Old Pond publishing days

Suffolk Steam Railways - new book advance information

Suffolk Steam Railways by David Kindred. Paperback, 128 pages including 200 b&w photographs, ISBN 978-1-906853-17-4. IN STOCK at Old Pond at £12.95.

The 200 photographs in this book reflect the diversity and importance that steam once had in East Anglia. For a hundred years it was the main carrier of people and freight, and a major employer, even though Suffolk was a mainly agricultural county with relatively few lines.

Although the photographs go back to the 1870s, most in this selection were taken in the 1950s and ’60s. They will stir many memories. The selection covers the main lines, stations and services as well as Ipswich Locoshed and Dock, the Mid Suffolk Light Railway and the branch lines. There are many shots of trains, but also evocative pictures of the men who worked the railways and their ancillary services.

David Kindred worked for over forty years as a photographer and picture editor with the East Anglian Daily Times and Ipswich Evening Star. He has been fortunate to have had the help of a number of knowledgeable local train enthusiasts in compiling the informative captions.

 Shunting horses at Woodbridge in the 1950s (right).

A mixed train (left) on the Laxfield to Haughley line with Joe Skinner and Jack Law on the footplate.

 

Britannia class 70005 John Milton (right) entering the Ipswich tunnel from the Stoke side, 6 June 1959. The Ipswich Locoshed with its coaling tower and the Cliff Quay power station are in the background.

(Left) S Hearsum and B Cage, the largest and smallest employees, together at the Ipswich Locoshed in 1909.

B1 61378 storming through Bentley in March 1959 (right) - another great photograph by Aubrey Frost.

Farm Machinery Film Records Pt 3 DVD - advance information

Farm Machinery Film Records Part 3: Testing and Prototypes by Brian Bell. DVD, approx 65 minutes. IN STOCK at Old Pond, £15.95 (inc VAT). 

This programme uses extracts from a collection of films made by the National Institute of Agricultural Engineering over a period of about ten years from 1945. The Institute had been established by the Ministry of Agriculture in 1942 with a remit to design prototype farm equipment and publish test reports of the performance of production tractors and farm machinery.

This programme includes clips taken from the film records made while testing farm machinery and prototype equipment at Askham Bryan, Yorkshire and Silsoe, Bedfordshire.  They include manure spreaders and fertiliser drills, planters and crop dusters, tractors, harvesters, horticultural aids and some cultivation equipment. Some of the machines went successfully into production; others are rarities whose development was curtailed.

The NIAE’s film record was professionally made. The prints from which this compilation has been drawn are in the collection of the British Agricultural Archive Film Unit and are reproduced by courtesy of Richard Watts.

Brian Bell, author of 26 books and DVDs on farm machinery, has researched the footage to provide an informative commentary narrated by Chris Opperman. The original material is silent, most in black and white, some in colour.

CONTENTS

 Manure and fertiliser
James farmyard manure spreader
Ferguson TE20 with FYM loader and spreader
Massey-Harris plate and flicker fertiliser placement drill

Planting and crop protection
Three-row Robot potato planter
Russell transplanter
Williams crop duster

Tractors
NIAE hydrostatic tractor
Maxim Power Steer tractor

NIAE tractor testing

Harvesters
Hume pea windrower
Redpath forage harvester
NIAE universal root harvester
Wallace root harvester
Marbeet sugar beet harvester

Mechanical aids to horticulture
Wharton spade
Barford Atom
Colwood motor hoe
British Anzani hoe
Howard Bantam
Gem
Clifford A III

Cultivations
Howard Rotary Hoe on a Fordson
Evona disc harrow.

Sheep Station NZ - DVD advance information

Sheep Station NZ is a new double-disc DVD by Dylan Winter running for 3 hours plus overs. AVAILABLE NOW from Old Pond at £19.95 (inc VAT). 

Dylan spent three months in New Zealand recording a wide range of sheep farms and the background to them. Most of New Zealand gets plenty of rain – it’s a good place to grow grass. Where you can grow grass you can grow sheep, and on one station in this DVD they run 40,000 ewes on 68,000 hectares, not to mention 1,500 cows and 4,000 deer hinds.

The breed names will be familiar to British viewers – Romneys, Merinos and the Romney x Cheviots known as Perendales. Some of the sheep management will be less familiar, with mustering by huntaways or helicopter, fast-moving tailing crews and a complete lack of lambing sheds.

