Old Pond publishing days

Marshall and other tractors at RHS Wisley event

Peter Anderson, author of Old Pond's book Marshall Diesel Tractors 1930-1957, looks after the machinery at the Royal Horticultural Society's Wisley gardens.

He has recently been heavily involved in preparations for one of Wisley's new ventures - their 'Mad about Machines' event which takes place from Saturday 24 July until Friday 30th. For that week the added attraction for garden visitors will be a display of tractors and other machinery.

Peter has made his selection of 28 tractors as colourful as possible with bright examples of David Brown, Fordson, Allis, Massey-Harris and others. Those who know Peter will not be surprised to find single-cylinder models there, although they may be more surprised by the rarities alongside the several Field Marshalls and an early Lanz Bulldog. The very unusual machines are a French Messidor and a German Kramer.

Peter also promises examples from Dusty Miller's collection of lawnmowers, several of which date back to the 19th century. Surrey Rural Life Centre are also displaying agricultural tools through the centuries.

For more details visit the RHS website.

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.

 

Massive Backhoe Dredgers - new DVD in preparation

In the blog of 30 April we showed some stills from the filming of the new programme Massive Backhoe Dredgers by Steven Vale.

Steven and his crew have now been filming in Felixstowe, the busiest container port in the UK. Currently shifting more than 9,000 containers each week, owner Hutchison Ports (UK) Ltd is looking to boost volumes by nearly 50 per cent.

To achieve this they are redeveloping the southern end of the Port to create a new deep-water container terminal. Called Felixstowe South, when it opens it will accommodate the largest container ships afloat.

There is heaps to do and not just on land but also under the water. All the dredging work is in the hands of sub-contractor Westminster Dredging Co Ltd - part of the Royal Boskalis Westminster Group.

Huge trailer suction hopper dredgers extract most of the sediment to deepen and widen the Harwich approach channels. Hoovering up the material at breathtaking speed, when full, the contents of the hopper are pumped out through a gigantic hose.

But some of the material is too tough for these floating vacuum cleaners and one of the company’s largest backhoe dredgers has been called in to help out.

Fitted to a pontoon called the Maricavor, the digging arm comes from a land-based Komatsu PC3000 hydraulic excavator. Although it often wields a 13cu m bucket, the under-water material here is so hard this has been swapped for a smaller 5.5 cu m one.

Cameraman Roger Wiltshire and film director Jonathan Theobald not only managed to capture some stunning images of one of the large barges pulling alongside the pontoon, but also take a peek at what goes on below deck.

For full advance information see blog 19 August.

 

Working Tractors 3: Big Power Special DVD advance information

Working Tractors 3: Big Power Special (Tractor Barn Productions), Stephen Richmond and Jonathan Whitlam. DVD, approx 70 minutes. ISBN 978-1-906853-53-2. £12.95 inc VAT. Now in stock at Old Pond Publishing.

This special instalment of the Working Tractors series brings together some really spectacular machines that share one thing in common - high horsepower! From articulated giants to mighty rubber-tracked crawlers this DVD is a power-packed, ground-shaking tribute to some of the biggest tractors to farm the fields of Britain.

Both old and new machines feature including examples from Caterpillar, Steiger, New Holland Versatile, John Deere, Challenger, Massey Ferguson, Ford and Case IH. Steel tracks,large tyres and mutiple wheels or rubber tracks - whichever way the power is put down to the ground the tractors in this DVD really are in the big-power league.

The models included are:
Case IH 9350
Case IH Quadtrac STX450 and STX500
Caterpillar D8
Caterpillar Challenger 45
Challenger MT865C
Ford FW30 and FW60
John Deere 8345RT
John Deere 8440
John Deere 9320T
John Deere 9530
Massey Ferguson 1200
New Holland T8040
New Holland Versatile 9682 and 9684
Steiger Panther ST325.

Bob Paul - the original long haul pioneer

It is with great sadness that we learned of the death yesterday of Bob Paul at the age of 81.

It was in spring 1964 that Bob Paul gave up his medical studies and plunged in with Michael Woodman on the inaugural 5,000-mile overland truck journey from Cheshire to Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. This was the start of Asian Transport, later to become Astran.

Bob was guest of honour at the recent launch of Ashley Coghill's book The Long Haul Pioneers. Bob spoke movingly of his love for Astran and for all the people involved: drivers, office staff, subbies and agents. That feeling was warmly reciprocated by everyone who knew him as you can see on the Trucknet forum.  

Bob Paul was married to Caroline who pre-deceased him to his deep distress. He leaves three children and two grandchildren.

Starks' Harvesters - new book in stock

Starks' Harvesters, Robert S White's paperback account of five seasons working with custom cutter Dale Starks is now available from Old Pond Publishing at £9.95. 

Two new Tractor Barn DVDs announced

Stephen Richmond and Jonathan Whitlam of Tractor Barn Productions intend to add two further DVDs to their output later this year. They will be available from Old Pond after release. Working Tractors Part 3: Big Power Special and The Potato Files have been added to the provisional schedule in September and November respectively. 

Filming Scrap Metal Giants - 2

In November 2009 Steven Vale started filming scrap metal giants for a DVD to be released in 2011. We continued filming recently as the guests of Thamesteel Ltd, a subsidiary of the Saudi Al-Tuwairiqi group of companies. Their site is in the grounds of the garrison town surrounding the historic Sheerness naval dockyard on the north Kent coast.

Thamesteel operates a 'mini' steel mill in which waste steels of various kinds are furnaced to produce new steel billets, bars and rods. Our main purpose was to record the MultiDockers handling the waste, but we found a great deal more of interest.

For a start there was the continuous flow of trucks bringing waste steel in. Some examples follow:

(Left) A DAF CF 85.410 operated by Van Dalen (UK) Ltd.

(Right) The arrival at the weighbridge was a Scania 124L 420.

There was a constant flow of Volvo FM 12s from Hargreaves (below) extruding their waste rather than tipping it.

Now, I don't think this (far left) is something you see every day: the truck being loaded by the Atlas is a Heathfield H33 from the 1970s. It is reckoned that only about 68 were ever built.

 On the right is another Heathfield tipping.

 

As an Ipswich resident I always like to see the name Rapier at work. The Koehring-based NCK-Rapier 1405D crawler-mounted crane and excavator was drop-balling a 12-tonne steel ball to break up large steel agglomerates.

Bill Friday, Thamesteel's safety manager, showed us that there was plenty to see at this fascinating site. For two more posts see 18 July.

Astran celebration and get-together

To celebrate the launch of his book The Long Haul Pioneers Ashley Coghill organised a get-together of as many Astran drivers and staff as he could locate.

They had a great time reminiscing on Saturday.

Co-founder of Astran, Bob Paul, is in the front row of the photograph, left of centre, wearing a bright blue shirt. He is shaking hands with Ashley. 

Chris Lockwood's combine harvester DVDs in stock

Combine Harvesters Part 1 and Combine Harvesters Part 2 by Chris Lockwood are both now in stock at Old Pond. Together, they show 43 different models at work, filmed in 2009.