Old Pond publishing days

Archive footage online for free viewing

We all know that various institutions hold a wealth of archive film. Some of the more 'commercial' range has been issued on DVD, but this is only a fraction of what is held in collections throughout Britain.

If you haven't yet discovered it, have a look at the website of the East Anglian Film Archive. Their new approach is to put footage online for free viewing. So far they have loaded 200 hours. Presumably this is just the start and as time goes on they will be adding even more. You can search by browsing or by using criteria such as date, place, genre, people and subject.

I have picked one film more or less at at random: The Market Gardener 1949 Layham, Suffolk, a joy for garden machinery enthusiasts.

Agriculture in Germany DVDs from Jörn and Tammo Gläser advance information

Agriculture in Germany Volumes 1-4, Jörn and Tammo Gläser . DVDs: Volumes 1,2 & 3 run for 90 minutes; Volume 4 is 100 minutes. Each DVD has a full English commentary. You can buy individual Volumes at £19.95 (inc. VAT) each or the four together in a handsome boxed set for £74.95. Now in stock at Old Pond.

Agricultural film-makers Jörn and Tammo Gläser have travelled widely through Germany to make four new programmes to document the work of farmers and contractors using the latest agricultural machinery. In total there are 120 examples of farm work including over 250 modern tractors, crawlers, combines, forage harvesters and specialist vehicles. Enthusiasts of their previous documentaries on farming in North America and Russia will need no introduction to their highly popular productions.

Volume 1 starts in early in a wet spring when soft ground makes cultivation difficult. Agricultural contractors are drilling beet and planting potastoes. Soil preparation for spring cereals is in full swing.

Volume 2 moves into early summer with New Holland and Claas forage harvesters taking first cuts of grass. Large-scale Krone combines are at work, and the highlights of the programme include the 524 hp Claas Xerion 5000 and the Agco Challenger.

In Volume 3, combines with cutterbars up to 12 metres are busy harvesting, followed by balers and large John Deere articulated tractors dealing with the stubble.  Film from Bavaria deals with grassland and we see forestry machines at work in Hesse.

Machines at work in Volume 4 – the autumn – include the Krone BigX 1100 and Fendt’s new Kantana 65 forage harvester as well as the Claas Lexion 770 and Case IH Quadtrac. Winter cereals are being drilled, while sugar beet is harvested and loaded.

The programmes are narrated in English, German, French, Spanish and Italian.

New Threshing Machines book published

Threshing Machines, Trevor Gregory. Hardback 290 x 208 mm, 256 pages inc. approx 245 photographs and 132 line illustrations. Published by Japonica Press and available from them at £27.95.

If you are going to pay twenty-eight pounds for a book you expect something substantial. Here you get it. Threshing Machines is large-format, wide-ranging and packed full of illustrations.

The contents are: Before the machine • crops • schematic design • construction • variations • accessories, variants and exports • operation • adjustment • surveying the makers • ancillary equipment • historical context • early attempts • developments after 1840 • motive power: before steam; steam; oil • governors • preservation and restoration • combine harvester metamorphosis. There is a list of illustrations, glossary and bibliography, but no index.

AEC Matador book reprinted and HAC at Nieuwport 1945

AEC Matador: taking the rough with the smooth, Steve Richards. Paperback 280 x 215 mm, 80 pages inc. approx 167 photographs. Published by Japonica Press and available from them at £15.99.

This is a high-quality reprint of the book first published in 2009 by the author.

Part 1 deals with the AEC (0)853 4x4 Matador, armoured command vehicle, Deacon SP gun and civilian adaptations. Part 2 covers the (0) 854 6x6 refueller, Coles crane, mobile oxygen-nitrogen plant. There are also 15 pages of appendices including military colours, AEC types, Irish Matadors and a list of the surviving vehicles.

The photographs below are not included in the book but are from my own family album.

Patrick Doyle, my godfather (seen in the first photograph) accompanied the Canadians in the Normandy landings. After the end of the European war he was at Nieuwport in Belgium. The two images are from August 1945. The late Patrick Doyle was Gnr PD Doyle of the Honourable Artillery Company HAC 1813018. He served with the Royal Sussex Regiment.