Dylan digs under the colourful surface of a variety of sheep enterprises from all parts of New Zealand. He explores the change in the meat/wool price, the part cattle play on sheep farms, the continuing importance of the UK Christmas lamb market and how the Kiwis have coped with the ending of their ‘special relationship’.

Dylan sets the farming scene in its context with some of the most wonderful scenery you will ever see, and includes features on livestock markets and transport, threats to indigenous flora and wildlife, how to trim 60 ft hedges, the NZ Royal Show and the high-energy lifestyle of New Zealand shepherds. His interviewees include recent farming immigrants from Scotland who compare their experiences.

This is ‘God’s own country’ with a strong work ethic where the shearing gang and the grader are kings. A great place to grow sheep. There's a video taster linked to the blog of 19 February.

Contents:
DISC ONE
Introduction
Coronet Peak
Plant Invaders
Alastair Macdonald
Hedging
Glenaray
Ferry
Tim Grieve
Farmers Transport
Leicester Grey
Feilding Livestock Market
Hunterville Shemozzle
Extra: Silage making

DISC TWO
Otiwhiti training farm
Royal Show
Livesey Brothers
Dan Steel’s pig hunt
Bendigo
Story of Shrek
Ben Innes
Irrigation
Mike Salvesen
Blue ducks again
Farewell
Extra: The rabbit-proof fence

Know Your Pigs - breeds book advance information

Know Your Pigs, Jack Byard, postcard-sized paperback book, 64 pages including 29 photographs. IN STOCK at Old Pond, £4.99.

The Know Your ... series of books is ideal for novice enthusiasts of all ages. For his fifth book, Jack Byard has selected 29 breeds of pigs. These include all those you are likely to see in the UK on farms or at rare breeds centres.

Some are old favourites such as the Berkshire, one of which. the fictional Empress of Blandings, was the subject of Lord Emsworth's devotion in books by  PG Wodehouse. Others are new commercial breeds, the types you will see in pig arks on farm land, such as the Meidam and the Hybrid AC1.

Among a third group of breeds are some which you might see on holidays abroad or which have an intrinsic interest, such as the American Choctaw.

Every breed has two pages devoted to it: a full page photograph opposite which are a clear description of the animals and some notes about the breed history and current status. The author makes an impassioned plea for the preservation of those breeds which are currently endangered.

Breeds included in the book

American Guinea Hog
Bentheim Black Pied
Berkshire
Black Iberian
British Landrace
British Lop
British Saddleback
Choctaw
Duroc
Gloucestershire Old Spots
Hampshire (top picture) 
Hybrid AC1
Iron Age
Kune Kune (centre picture)
Large Black
Large White
Mangalitza
Meidam
Meishan
Middle White
Ossabaw Island Hog
Oxford and Sandy Black
Pietrain
Poland China
Tamworth (bottom picture)
Vietnamese Pot Bellied
Welsh
Wild Boar
Glamrock

Hadleigh, Suffolk, new Kindred book advance information

Hadleigh: the Portrait of a Suffolk Town. The photographs of Peter Boulton

Selected by David Kindred

Commercial photographer and film-maker Peter Boulton recorded Hadleigh and its people in the 1940s and ’50s. This thriving country town, ten miles west of Ipswich, gave him scope to photograph the activities that were typical of so many towns at that time.

During the Second World War Peter Boulton photographed the wartime sandbagging of major buildings, the work of the Royal Observer Corps and the celebrations of VE Day. His later photographs show the craftsmen of the town, including work at Brett Weavers where coconut matting was woven.

There are many evocative photographs of groups of people – at carnivals, fetes, school sports, dances, the Coronation celebrations and the Hadleigh Show. The Hunt winds its way through the town and there are accidents and incidents such as the disastrous fire at Toppesfield Mill in 1954, the cover picture.

David Kindred has also selected photographs from a dozen of the surrounding villages such as Kersey, Boxford and Monks Eleigh. He has based his captions on the log left by the photographer and has consulted the Hadleigh Town Archives and the Hadleigh Society for supporting information.

David Kindred worked for forty years as photographer and picture editor on Ipswich and East Anglian newspapers. He writes two popular weekly articles featuring local nostalgic photographs and is the author or co-author of ten books, three of which have been published by Old Pond.

Paperback book, 242 x 168mm, 128 pages with 250 photographs. ISBN: 978-1-906853-12-9. IN STOCK at Old Pond, £12.95.

Among those at a tractor sale and demonstration at the White Hart, Hadleigh, in 1947 were Jack Gray, Mr H Wright, Mr Widdicombe, Jack Green, Johnny Green, Bill Bateman, Leslie Widdicombe and Jack Wells.

