but it was not a success; the sheets used to split and the rainwater poured into the middle of the stack ruining many bales. Then we got a "flat-eight" loader, which meant that the bales could be loaded with a tractor rather than man power. A huge straw barn was built, which kept the straw dry but it was extremely hot, dusty, unpleasant work to stack bales up under the roof. Yes, I'd stacked the bales in the field so tidily that I'd now graduated to stacking in the barn!

In the early days the boss used to bring us bottles of beer during the afternoon. Later it changed to a jug of tea, which was just as welcome. Dad and I always got a little extra in our pay packet at the end of harvest "for making a good job of the stacks".

Al that ended twenty years ago when Dad retired and I decided to try a different kind of work. I can't say I miss the work at all and I'd much rather watch someone else doing it.

Some interesting comparisons:

According to Rowland Parker in his excellent, though sadly out of print, book "The Common Stream", in August 1885 twenty-four men with scythes were able to cut a thirty acre field of barley in a day. In 1970 that same field was harvested by 3 men in a day. Using a combine harvester the grain was all in a silo in the farmyard, whereas the 24 men of 1885 still had to turn, rake, heap, cart, stack and thresh their harvest. Nowadays bigger combines, tractors and trailers would make the operation even quicker.

Farm workers wage 1945 - £4 for 48 hours         Price of loaf of bread 1945 - 4d

Farm workers wage 2011 - £260 for 39 hours     Price of loaf of bread  2011 - £1

This means that in 1945 a man had to work for 15mins to earn the price of a loaf. Nowadays it takes a man only 10 minutes to earn his loaf - though the pay's still awful! 

Just out of interest I looked online to find the price of a modern combine. I found a two-year old second-hand Claas combine going at £157,000. You can buy a house for that!

Take care.

In Dad's Footsteps



Dad in younger days on the meadows

 When Dad retired from work through ill-health he was told by the doctor that the best thing he could do to help his emphysema was to walk. Dad walked a little further each day till he could walk to Cambridge and back, a round trip of about five miles. He became a familiar sight walking through Grantchester Meadows carrying his backpack to bring home whatever bargains he could find in town. A week ago he would have had his 87th birthday and I found myself on Dad's route and, naturally enough, thinking about him.

Leaving Grantchester, Cambridge bound.

Dad always loved gardens and country life.

A favourite view.

He always stopped a while at this spot.

It's the place I think of him most.

The gate to the next meadow.

Another place to pause.

The weather wasn't perfect for photos but

that wouldn't have stopped my father;

he went to town whatever the weather.

A pocketful of walnuts could be found here,

to be carried home and saved for Christmas.

The butcher's at Newnham.

Newnham millpond.

And Silver Street Mill.

Whenever Dad came home from holiday there

were always lots of photos of boats.

Past the bike-shop.

And finally to the Market Square.

Take care.