Special Transport DVD advance information

Special Transport, Gertjan Houtman. DVD, approx 70 minutes. ISBN 978-1-908397-09-6. Now available from Old Pond at £16.95 inc VAT.

Among the Dutch transport companies there are several with a world-wide reputation for moving heavy and outsized loads. This programme features the work of three of them.

We see the Sarens group transporting the largest sections of a newly built cutter-suction dredger as well as a port container crane.

Mammoet’s skill with SPMTs is demonstrated when they move three heavy Smit transformers over water, road and use 2-stack work to cross a railway. We also see them place two viaducts, one of which is over a hundred metres long.

Saan’s special load is a Hercules plane being taken from its museum to painting facilities in Lelystad. This involved lifts to ‘hop’ over roads.

Finally there are some trailer transports, one with a houseboat and one with a steel vessel for a refinery.

Gertjan Houtman is a Dutch journalist and film-maker who specialises in heavy transport. His company is called Videoprofessionals.

Massey Ferguson old boys get-together

We had a very good weekend at the Newark Tractor Show where we were joined on our stand by David Walker, author of Inside Massey Ferguson: a story of service published by Farm Power.

Having signed and sold a good few books, and having had some lengthy meetings of mind with Massey enthusiasts, David (left in the picture) enjoyed a surprise visit from another MF partner in crime John Kirkham (right).

David's 21 years of service with the company was bested by John at 45. Apparently they first met in 1952 when David would have been seven. They met again at Coventry in 1966 but hadn't seen each other since 1987. John was Tractor Service Manager with MF; David a regional service manager. They had a lot of memories to swap.

New beekeeping DVD in stock

A New Introduction to Beekeeping with Paul Metcalf, DVD approx 70 minutes, is now in stock at Old Pond at £19.95 inc. VAT.

Paul's companion DVD, Honey a beekeeper's guide, is expected in early December.

New information on Frederick Rolfe the King of the Norfolk Poachers

In 1935 Frederick Rolfe - although his name was not revealed at the time - was made famous by Lilias Rider Haggard in her 'Life and History', I walked by Night. In 2009 Charlotte Paton researched the real man, publishing her findings in The King of the Norfolk Poachers.

Charlotte reports that since publication of the hardback "barely a week goes by without someone contacting me about Fred, his book, his life and times". The photograph opposite is one of the new finds, Frederick Rolfe in 1927. It was generously given to Bungay Museum after its owner found it among the effects of her late mother and recognised the name on the back.

There has always been some debate as to whether Rolfe actually wrote the material that was included in Lilias's book. When Charlotte prepared her own account, and subsequently released a DVD The Truth Behind "I Walked by Night", there was little supporting evidence. However, she has recently come across this reproduction of a letter in a 1936 edition of the East Anglian Magazine.

Written by Rolfe to Lilias Rider Haggard in November 1933 (click on the image for an enlargement), it refers to his writing about prison conditions and continues: 'I am shure I can rite some interesting things of how the Labour lived and fared 60 years ago ...' Confirmation that he did indeed write at least the basis of what was to become a classic of rural literature, I Walked by Night.

Irene Grimwood the Land Girl inspiring the BBC television series

The Radio Times issue 5-11 November includes on page 51 a preview of the new BBC1 drama series Land Girls.

Writer Roland Moore says that his inspiration was a photograph he had seen of former land girls returning to their wartime billet and looking over the wall at the rectory that was once their home. He saw the image in one of our books, Land Girls at the Old Rectory, by Irene Grimwood.

The photograph below shows Irene at the Suffolk Show launch of her book in June 2000. We have recently reprinted it for the third time. (Photo: Martin Looker, BHR Communications.)

Four years ago Irene was invited back into the rectory - blog 27 January 2008 – to be interviewed by ITV Anglia. Now approaching her 90th birthday, Irene continues to live in Ipswich.

Old Pond has four books of reminiscences and one DVD in the Land Girls section of our website.