Old Pond publishing days

The 'Tractor Boys' branch out

No, not Ipswich Town football team, sometimes referred to as the Tractor Boys, but Stephen Richmond and Jonathan Whitlam, the duo who have inspired and filmed so many programmes on tractors and farm machinery.

At the Spalding model tractor show this weekend Stephen and Jonathan were promoting the first programme to be released under their own label, Tractor Barn Productions. Their initial DVD, due shortly, is Working Tractors Volume 1. For more information check The Tractor Barn

Ferguson in Iceland

The Ferguson tractor first came into Iceland sixty years ago - on 13 May 1949. It became the country's most popular tractor model ever.

The director of Iceland's National Agricultural Museum, Bjarni Gudmundsson, is preparing a celebratory book, full of photographs showing Fergies working under Icelandic conditions. Income will go towards the museum's funds.

You can reach the museum at www.landbunadarsafn.is.

Best in Show at Malvern

We are delighted that the Overall Best in Show - and also winner of the industrial class - at the Malvern Tractor Show is Mike Eacock's newly restored JCB III3.

Several other of Mike's machines are featured on Old Pond's 2008 DVD "JCB's Backhoe Loader".

The traction engines in 'The Moon and the Sledgehammer'

Three steam engines feature in the film: the Allchin; the Fowler in the wood; and the Fowler in the last scene on the road.

Peter Love (ex-editor of Tractor & Machinery magazine), who knows a lot about steam traction engines and a lot about the film, says that whereas the Allchin belonged to the Page family, the Fowlers were 'borrowed' for the sake of the filming. The Allchin is apparently now in preservation in Ireland.

Peterborough Tractor Show 2009 cancelled

At the Malvern Tractor Show today Kelsey Publishing announced that there will be no autumn tractor show this year put on by them at the Peterborough Showground. Our blog of 18 November stated that there was an unfortunate clash of dates with the Newark Show. This is how it has been resolved.

Does this mean that someone else will seize the initiative and try to run an alternative autumn tractor show at a venue farther north?

Meanwhile, we also hear that, following their outstanding success this year, the LAMMA organisers are investigating the possibility of extending their 2010 show from the current two days to three....

Philip Trevelyan speaks about 'The Moon and the Sledgehammer'

Today I was a guest at the celebratory screening of 'The Moon and the Sledgehammer', a Cinema Nation event at the Curzon Soho cinema, London. Every seat in the cinema was taken.

After the screening Vertigo magazine editor Gareth Evans hosted a Question and Answer session with the film's director, Philip Trevelyan. The following are my notes of Philip's answers. They are scribbled notes, not a transcript.

How did you come across the family?
PT    Lived close by and was introduced by a friend who’d been to an auction with them. Film team used a Commer van with a fridge and cooker. Filming took a month on and off in the woods.

Was the film crew accepted?
PT    Whereas the old man was a performer by nature, the siblings were at first suspicious. However, Philip was sincere in loving it all and admiring them, and ‘didn’t have any reason for apologising for being there.’

Mr Page?
PT    Known locally as ‘Oily’ Page, he was much loved in the district. He had worked in aircraft engineering; as a threshing contractor and as a clown in a local circus. He was a natural performer, a very strong character. ‘Perhaps a touch “autistic”, but I don’t know that.’

The Pages’ world
PT    Their world was one of quiet, where they had time to think and use their imaginations (which they did brilliantly). Contrast this with our ‘normal’ world. ‘There are people in the country with an awful lot to teach us. People in towns haven’t got time to reflect.’

The elephant scene?
PT    Mr Page was genuinely interested in showing how an elephant walks.

The absent mother
PT    She had died three years earlier. Mr Page’s view was that his wife had let the children run wild so that he had been unsuccessful in disciplining them.

Conflict in the family
PT    This was real and not contrived, but it didn’t really feature as an element of the film until producer Jimmy Vaughan insisted that there had to be a ‘story’. The conflicts became the story. Mr Page did say nice things about Pete, but not on camera. A third brother, Ron, lived nearby. He was on the steam engine with his son during the run through Horsham at the end of the film.

Partners?
PT    The elder daughter had been away from the wood, and had had an affair. However, ‘there may have been love affairs inside the wood.’ In the rose scene, ‘we knew what we were doing’ when the team was recording ‘a relationship that was very close.’

The family seeing the finished film
PT    They saw it on video and on television. They all liked the attention, though were upset at what they saw as a nasty bit about their Dad.

Local response
Floor    Someone in the audience who comes from Chiddingly, the village close to the wood, said that the local viewings were warmly applauded. They felt that the laughter was with the family, not at them.

Did Philip Trevelyan stay in touch with the family?
PT    To a certain extent. But Mr Page was 75 or more at the time and died shortly afterwards. PT exchanged Xmas cards with the daughters but gradually lost touch. He thinks that after Mr Page’s death the estate was sold and the proceeds divided between the children.