Horseman Mr Fleet lived at Long Pond Cottages, Lower Layham and worked a short walk away at Overbury Hall Farm. This photograph was taken in 1948.

Farmer Victor Fairfax (left) with a line-up of Guernsey cattle at Brook Farm, Great Waldingfield in 1949. Soon after the Second World War Mr Fairfax and his wife Christine bought three farms totalling about 350 acres.

Part of the production line at Brett Weavers in October 1947. Brett Weavers made a wide range of goods including rope, coconut matting and sacks. During the First World War they also made army uniforms.

Good friends at the Hadleigh Secondary Modern school sports day, June 1954.

The first two programmes from Tractor Barn

Two new DVDs from Tractor Barn duo Stephen Richmond and Jonathan Whitlam are In STOCK at Old Pond

Farming Diaries: a life on the land
Presented by Stephen Richmond

68-year-old John Want shows how he runs a 350-acre arable and cattle farm single-handed. He has been on the farm all his life and first of all tells Stephen how his mechanisation has advanced over the years.

Film-maker Jonathan Whitlam caught John every month to show his key operations, including:

mill-and mixing cattle feed, drilling grass seed and beans, spraying, spreading fertiliser, cutting, baling and wrapping silage, harvesting winter wheat and baling the straw, combining beans, drilling winter cereals, ploughing and drying beans.

As we would expect from Stephen and Jonathan, there is plenty of footage of machinery in action, for John Want is a Ford and New Holland fanatic, a man who ‘can’t wait to get started in the morning’.

DVD, 94 minutes, released June 2009  £15.95

Working Tractors Volume One
Presented by Stephen Richmond

Stephen Richmond and Jonathan Whitlam have been making tractor and machinery programmes for over eleven years. They have now started releasing material from their extensive back catalogue.

Their first programme has thirteen detailed records of tractors at work: a Fordson E27N Major, MF 6150, D Brown 1390, Marshall 904XL, Case IH CVX 1135, Ford 6640 XLE, Fordson Model N, NH 110-90 (and a Case loading shovel), Claas Ares 826RZ, JD 6920, Leyland 154, NH 7840SLE and a JD 7920.

The farming operations captured include ploughing, cultivating, drilling, cutting grass, muckspreading and baling.

DVD, 75 minutes, released May 2009  £9.95

Two engineering archive films from Old Pond

Now IN STOCK at Old Pond are two outstanding Scottish engineering DVDs from Panamint Cinema.

A Romance of Engineering
National Library of Scotland

This archive DVD comprises four films made for Scottish engineering companies.

Men of Iron (c. 1947) deals with iron propeller manufacture at the Blair factory of Andrew Strang & Co.

A Romance of Engineering (1938) shows the production of steel components at William Beardmore & Co’s Parkhead forge where turbine and diesel engine parts, and railway axles were made.

James Watt (1959) is a film about the life and work of the inventor of steam engines.

The final item Story of a Steel Wire Rope (1946) illustrates the manufacturing of Martin Black & Co.

DVD, b/w, 97 minutes, released June 2009  £19.95 

Cruachan: the hollow mountain
National Library of Scotland

Two archive films dealing with hydro-electric schemes in Scotland.

First, from 1952-56, the construction of the Glen Moriston dam by the Mitchell Construction Co. Plenty of machinery in view as well as an explanation of construction techniques and footage of underground work. B/w, with narration, 33 minutes.

The second film, Cruachan (1966), covers the construction of the ambitious pumped-storage hydro-electric scheme at Loch Awe, Argyll. The engineering detail is particularly strong, including the manufacture and finishing of steel castings, cables, circuit breakers and switch gear. Colour, fully scripted, 48 minutes.

DVD, 81 minutes, released June 2009 £19.95

DVD Massive Earthmoving Machines Part 4 advance information

This DVD deals with some extreme Mountain Movers from Hitachi, Komatsu, Cat and Liebherr. They are at work in the coalfields around Fabero, northern Spain, and the talc mine of Luzenac in the French Pyrenees. You will find two sets of photographs in our blog of 3 July 2008.

Massive Earthmoving Machines Part 4 Mountain Movers, by Steven Vale, DVD, approx 90 minutes, ISBN 978-1-906853-06-8, IN STOCK at Old Pond at £15.95 (inc VAT). 

The programme contains some truly memorable footage recorded by Jonathan Theobald and Roger Wiltshire, the team who worked on the first three critically acclaimed programmes in the series. The script is by Steven Vale whose previous work includes the Aitik DVD and Demolition Giants.

