Old Pond publishing days

New Zealand Country Calendar Director's Pick DVD advance information

Country Calendar Director’s Pick, TVNZ. DVD approx 183 minutes. ISBN 978-1-908397-32-4. Now available from Old Pond at £17.95 inc. VAT.

Originally released by TVNZ in 2010.

For over 45 years TVNZ’s Country Calendar has brought the best of New Zealand’s farming and countryside to the screen: over two thousand programmes. In 2010 veteran presenter Frank Torley was asked to select his twelve favourites. This is the result – three hours ranging all over the country from 1974 to the present.

We know New Zealand is one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and this selection contains some wonderful filming. There are plenty of cattle, sheep, dogs and horses on view, as well as items on deer, land management, wine-growing and bee-keeping. But it is the people you will remember, outdoors men and women full of energy and enterprise from the couple producing wine with no experience to the fifteen-year-olds running 3,500 up-country acres.

The episode shown are:
Class 8 Country: restoration of over-grazed land
Deer Capture: 1970s capture of wild stock for farming
Snow Raking: livestock rescue in high-country snowstorm
Sweat, Steam and the Straw-Walloper: steam thrashing and horse-drawn binder
Orange Roughy: follows research into stocks of the fish species
Blind Bee Farmer: Bryce Hooton’s new enterprise after accidental blinding
Twins: fifteen-year-olds with big-station responsibility
Wild Cattle McGarrie: an exciting muster along the coastline and into the sea
Branches Station: an autumn muster of cattle and sheep in high country
Wild Cattle: helicopter round-up
Vines on the Hill: how to succeed in wine-producing with no experience
Dunstan Downs: an artist inspired by hard-country Merino work.

There is a catch-up on each story and, where available, there are captions for the hearing impaired.

Manapouri The World's Toughest Tunnel DVD advance information

Manapouri The Toughest Tunnel, NHNZ and TVNZ. DVD approx 50 minutes. ISBN 978-1-908397-31-7. Now in stock at Old Pond at £14.95 inc. VAT.

Manapouri was originally released in New Zealand in 2002.

New Zealand’s remote Doubtful Sound, in the south-west of the South Island, is a stunning area of tranquil lakes, plunging fjords and dense rainforests fed by 200 inches of rain a year.

In the 1960s a team of more than a thousand men undertook New Zealand’s biggest ever construction project – building a hydroelectric power station to take advantage of the massive water supply in the region.

The men drilled and blasted a six-mile tunnel and cathedral-sized power hall in extreme conditions – with the cost of the lives of sixteen workers. Almost as difficult was the twelve miles of road building needed to link the top of the tunnel with its outlet at sea level.

Thirty years later it was decided that a second tunnel was needed. This time, the main work was to be done by a state-of-the-art tunnel boring machine. But the geology challenged even this equipment. In most places the rock was so hard that cutters had to be replaced every six feet. To make matters worse, there were five earthquake fault bands where the hazards of crumbling rock and constantly falling water brought the machine to a halt and destroyed morale.

In order to link the tunnels more drill-and-blast work was needed and bulkheads were assembled under water. Tension reached fever pitch as the boring machine approached the hand-built tunnel. Would the two join up?

This absorbing programme from Natural History New Zealand covers both stages of tunnelling, with archive footage from the 1960s and new filming from the 1990s. It shows the skills of tunnel engineering and project management at their highest levels.

Biglorryblog has great things to say about the DVD Looking at Logging Part 2

If you go to biglorryblog you can see a really enthusiastic review of the DVD Looking at Logging Part 2. Here's a taste:

"Looking at Logging Part 2" is another cracker! I loved every minute and it's the perfect complement to Part 1.... When BLB reviewed Part 1, I foolishly said logging videos don't come much better - oh yes they do! And well done once again to Martin and Pete!"

Martin and Pete are of course Martin Phippard and Pete Connock of CP Productions. Details of how to obtain their programme are on biglorryblog or you can go direct to Old Pond here.

Massey Ferguson 3000 series tractor DVDs from Tractor Barn advance information

Massey Ferguson’s Thinking Tractors, Stephen Richmond and Jonathan Whitlam (Tractor Barn). Part One - Dawn of the Electronic Revolution, approx 100 minutes, ISBN 978-1-908397-35-5. Part Two - A New Power, approx 90 minutes, ISBN 978-1-908397-36-2. Each programme £16.95. Available now from Old Pond.

Tractor Barn has announced the imminent delivery of the first two DVDs in a 4-part series covering the Massey Ferguson 3000 series from its birth in 1986 to the range’s replacement in 1994. Stephen and Jonathan claim that 1986 ‘is when the modern tractor as we know it today was born … Massey Ferguson became the first tractor manufacturer to truly embrace electronics in agriculture.’ The programmes feature extensive archive footage as well as filming by Tractor Barn themselves.

In Part One - Dawn of the Electronic Revolution they deal with MF’s early electronic controls on the 4000 series of 1979, improved in the early 1980s with the 3500 series. But this was only the beginning as the company was about to take a giant leap forwards with the introduction of the new 3000 series in 1986 which bristled with electronic monitoring and control systems. Using previously unseen archive footage they show how the very first prototypes were tested and developed to produce the world’s first ‘thinking tractors’ and how these were then launched to the farming public alongside the smaller 300 series machines.