Style of filming
PT    The film was made of the family, so deliberately excluded the film-maker from being part of the programme. The way forward these days is probably to include the film-maker. There’s no narration, and PT believes that that would still be acceptable to broadcasters. He (and the editor) paced the film intuitively, using sounds to run before images as a link. He aimed to give the characters space to show their pride and triumph.

Englishness
Floor    A view that the film reflected the ‘fabric of England.’ Also had links with documentary maker Humphrey Jennings and surrealism. PT accepted the links: ‘My father [painter Julian Trevelyan] was a great friend of both Humphrey Jennings and the Surrealists. … I think of Mr Page as an artist of some sort, as a surrealist one, even, like Max Ernst, Humphrey Jennings or my father.’

Would Philip Trevelyan make a similar film now?
PT    Lives in Yorkshire and knows country people well. But wouldn’t want to make a film up there: ‘If you make a film too close to your own patch you might get into trouble.’

How did Philip Trevelyan develop after the filming?
PT    Had always liked to do things with his hands. After the film this gradually seemed more important, so he changed direction.

Advice to a prime minister
PT    ‘I’d advise the Prime Minister to legislate so that everyone takes a day off work … works on the land and prepares for the transition to a different way of life.’

Young Tom's Yellow Trail

Tom Kirk, 'Young Tom' was one of Dale Stark's crew when Tim Slessor filmed The Yellow Trail from Texas. Tom has recently been in touch with the following note of his experience.

There is more about Dale Starks in the blog entry for 3 December 2007; more about working the American harvest on the blog for 7 February 2008. Here's Tom:

So sorry to hear that Margie [Dale's wife] passed.  She was so tired of the harvest on that year, and kept saying that Dale promised to retire soon.  She was a wonderful woman.

My father worked for Massey Ferguson and for a period of time worked the part/service brigade for the traveling harvest.  Over the summers we had traveled out west and watched the cutters in the field and traveling northward.  I took a year off between my junior and senior year and wanted to see other parts of the country.  Dad arranged a chance for me to interview with Dale, and even though he preferred to hire married couples, he agreed to hire myself and one other single guy.

I started the first of April at the ranch rebuilding the 510s and 750s.  I believe we had four new 760s that he purchased that year.  In total we had four 760s,  three 750s and two 510s.  We worked 7 days a week from sun up to sun down and  then a little more, with our first day off being the 11th of July, due to a rain out. We had a crew of 6 married couples and two single guys that headed south to Witchita Fall, Texas.  Larry came along with us at the start and then headed home once we were running.  There was one couple that had worked the previous year with Dale, other then that we were all new.

Richard and Tina Restly and myself were the only ones that worked the full harvest.  I kept in touch with them while I finished my education at Oklahoma State. Richard loved the harvest,  Tina hated it. When Dale hired me he did so on the basis that I had to take care of my own food and cooking.  So when I first met Richard and Tina we made an arrangement for Tina to cook and I would split the food cost with them.  She was a fiery young girl with a temper that Richard could set off at a glance and with a baby in toe, life in a small trailer, it was very hard on her.  But she was a wonderful cook, and we had some great times together.

After the second week of harvest we had lost half the crew, by the end of the first month we had lost all that we had started with.  Tim [Slessor] and his crew showed up in Manchester, OK, and filmed our move to Texas.  I remember him well and loved hearing the difference between our countries.  Most memorable was the fact that tv viewing was something they paid for, something unheard of here at that time.

When I ran the rocks though the combine Tim came running over knowing that Dale was on his way over and wanted to make sure I wouldn't have an issue filming me getting chewed up by Dale, but I figured Dale couldn't get to mad on film so I told Tim to stay as close to me as he could.  I know he loved filming that segment. 

We split into two groups with all the new help, some cutting in Oklahoma, some heading into Kansas.  I went to Isabel, KS.  before meeting up with everyone in Nebraska.  Tim showed up to interview us there and to follow the trip up to Montana.  We had a new couple Mike and Sandy Novakowski from Hara Oklahoma. Mike and Sandy stayed on though Montana and some of Canada I believe, but then headed back home to work on his father's and father-in-law's farm.  He was responsible for getting me into Oklahoma State.  I worked for his parents the following summer.

Montana was by far the most fun with the cooler weather, the wide open country and the people we worked for.  Dale gave Richard, Tina and myself some time off to drive up into Glacier National Park.  On a shoe string, in an old beat-up pickup it was still a wonderful trip.  After that Richard, Margie and I drove down to Great Fall to drop off the 510s to a Hutterite Colony.  Tim should have been there to film that, it was a hoot....  On the way back we stopped at the first McDonalds I had seen since I had started with Dale.

Once in Montana life got easier for Dale with equipment running smoother and a crew that had some time behind the wheel.  We had more single guys so it made life more difficult for Margie.  I think at one time she was driving trucks and feeding 6 or 7 single guys.  I drove a group up into Canada then came back and loaded up a group that headed back to Nebraska to start in the corn.  Richard and Tina stayed in Canada, and  Tim was up there for their final days before heading south  The film crew then came down to interview me.  I must have disappointed him because he never used any of that clip. By that time I had had enough and I knew this movie was going to glamorize the wonderful time as a harvester, as I am sure you saw it. My fear was that the majority of the kids seeing it and coming over from England only to find out it was way more work and not what they expected.  I think they did take my words to heart with their comment that it wasn't as glamorous as it was made out to be.

