Old Pond publishing days

Truckfest launch for the Volvo F88 & F89 book

For the second year, Old Pond Publishing will have a stand at Truckfest, Peterborough, 6-7 May. You will find us at Ringside 26, next to the main ring in the general trade area on the banking opposite block E.

We will have a wide range of trucking books and DVDs for sale and in particular we will be launching the second edition of Patrick W Dyer's hardback Volvo F88 & F89. Patrick will be on hand to sign copies of this and his other books.

He will also be signing copies on the Volvo stand itself. He expects to be there for an hour from 11.30 am and 2.30 pm both days.

On our own stand we expect to be joined by Ashley Coghill on the Monday. Again, he will be happy to sign copies of The Long Haul Pioneers or talk to you about your long-haul experiences.

Volvo F88 & F89 at Work 2nd edition hardback book by Patrick Dyer now in stock

The second edition of Patrick W Dyer's hardback book Volvo F88 & F89 At Work is now in stock at Old Pond Publishing. Patrick has added 50 more photographs, many from the Volvo archive, and 7,000 words. The book is now in a larger format than previously.

Know Your Dogs new book by Jack Byard advance information

Know Your Dogs, Jack Byard. Paperback book, 104 x 155 mm (landscape), 96 pages inc. 45 photographs. ISBN 978-1-908397-16-4. Now available from Old Pond at £4.99.

Jack Byard’s book covers 45 breeds of dogs selected from Kennel Club lists of most popular breeds. A quick flip through the pages will reveal many familiar faces that you will have encountered in parks and gardens around the UK.

Know Your Dogs is designed for the novice enthusiast of any age. For each breed the right-hand page is dedicated to a quality picture of the breed, usually sourced by Jack from independent breeders. On the facing page is a concise account of the breed’s history. Jack also draws attention to the nature of the animals, highlighting those that serve not just as family pets but also for herding, hunting, rescue, security work and as therapy companions. Truly, the best friend of man, woman and child.

The breeds included in the book are: Airedale Terrier – Akita – American Cocker Spaniel – Australian Shepherd – Beagle – Bichon Frise – Border Collie – Border Terrier – Boston Terrier – Boxer – Bulldog – Cairn Terrier – Cavalier King Charles – Chihuahua – Chinese Shar-Pei – Dachshund – Dalmatian – Doberman Pinscher – English Springer Spaniel – German Shepherd – German Shorthaired Pointer – Golden Retriever – Great Dane – Irish Setter – Labrador Retriever – Lhasa Apso – Maltese – Mastiff – Miniature Pinscher – Miniature Schnauzer – Newfoundland – Pekingese – Pembroke Welsh Corgi – Pomeranian – Poodle – Pug – Rottweiler – Shetland Sheepdog – Shih Tzu – Siberian Husky – Staffordshire Bull Terrier – Weimaraner – West Highland White Terrier – Whippet – Yorkshire Terrier.

This is Jack Byard’s ninth book in the popular ‘Know Your…’ series. For more titles see here.

Know Your Trains new book by James Race advance information

Know Your Trains, James Race. Paperback, 104 x 155 mm (landscape), 96 pages inc. 44 photographs. ISBN 978-1-908397-13-3. Now available from Old Pond at £4.99.

Know Your Trains shows the wide range of different trains to be found on the railways of Great Britain today. All 44 the trains featured can be found on the national network. James Race has organised the trains alphabetically by manufacturer’s name with class number and type of train also included. The left-hand page describes the history of each machine, while the right-hand side displays a full-page, high-quality photograph.

The trains featured are: Alexander Pacer – Alstom Adelante – Alstom Coradia 1000 – Alstom Juniper – Alstom Pendolino – Alstom Prima – Bombardier Electrostar – Bombardier Turbostar – Bombardier Voyager – BREL 1987 Electric Locomotive – BREL EMU – BREL Express Sprinter – BREL Inner Suburban EMU – BREL InterCity 125 – BREL Networker – BREL Outer Suburban EMU – BREL Sprinter – BREL Wessex Express – British Rail 1961 Diesel Locomotive – Brush 1957 Diesel Locomotive – Brush 1962 Diesel Locomotive – Brush 1989 Diesel Locomotive – Brush 1993 Electric Locomotive – Brush 1997 Rebuilt Locomotive – English Electric 1952 Diesel Shunter – English Electric 1957 Diesel Locomotive – English Electric 1958 Diesel Locomotive – English Electric 1960 Diesel Locomotive – English Electric 1962 Electro-Diesel Locomotive – English Electric Deltic – GEC Alsthom TGV-TMST Eurostar – General Electric InterCity 225 – General Electric PowerHaul – General Motors JT42CWR – Hitachi Javelin – Hunslet Suburban EMU – Leyland Pacer – Leyland Super Sprinter – Met-Cam Ex-Tube Train – Met-Cam Super Sprinter – Parry People Mover PPM60 – Peppercorn A1 – Pressed Steel Suburban – Siemens Desiro.

Felix Thornley Cobbold Agricultural Trust new book advance information

A Farming Legacy 1910–2010 Celebrating the Centenary of the Felix Thornley Cobbold Agricultural Trust, Rosalind Thomas. Paperback book, 246 x 189 mm, 144 pages inc. 32 photographs. ISBN 978-1-908397-14-0. Now available from Old Pond at £19.95.

The Felix Thornley Cobbold Agricultural Trust was established in Suffolk after the death of wealthy philanthropist Felix Cobbold. A Farming Legacy describes how the trust has developed during the course of a remarkable hundred years.

The trust has survived wars, pestilence, economic upheaval and momentous changes in farming practice. It has seen its focus shift from providing smallholdings and allotments to running a demonstration farm. For many years it has been host and benefactor of Otley College which has provided agricultural education – and other courses - on the outskirts of Ipswich. All the while, the trust has not lost sight of its charge: to support local agriculture.

Author Rosalind Thomas supplements the story of the trust with details of the agricultural and social scene in Suffolk. She also touches on wider historical changes which have had an impact on East Anglian farming.

A Farming Legacy includes a preface by FTCAT Chairman Stephen Cobbald, an appendix listing the property donated to the trust by Felix Cobbold in 1910 and a second appendix detailing the chairmen of the trust from 1910 to today.

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.