In Part Two - A New Power Stephen and Jonathan take the story forward with modifications to the 3000 series followed by the bigger 3600 series. ‘It soon became plain,’ they say, ‘that the new MF 3000 and 3600 series set the benchmark by which all other tractors would be measured.’ In this DVD the Tractor Barn duo include a wealth of  original Massey Ferguson films and also  provide ‘a unique look at one particular 3070 tractor at work on a Suffolk farm during the 1990s taken from our own archives, giving a fascinating case study of the 3070 model itself.’

To follow later this spring are Parts Three and Four. Part Three - Extended Family will cover the introduction of new models including the 3100 series. Part Four - End of an Era will cover the final new models in the 3000 series plus the Dynashift transmission and the replacement of the whole range in 1994.

More programmes by Tractor Barn can be found here.

Eddie Stobart Trucks and Trailers DVDs available

Old Pond is now able to offer Eddie Stobart Trucks and Trailers, the DVD sets of the complete first two Channel 5 television series.

Series 1, seven programmes, four disks, playing for approximately 315 minutes, is available with details here at £19.95.

Series 2, eight programmes, four disks, approx 360 minutes, £19.95, is available with details here.

There is also a saving on the Offers page of the Old Pond website: the two series together for £34.95.

Volvo F88 & F89 at Work second edition book by Patrick W Dyer advance information

Volvo F88 & F89 at Work Second Edition, Patrick W Dyer. Hardback, 210 x 265 mm, 144 pages including 200 photographs. ISBN 978-1-908397-15-7. Now in stock at Old Pond at £19.95.

Volvo revolutionised heavy truck design in 1964 with the introduction of the L4951 Titan TIPTOP. The new model brought the principle of the tilting cab to Europe and provided the foundations for the F88 of the following year. Safe, comfortable, powerful and reliable: the F88 was everything that the competition was not. ‘Driver appeal’ as a concept was born. Furthermore, it arrived exactly when the rapidly expanding international haulage scene needed it most. The result: Volvo could not fail to make an impact.

The F89, with more power, followed in 1970 and the UK only F88 290 was introduced in 1975. Over a twelve-year production life, Volvo built over 60,000 examples of the F88 and F89.

This second edition of Patrick Dyer's book includes virtually all the photographs that were in the original publication and also contains 50 additional shots, many from the Volvo company archive. This has enabled Patrick to give greater coverage to the G88 and G89 models which were infrequent visitors to the UK. Patrick has heavily revised and developed his text The format of the book is larger than before, in keeping with Patrick's books on Scania, DAF and the Ford Transcontinental.

Massey Ferguson Implements and Machinery Part 1 DVD advance information

Massey Ferguson Farm Implements and Machinery Part 1 1958-70, George French and Dennis Burston. DVD approx 90 minutes. Now in stock and available here from Old Pond at £16.95 inc VAT.

In the period 1958-70 Massey Ferguson developed an outstanding range of implements and machinery that worked as a team with an equally fine succession of tractors. The farmer could be sure to find in the dealerships the mechanical aids that were just right for his circumstances.

In order to achieve this, the company had to have a great diversity of machines available. Dennis Burston and George French indicate the scope by selecting original or authentically restored implements representative of the period and coupling them with appropriate tractors. They are filmed doing the work for which they were designed. The great age of the MF 35, 65 and 100 series as well as the early balers and combines is brought to life again. This is the first in a three-part series.
To be seen on this DVD:
Ferguson TEF and 2-furrow plough
M-H 744 and manure spreader
M-H 726 combine harvester
MF 35X and Ferguson 3-furrow plough
MF 65 and 793 4-furrow plough
MF 35X and 722 disc harrows
MF 35 and 714 flex spring-tine harrows
MF 65 and 728 Superseeder grain and fertiliser drill
MF 35 4-cylinder diesel and 735 loader
MF 35X and 712 dung spreader
MF 35 and 732 cutter-bar mower
MF 35 and 8 baler
MF 65 and 802 baler
MF 65 and 701 baler
MF 735 combine harvester
MF 780 combine harvester
MF 17 trailer
MF 165 and 41 3-furrow plough
MF 165 and 46 2-furrow reversible plough
MF 130 and 722 8ft disc harrows
MF 178 and 49 9ft disc harrows
MF 135 and 736 flexi harrows
MF 178 and 29 grain and fertiliser drill
MF 175 and 86 4-furrow plough
MF178 and 41 4-furrow plough
MF178 and 30 3-furrow reversible plough
MF130 and 37 flexible tine cultivator
MF 1100 and 37 cultivator plus crumbler roller
MF 165 and 32 finger-bar mower
MF 135 and 20 baler
MF 31 combine harvester
MF 400 combine harvester

William Castle to launch book about East Riding horselad at Shire Horse Show

You can meet William Castle (right) at the National Shire Horse Show, Peterborough showground, this Sunday 18th March. William will be launching his new book at 11.30 am on the Heavy Horse World magazine stand in the exec building.

The book in question is Ron Creasey last of the horselads, a hardback full of authentic information and anecdote about farm horse work in the East Riding in the 1940s and '50s. Come and meet William, explore his own extensive knowledge of working horses, and obtain a signed copy of his book.

Ron Creasey last of the horselads book by William Castle now in stock

Ron Creasey last of the horselads, hardback book by William Castle recounting a detailed and vivid picture of life working with farm horses in the East Riding, Holderness area is now available from Old Pond at £19.95. Full details here

Farm Office Handbook for farm secretaries and administrators now published

Farm Office Handbook, a practical reference source for anyone involved in farm administration in the United Kingdom, prepared by members of the Insititute of Agricultural Secretaries and Administrators, has now been published at £19.95 by Old Pond Publishing. Details are here.