I liked what I was doing on the harvest.  What was most difficult about the job was the life style.  Harvest work was a type of Gipsy work and you were treated that way.  Not so much by the people we worked for but by anyone we came across and told what we were doing for a living. They would see you differently. It may have been a lousy feeling at the time but it has made a memorable impression on me not to ever judge people by what their role in life is.

So many memories this brings back. Dale and I were never very close.  He never got to excited, always kept an even keel.  Slept a lot in the truck, and kept an eye on how fast we were driving, how clean we kept the grain, and what went over the back end.

VAT reductions on Old Pond DVDs and CDs

Following the Government's announcement that the rate of UK VAT was to be be reduced from 17.5% to 15% on 1st December, we (Old Pond Publishing) had three main courses of action open to us.

First, we could carry on as though nothing had happened and that the price of £15.95 (inc. VAT) that we recommended for most of our DVDs was the market price. In this case the VAT reduction would increase our margin, in line with one of the Chancellor's pronouncements that, whatever way businesses decided to act, he was 'putting revenue into the market'.

Second, we could act on the principle that a market price consists of two elements: a return to the business and a return to the Exchequer, the latter being the VAT element. In this case we would maintain the price excluding VAT and reduce the recommended retail price by the reduction in VAT return.

The third option was to accept that there were that two elements to the market price but also recognise that a strict adherence to the VAT reduction was going to lead to some 'unnatural' end prices. In the case of a £15.95 DVD this would be £15.62. So the third option was to re-price, for instance to £15.49.

In the end we have gone for Option 2. If the Chancellor keeps to his word we will have thirteen months of awkward pricing followed by a return to the market-based pricing we have enjoyed for the last ten years. We have reduced our main DVD price to £15.62 including VAT.

Will the Government keep its word in thirteen months time?

Peterborough and Newark dates in 2009?

This year, once again, we ran stands at the two national autumn tractor shows one week and forty miles apart from each other. Newark shaded it for us. One of the best shows we've known.

The managements of the events have announced that their autumn shows in 2009 will run over the same weekend. We understand now that commonsense is going to prevail and the clash of dates will be avoided. But how? We're intrigued to find out....

More - see Blog 1 March 2009

Colin Fraser

Colin Fraser, author of Harry Ferguson: inventor and pioneer and other books, died in Italy on Monday 12th September.

Colin Fraser was born in England in 1935, and educated in England, Canada and Switzerland. He qualified as an agriculturalist and became a lecturer and instructor on Massey-Ferguson farm tractors and equipment.

Colin developed a profound admiration for this excellent machinery. As he describes in the Introduction to Harry Ferguson, he never met his subject and so "was faced with the task of forming an impression of Ferguson as a man by talking to people who had known him and worked with him, and by reading his correspondence. Thus I travelled in Engalnd, Ireland, the United States of America and Canada to search out people and obtain their recollections of fact, and their opinions, about Ferguson. I was fortunate indeed to meet with co-operation everywhere I went; all the surviving people who had played a significant role in Ferguson's life gave of their time to talk to me. I interviewed a total of sixty-two people and recorded more than 160 hours of tape with them."

The divergent accounts of the interviewees were to plague Colin during his writing of the biography; and the task was only slightly eased by the papers at Ferguson's home, Abbotswood - in all, 150 solidly packed boxes. The result, first published by John Murray in 1972, is recognised as the pre-eminent biography of any farming pioneer.

Colin then became one of the early developers in applying communication media and processes to overseas development, promoting attitudinal and behavioural change among small farmers. For seventeen years he ran operations in this field for the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation before, in 1984, becoming a consultant working for most of the main development agencies. Colin’s work took him to more than 60 countries, often, he said, "thrashing around in the bush".

He also found time to run a small commercial vineyard and wine-producing operation in Italy, with wines in all the main Italian and international wine guides. Colin learned to ski when he was two years old and became devoted to ski-ing and ski-mountaineering.

In later years Colin spent half his time in Colombia and half in Italy. He leaves a widow, Sonia Restrepo Estrada, and two sons, Stuart and Iain, as well as six grandchildren.

July 2000, after lunch at Grantchester, Cambridge. Left to right: Colin, Sonia, Sue Gibbard, Stuart Gibbard and Lesley Smith.

Books by Colin Fraser
The Avalanche Enigma, 1966 (later updated as Avalanches and Snow Safety).
Harry Ferguson: inventor and pioneer, John Murray, 1972, Old Pond, 1998
Lifelines for Africa - Peril and Distress, 1988
Communicating for Development: human change for survival (with Sonia Restrepo Estrada), 1998
Working with Bacchus, 2005