Old Pond publishing days

The Best Job Ever - new County Tractors book advance information

The Best Job Ever, John Hull. Softback book 244 x 168 mm, 100 pages inc. 127 illustrations. ISBN 978-0-9567019-0-9. Now in stock at Old Pond at £9.95.

 Ford tractor conversion specialist County Commercial Cars of Fleet in Hampshire was at the peak of its powers when John Hull joined the company as a field test driver and tractor development engineer in 1967, having previously worked for a Fordson tractor dealership in Berkshire.

Promoted to chief tractor demonstrator in 1970, John travelled all over the world demonstrating the company’s four-wheel drive tractors. His autobiography not only provides a rare insight into what it was like to work for the world’s best-known manufacturer of Ford tractor conversions, but also charts the development and evolution of its machines over the 16-year period 1967-83.

The Best Job Ever contains many previously unseen archive photographs of County’s best-known tractors – from the four-wheel drive 754 and 1124 models of the late 1960s to the iconic 1884 flagship of the early 80s. There are also chapters on County’s innovative Forward Control tractors, used for a wide range of applications, plus its un-equal four-wheel drives, tractors for industrial applications, specialist vehicles, including the four-wheel drive Transit, and much more.

First published as a monthly series in Classic Tractor magazine, this substantially revised version of John’s memoirs contains a wealth of new stories and pictures. It is the first publication from Farm Power Publishing, the brainchild of Classic Tractor editor Rory Day.

The Potato Files new DVD from Tractor Barn advance information

The Potato Files, Stephen Richmond & Jonathan Whitlam. DVD (Tractor Barn), approx 100 minutes. ISBN 978-1-906853-54-9. Now IN STOCK at £15.95.

In this packed DVD the Tractor Barn producers look at the past and present of potato mechanisation. They use a combination of archive footage and current filming that ranges from the Ferguson spinner to the Ploeger self-propelled tanker harvester. They bear witness to a revolution in potato production which has now reached the stage where just 4,000 UK producers are responsible for 90 per cent of our 6 million tonnes production.

Stephen Richmond and Jonathan Whitlam start with manure spreading (as it used to be), ploughing and preparing the soil, taking a look at traditional systems as well as minimum tillage. They cover ridging and bed-forming with particular emphasis on specialist de-stoners such as the Grimme Combi Star.

Their section on planting runs from the 1950s hand-planting to more modern machines from Grimme, Reekie, Keyag and Standen. The irrigation systems covered range from pipes and sprinklers to today’s hose reels, and there is footage of spraying for blight and topping.

The film-makers cover harvesting in detail, coming up to date with trailed harvesters but more particularly the monster 400-500 horsepower self-propelled 4-row machines. Manufacturers represented include Dewulf, Ploeger, Standen, Standen Pearson, Reekie and Agrifac. The producers have had access to the extensive Grimme film archive as well as their current footage.

Finally there is a section on potato handling – and gentleness – as well as grading and storing.

A Year on an Arable Farm DVD advance information

A Year on an Arable Farm, Andrew Lyle. DVD, 72 minutes released 2007 (by Game Keepers Diary). ISBN 978-1-906853-58-7. Now in stock at Old Pond at £15.95.

Seen through the eyes of farmer Andrew Lyle, this DVD charts a year’s progress on a 500-acre arable farm at the foot of the Lincolnshire Wolds. The project began as an educational aid suitable for schools, so at each stage it covers in some detail why and how the work is being done. The programme is written and narrated by Sean Sparling.

The farm grows wheat, oilseed rape, oats, potatoes, sugar beet and borage, and uses appropriate up-to-date machinery. Not seen, but part of the enterprise is a pig unit.

The programme begins in early autumn with ploughing, sub-soiling and manuring, then deals with preparing a seedbed for winter wheat. It covers seed protection, drilling, rolling and fertilising. A detailed feature shows the potato harvest.

Winter is dominated by sugar beet lifting. There are also sequences on crop-spraying, ditch maintenance and some work on hedges and in the woodland planting saplings and trimming older trees.

Spring brings the spreading of chicken manure, more drilling, potato planting, crop protection, fertilising and some tidying up in the woodland. The wood chips are taken to the farm biomass boiler which provides heating for the farmhouse and its water. The borage is precision-drilled.

Irrigation is one of the main themes of the summer, followed by machine maintence in preparation for the harvest. The oilseed rape is harvested after which oats, wheat and borage (swathed) are taken in turn. Straw is baled for the livestock unit and the farming year has run its course.

If you are looking for a programme that introduces newcomers to a variety of arable farm activities with clear explanations of what is going on, then this is an ideal DVD for you.

Seventy Years of Farm Machinery Pt 2: harvest, book advance information

Seventy Years of Farm Machinery Part Two: Harvest, Brian Bell MBE. Hardback book, 246 x 189 mm, 224 pages inc 314 photographs. ISBN 978-1-906853-50-1. Now in stock at Old Pond Publishing at £24.95.

In the twentieth century the machinery for harvesting cereals, grass and root crops changed beyond recognition. Brian Bell’s latest book charts this technical revolution from the 1930s to the 1990s.

