Old Pond publishing days

The Nuffield Tractor Story Volume 2: Nuffield and Leyland 1963-1982 is now in stock

At long last! Anthony Clare's book,The Nuffield Tractor Story Volume 2: Nuffield and Leyland 1963-1982, has come into stock at Old Pond. It is a hardback with over 200 photographs and a carefully researched text. Secure online ordering and more details are here.

Eddie Stobart Trucks and Trailers Series 5 DVD is now in stock

Another five and a half hours of enjoyment are now available for Stobart fans with the release of their 4-disc DVD Eddie Stobart Trucks & Trailers Series 5. It is now available from Old Pond at £19.95. More information and secure online ordering are here.

New farm machinery 2014 calendar now available

Weekly Calendar: Agricultural Machines Worldwide 2014, Photographs and Text by Jörn Gläser. Spiral bound paper 225 x 245 mm (landscape), 56 pages plus paper covers. Now in stock at Old Pond at £14.95 inc. VAT.

Over fifty stunning full-page photographs illustrate this 2014 calendar, one page for each week with space beneath for brief notes. Many of Jörn Gläser’s photographs were taken in his native Germany and they are supplemented by shots from the USA, Canada, Australia and central Europe.

All the images are of machines at work on farms. Many of the scenes, from sugar-beet drilling to the potato harvest, will be familiar to British farmers; others will be less so, including views from Australia of the cotton harvest or a 90-foot Airseeder.

The photographs are all captioned in three languages: British, German and French. The hooked spiral biding makes it suitable for wall hanging and it also has a card base for desk-top use. Thework of the  Gläser brothers, Jörn and Tammo, will be familiar to British farm machinery enthusiasts through their series of DVDs.

Martin Phippard

I am very sad to learn that Martin Phippard passed away yesterday. He died peacefully after a year's courageous battle against illness. He had just passed his 70th birthday.

Working with his colleague Pete Connock under the name CP Productions, Martin was responsible for many fine programmes about trucking and heavy loads around the world. Martin and Pete have brought pleasure to thousands of truck enthusiasts during their twenty years of filming and video/DVD production.

Our thoughts go out to Martin's widow Annie, daughters Jackie and Elizabeth and their families.

Old Codger's Cookbook stocking filler for the old codger in your life

Here’s an idea for a Christmas stocking filler, not published by Old Pond but by our friends at Camden Miniature Steam Services.

David Curwen, a prolific designer of miniature railway locomotives living deep in the countryside, faced changed circumstances in his eighties which meant that if he wanted to eat, he had to learn to cook. He thought, “I’m not a grumpy old codger, I’m a happy-go-lucky codger, and I’ll face up to this in a practical way.”

You can discover how he got on in his Old Codger’s Cookbook. Besides brief accounts of kitchen equipment, basic tools and recipes from tomato soup to beef stew with pigeon, David Curwen diverts to a wide range of topics such as cats and their behaviour, recalcitrant cookers and the joys of a good butcher. It makes delightful reading, beautifully illustrated by Wendy McCleave

The Old Codger’s Cookbook, paperback, 62 pages, costs only £6.75 and is available from Camden Miniature Steam Services, telephone 01373 830151. More details and online ordering are on their website here.

Full of zest for living until the end, David Curwen died two years ago at the age of 97, just after handing his manuscript to Camden.

Old Pond stand at the Zwolle farm model show

Visitors to the 25th Landbouwminiaturen Beurs & Tentoonstelling at the Ijssenhallen Zwolle in Holland on 23 and 24 November will be able to examine and buy copies of Farming in Miniature. Old Pond will be there with a stand and hope that you will visit us.

We will also have two tables at Sandown Park this coming weekend, again to promote and sell Farming in Miniature.

The book proved popular at the Newark Tractor Show last weekend. Thank you to all of you who visited the Old Pond stand. It was good to see so many familiar faces and we enjoyed the fine weather on Sunday. This show seems to go from strength to strength.

If you want more details about the Zwolle event you can email [email protected] or visit the Agritoy website.

Country Calendar on Horseback DVD is now in stock

The view of New Zealand's rural life as seen from the crowded and controlled perspective of the UK is a rosy one. The dream of beautiful landscape, space to spread out and make a living from family farming and at the same time indulge an enthusiasm for horses is reinforced by TVNZ's Country Calendar programmes.

The latest offering from Old Pond is a DVD of Country Calendar on Horseback: a special collection. It has lots of variety and lots of inspirational accounts of how New Zealand's residents can really indulge their passions for horseback activities. Details and secure online ordering are here.

British Tractors 1945-1965 new book by Stuart Gibbard is now in stock

Stuart Gibbard's latest book is now in stock. British Tractors 1945-1965 (published by Herridge) draws on Stuart's enormous collection of original tractor literature to illustrate an A-Z of tractors made in Britain from the end of the war until the mid-1960s. He supports the illustrations with brief accounts of the companies and models. The book is now available from Old Pond at £35.00

More news for fans of Stuart's books: he has completed researching and  writing his long-awaited David Brown Tractor Story Part Two. It is now being prepared by Old Pond for publication in March.

Tyres, Tracks and Skid Units - new Ford tractor conversions DVD now in stock

Tracks, Tyres and Skid Units: the story of Ford tractor conversions part one - evolution 1917 to 1964 is the latest DVD from Tractor Barn, now in stock at Old Pond at £16.95.With a running time of approximately 90 minutes, the programme goes chronologically through conversions alongside the actual Ford models upon which they were based. Film-makers Stephen Richmond and Jonathan Whitlam have combined footage from working events with 'some facinating archive film'.

Sprayers and Spreaders new DVD from Chris Lockwood now in stock

There are some ingenious and spectacular-looking machines in Chris Lockwood's new DVD, Sprayers and Spreaders: self-propelled machines in Britain. Chris doesn't do things by halves. Over the last couple of years he has filmed no less than 51 different examples of these workhorses in operation, most of them on farms.

We are sure that if you have any enthusiasm for arable machinery you will find this programme fascinating as Chris takes you from 1970s self-propelled conversions through to the latest generation of GPS-enabled sophisticates. The DVD is in stock now. Full details and secure online ordering from Old Pond are here.