Contents

SPAIN
FABERO COAL MINE
Hitachi EX5500 excavator (520 tonnes) – only ones in Europe
Cat 789C dump trucks (200-tonnes capacity)
Komatsu D475A dozer (100 tonnes) – biggest in Europe
Cat 5110B excavator (130 tonnes)
Cat 988F wheeled loader
Plus Tamrock drills, a blast, numerous other excavators and coal loading.

TORMELEO COAL MINE
Komatsu PC3000 hydraulic excavator (250 tonnes)
Cat 16M grader
Hitachi Zaxis EX850 hydraulic excavator (85 tonnes)
Komatsu D375A dozer (70 tonnes)
Komatsu WA800 wheeled loader (100 tonnes).

CERREDO COAL MINE
Hitachi EX3600 hydraulic excavator (360 tonnes) – rare machines in Europe
Komatsu WA600 wheeled loader (53 tonnes).

FRANCE: LUZENAC TALC MINE
Liebherr R994B hydraulic excavator (340 tonnes)
Komatsu HD985 dump trucks (105 tonnes capacity)
Cat 777C dump trucks (95 tones capacity)
Cat 992G wheeled loader (100 tonnes)
Numerous Liebherr excavators extracting and loading talc with special front shovels.
Drills, a small blast, and a novel bucket and cable transport system.

FABERO EXTRA
O&K 120-C hydraulic excavator (220 tonnes)
Demag H185 hydraulic excavator (200 tonnes)
Demag 95 hydraulic excavator.

Land Girls Gang Up (in Cornwall) - advance book information

Land Girls Gang Up by Pat Peters, paperback, 200 pages inc. 8 pages photographs.ISBN: 978-1-905523-95-5. IN STOCK at Old Pond Publishing, £7.95.

What was likely to happen if you took a group of feisty 17-year-old London girls and dropped them into the heart of Cornwall in the 1940s?

Dropped into Cornwall and then made to work as hard as any man, clearing stones, pulling thistles and cutting broccoli on freezing cold mornings. Not to mention the unending potato harvest.

Of course, these girls had all volunteered to join the Women's Land Army, and they knew that the drudgery was all part of the war effort. But that didn't stop them constantly looking for ways to avoid work. They hid in the corn crop plucking their eyebrows, writing letters or even darning socks.

The local farmers responded to the girls with various degrees of welcome. Some were frankly hostile.

A few of the girls rebelled and returned to city life. Most of them battled through, making the most of the local dances and the Yanks. Some, like the author, even settled down in Cornwall as a farmer's wife.

These memories are vivid, humorous and detailed and they show just what did happen to this high-spirited gang.

The Cornwall gang. Pat Peters is in the front row, second from the right.

Know Your Horses - new book advance information

Know Your Horses, Jack Byard, paperback book, 96 pages inc. 45 photographs. ISBN 978-1-906853-01-3. IN STOCK at Old Pond Publishing at £4.99.

The Know Your ... series of of books are postcard-sized guides for novice enthusiasts young and old. The sixth title shows the couple of dozen horse breeds you are most likely to encounter in Britain. They include heavy working horses, diminutive ponies and everything in between from Appaloosa to Thoroughbred.

Each full-page photograph is accompanied by a statement of place of origin and current distribution as well as some information about the characteristics and history of the breed. Author Jack Byard is personally concerned that rare breeds should be preserved and he includes a short section on ponies particularly in need of protection.

The breeds included are:

1  American Bashkir Curly
2  American Paint Horse (photo top) 
3  Andalusian
4  Appaloosa
5  Arabian (second photo)
6  Ardennes
7  Barb
8  Belgian Draft/Brabant
9  Black Forest
10 Boulonnais
11 Cleveland Bay
12 Clydesdale
13 Comtois
14 Connemara
15 Criollo
16 Dales
17 Dartmoor
18 Drum Horse
19 Dutch Draught
20 Dutch Warmblood
21 Eriskay
22 Exmoor
23 Falabella
24 Fell
25 Fjord
26 Friesian
27 Hackney
28 Haflinger
29 Highland
30 Holstein
31 Icelandic
32 Irish Cob
33 Irish Draught
34 Jutland (third photo)
35 Lusitano
36 Morgan
37 New Forest
38 Percheron
38 Shetland (bottom photo)
40 Shire (cover photo)
41 Suffolk
42 Thoroughbred
43 Welsh
Ponies Needing Protection – Kaimanawa,Lac La Croix,Sable Island