He begins with the cereal crop, showing the progress from reapers, binders and threshers through the development of the combine to more recent models ‘bristling with electronic gadgetry’. He also includes a section on pea and bean harvesters.

In his second chapter the author turns to balers: from stationary balers and trussers to pick-up balers, big balers and bale handling. Under the heading ‘hay and silage machinery’ Brian Bell deals with cutter-bar mowers, mounted, mid-mounted and rotary mowers, hay making and loaders, silage machinery, green-crop loaders, forage wagons and forage harvesters. Brian is no stranger to grass farming. In the photograph (left) he is the young man further from the camera at work in the early 1960s.

Chapter 4 is devoted to sugar beet machinery: down-the-row thinners, harvesters, self-propelled sugar beet harvesters and cleaner loaders. Potato harvesting machinery follows: spinners and elevator diggers, complete harvesters and haulm pulverisers.

The final chapter covers hedging and ditching, post-hole diggers, ditching machinery, saws, chainsaws, machinery to aid lifting and carrying and farm trailers – all part of estate management machinery.

Throughout the book the Brian Bell uses a large number of photographs and other illustrations to show examples of the equipment. This is Brian’s 47th year as an author, with twenty-five books and DVDs in print. The current book is a sequel to his 2009 title Seventy Years of Farm machinery Pt 1: Seed time. Together these two books offer an absolutely unrivalled picture – with about 600 illustrations – of the transformation of farm technology in less than a human lifetime, a second agrarian revolution.

 

 

The Truth Behind 'I Walked by Night' - new DVD

The Truth Behind 'I Walked by Night' by Peter Hodges and Charlotte Paton, DVD approx 60 minutes. Now in stock at Old Pond.

In her book The King of the Norfolk Poachers Charlotte Paton described the results of her search for Frederick Rolfe’s real life, comparing it with the account published in Lilias Rider Haggard's book I Walked by Night. In this companion DVD Charlotte shows how she went about her search and interviews people associated with Rolfe and his world. There are also memorable scenes of poaching skills.

Documentary-maker Peter Hodges is an award-winning sound designer with over 40 years experience working in television and Film. His programme has many memorable and beautiful scenes in which Rolfe's immersion in the countryside is evoked.

The King of the Norfolk Poachers was shortlisted in the biography and memoir section of the 2010 Eastern Daily Press-Jarrolds book awards. Also shortlisted was another of Old Pond's recent titles, the photograph book Bells Beneath the Sea.

Ford Tractors 1965-95 DVD advance information

Ford Tractors 1965-95: three decades of achievement by George French & Dennis Burston. DVD, approx 90 minutes, ISBN 978-1-906853-51-8. In stock at Old Pond at £16.95 inc VAT.

This DVD celebrates a marque which became known for its manufacturing excellence – Ford.

George French, Dennis Burston and fellow enthusiasts have selected thirty-two tractors to chart the range of Ford’s output from the launch of the 6X range to the merger with New Holland.

The filming was carried out in Devon and Somerset in 2009 and 2010. Wherever possible, the tractors are shown working with appropriate implements including some fine examples of haymaking and silage equipment that will stir many a memory for farming viewers.

Stills from the first session of filming can be seen in the blogs of 22 July 2009 and 22 August 2009. The period covered by the programme follows on from Stuart Gibbard's Fordson Farming.

The machines coverd by Ford Tractors 1965-95 include:

Fordson Super Dexta and Howard Rotavator
2000 and NH 401/5 crimper   
3000 and NH 445E cutterbar mower
4000 and NH 30 flail mower
5000 and Wilder forage harvester and MF trailer   
2000 and Kidd Rotaflail and MF trailer
3000 Select-o-speed and NH 245 haytedder
3000 and Bamford wuffler  
4000 and NH 33 forage harvester and MF trailer
5000 and Ransome TS94 plough
7000 and NH 717 forage harvester
County 1124 with Boughton winch and front blade
County 754 and NH 33 forage harvester  
4600 and trailer
4600 4wd and Ransomes plough   
7600 and trailer
Muir Hill 121 with linkbox  
4110 and bale wrapper  
4610 and P2 2-drum mower    
5610 and NH 276 baler and sledge
6810 and link box
7810 Silver Jubilee and Ransome TSF2000 plough
TW15 and trailer  
TW25 and mole plough
TW35 and Dowdeswell plough   
5030 and trailer
8630 and dump trailer
8630 and highways equipment    
6640 and round bale loader  
7840 with dung spreader and power harrow    
8340 and Lucas straw chopper/feeder
New Holland 7840 with front linkage.

 

 

Peter Robinson's Lincoln's Excavators Part 3 book advance information

Lincoln’s Excavators: the Ruston-Bucyrus Years 1945-1970 by Peter Robinson. Hardback book, 336 pages inc. approx 600 photos. ISBN 1-871565-52-9. Now in stock at Old Pond at £34.95.

In the two decades after the Second World War the story of Ruston-Bucyrus was one of almost continual growth – in the range and size of its products and in the size of the works and workforce.

In this golden age the company’s products included the 54-RB shovel/dragline, 38-RB, 22-RB, the 100 series mining shovels, the 30-RB, machines for piling and special applications, tower cranes and the introduction of hydraulic excavators.

These were machines that sold themselves in a world hungry for plant and construction machinery.

Massive backhoe dredgers DVD advance information

Massive Backhoe Dredgers by Steven Vale. DVD, approx 100 minutes. ISBN 978-1-906853-36-5. In stock at Old Pond at £17.95.

Steven Vale shows some of the world’s largest and most powerful pontoon-based hydraulic backhoe dredgers at work.

These enormous machines – often adapted mining excavators – serve the needs of ports, deepening their seaways and building new facilities to handle ever-larger cargo vessels.

By UK standards, machines shown in the first part of the programme such as the Liebherr P964 and Caterpillar 375 are impressive. However, Steven moves on to some truly massive floating dredgers.

Developing the southern end of Felixstowe’s Trinity terminal is ‘Maricavor’ a 300-tonne Komatsu PC3000. At work in the Finnish Gulf of Bothnia are two Hitachi EX1900s and ‘Nordic Giant’, a Liebherr P995 that shifts 12,000 cubic metres of material a day.

An even larger Liebherr, a 520-tonne P996 capable of reaching down to 37 metres, is operating in the hazardous seas off the Belgian coast at Ostend. Hazardous because of the unexploded bombs it regularly dredges up.

Steven Vale uses interviews to highlight some of the choices and issues faced by the operators of these machines.

He finishes by offering us an insight into an even more exciting future - that of the Backacter BA1100, one of a new class of hydraulic dredger that is specifically made for the task.

Some stills from the filming can be seen on the blogs of 8 July and 30 April.

For more programmes by Steven Vale see the Earthmoving and Demolition section of the Old Pond website. 

Harwich & Dovercourt new book advance information

Harwich & Dovercourt: the photographs of Alfred Smith by David Kindred and Peter Goodwin. Paperback, 234 x 169 mm, 128 pages inc. 210 photographs. ISBN 978-1-906853-49-5. In stock at Old Pond at £12.95.

 

Standing on a narrow peninsula in north-east Essex, Harwich has had a long maritime history. The old port of Harwich with its fishing boats, the more modern terminal at Parkeston Quay and the promenade at Dovercourt are all reflected in the many photographs in this book.

Alfred Smith started his commercial photography business in 1952. The majority of the images in this collection are of the 1960s and ’70s. Besides many fine photographs of the shipping and quays, there are sections on the streets of the time – some facing demolition – events such as the Queen’s visits, the Guy Carnival and the distribution of the spicy buns known as Kitchels. The shots of sporting teams of the period will bring back memories to many readers.

Harwich and Dovercourt has a very special character, as depicted in this fine compilation of photographs.

David Kindred, whose extensive archive of photographs is a major source of information for Ipswich and the surrounding area, has prepared many photographic books of local interest. Some of these titles are available from the Old Pond website at the photographs section.

Peter Goodwin, born and bred in Dovercourt, is a keen collector of local photographs and local history.

Know Your Donkeys - new book advance information

Know Your Donkeys, Jack Byard. Paperback 104 x 155 mm, 76 pages including 35 photographs. ISBN 978-1-906853-31-0. Now in stock at Old Pond at £4.99.

Although donkeys – also known as asses – are members of the horse family, they are genetically different from horses themselves. The donkey genus includes many distinctive breeds. The 34 examples in this book cover some of those native to Europe, America, the Far East and the Middle East, a collection which shows the diversity of this remarkable animal. They range from the miniature to the mammoth, and the author also includes a couple of mules.

These sturdy, adaptable creatures have found a home in almost every corner of the world including the less hospitable regions of deserts and mountains. Whether they pulled a farmer’s plough, carried the equipment for wars, were ridden or driven as transport or were simply kept for their milk, it is difficult to imagine where we might have been without them.

Sadly, mechanisation in the 20th century reduced the need for working donkeys. Today a number of traditional breeds are verging on extinction although breeders and governments are setting up programmes to reverse this trend. Ever versatile, the donkey has now found new vocations in the tourist industry and as valuable support in animal-assisted therapies.

The breeds included in this book are: Abyssinian - American Mammoth - American Spotted - American Wild Burro - Amiata - Andalusian - Asinara - Balear - Bourbonnais - Catalan - Cotentin - Cypriot - Encartaciones - Grand Noir du Berry - Irish - Kiang - Majorera - Martina Franca - Mary/Maryiskaya - Mediterranean Miniature - Normandy - Onager - Pantelleria - Poitou - Provence - Pyrenees - Ragusano - Romagnolo - Sardinian - Somali Wild Ass - Zamorano Leones - Zedonk/Zonkey - Saddle Mule - Belgian Draught Mule.

In each case, Jack Byard gives a full-page picture opposite which is a concise text which tells where the breed is a native and how widely it is distributed now. Jack gives the distinguishing features of the breed, talks about its history and how the domesticated animal has been used.

This is the seventh title that Yorkshireman Jack Byard has created for the 'Know Your ...' series.