Old Pond publishing days

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.

Footpath conservation, Hoy, Orkney

Like so many other visitors to Orkney I was keen to see the Old Man of Hoy, the stack made famous in 1966 by Chris Bonington and colleagues as the first televised climb.

To reach it you walk a couple of miles over a headland from Rackwick, which is down at sea level. However, all these boots have an erosive impact, so it was no real surprise to find some path conservation going on.

The Volvo EC30 was being operated by Andrew Coleman, one of the partners in Highland Conservation Ltd.

The company was established in 1992 by Andrew and his partner John Urquhart. After four years' practical experience Andrew obtained more training from the Ross and Cromarty Footpath Trust.

Both the EC30 and the EC20B were tracked up to the working area.

The relatively slight gradient means that the path can be restored without the escessive use of stone, and this is lighter on the walker's feet. Indeed, the path was a pleasure to be on.

Highland Conservation has a website at www.highlandconservation.com

Raising beef on Orkney

Just back from a week's holiday in Orkney, first visit to this collection of islands off the north coast of Scotland.

This is the view from Ramsquoy farm where Mona Swannie runs a bed and breakfast while husband Jim farms with their grandson.

Ramsquoy is in the parish of Stenness on Mainland, the largest of Orkney's seventy islands. Across the sound is the low-lying small island of Graemsay and then the hills of Hoy.

The hay and silage harvest is in full swing just now. This baler was at work at Gearsan in the parish of Deerness at the east of Mainland. In three weeks' time it will be the turn of the barley harvest. Everywhere we went we saw large rectangular fields of grass or barley.

The grass and barley are for livestock feed and bedding. On some islands such as Rousay we saw more sheep than cattle, but on Mainland it was cattle that were more numerous.

Jim Swannie is a beef producer. He runs three holdings, the Ramsquoy one which he owns and two others which are rented. He stocks about a hundred breeding cows and runs four bulls with them, currently two Simmental and two Charolais.

The cattle are grazed outside from the end of April to the end of October after which they are housed to prevent the grass becoming poached. This is when adequate supplies of silage and barley become essential.

For thirty years Jim has reinvested all his earnings on the farm. One of the results is this highly efficient slatted housing unit. Another is his water supply: from a spring on high ground he takes water to troughs in all areas of his farm by piping buried four feet deep.

The cows have roughly a ten-year breeding life and Jim breeds his own replacements. The beef is supplied to Orkney Meat Ltd, established in 1982 in Kirkwall, the main market town of Orkney. It is marketed under the Orkney Island Gold banner.

The Charolais bull and followers are standing in a field which several years ago was rough heather but is now well on its way to becoming good grazing. Jim re-seeds his grass every two to three years.

It was really heartening to see a side of agriculture that appears to be prosperous and expanding, keeping people and livestock on the land.

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

New Ford tractor filming

In the heart of Somerset, courtesy of Dennis and Maurice Burston, we've begun recording for a DVD on Ford tractors 1965-85. The script will be by George French. Advance information about Ford Tractors 1965-95 is to be found in the blog of 29 August 2010.

We started (left) with a Ford 5000 from 1965, owned by Steve Brinson and driven by Richard Duckett. It was working with a Wilder Twin-Chop forage harvester and a Massey Ferguson 17-7 trailer.

Next up (right) was a beautifully restored 1966 Ford Major 4000 owned by Ken Hallett. George French used it to work a New Holland 30 flail mower.

Andy Duckett demonstrated Steve Brinson's 1967 Ford 2000 (left), working with a New Holland 401 crimper.

The Ford Force 3000 (right), owned and driven by Richard Duckett was coupled with a Bamford Wuffler hay tedder.

Maurice Burston took the helm of Bernard Tomlinson's 1967 Ford Dexta 3000 (left) and New Holland 445E cutter-bar mower.

Four-wheel-drive was available to driver George French on George Langdon's Ford 5610 (right). The baler was a New Holland Super Hayliner 276 feeding to an SKH bale sledge.

Finally, here's some of the gang (left) lined up at the end of the first of the three days' filming.

Continued on 22 August ...

Massive earthmoving miners in Britain (4)

(continued from 12 July)

Also in Northumberland, we were able to film at Banks Mining, Shotton. Here we were looked after by production manager Kevin Banks, on the right of the picture with the organiser and script-writer of the DVD, Steven Vale.

There was coal to be had at Shotton, once again left behind by earlier deep-mining ventures. The Cat 325D (right) was loading a Volvo A40E.

The mine has two brand-new O&K RH120-E face shovels, the first in Britain to be powered by Cat engines (left).

The 120-Es joined an older 120-C (right). And working on the horizon above the 120-C was something rather special.

Here (left) it is, refuelling - a Terex O&K RH200. The biggest Terex excavator, not only in the UK, but in Europe. At 480 tonnes it is the heaviest hydraulic excavator in Britain.

The RH200 was making short work of loading Cat 785s (right)and 789Cs.

Look carefully above the face shovel (left) and you will see the jets of the dust-suppression unit in full flow. All the mines we visited took dust suppression very seriously indeed.

Steven Vale regards the RH200 as the star of the programme which is currently being edited by Jonathan Theobald. Expect the complete Britain's Massive Miners Parts 1 & 2 to be released by Old Pond this autumn as two DVDs. Details are given in the blog of 9 September.

A new tractor restoration website

'Reborn Tractor: farmyard to showground' will be focusing on restoration. It will include professional restorers' projects and trade tips and 'an interactive enthusiast's project area where registered users can document their own restorations.' The website is announced to be launched soon: www.reborntractor.net

Know Your Horses - new book in stock

Jack Byard's fourth book has now been published. Know Your Horses, paperback, £4.99 is in stock at  Old Pond.

Jack celebrated the publication with a lunch in Wharfedale. He is flanked left in the picture by Heather Jarrold, marketing manager at Old Pond, and right by Sally Sharp of Yale Representation.

Jack started writing at 71 - it's never too late. Know Your Pigs is next on his list.

Details of Jack's horse book are in the blog of 23 March.

Massive earthmoving miners in Britain (3)

(Continued from 28 June.) Full details of the DVDs are in the blog of 9 September

In Northumberland we were the guests of UK Coal at the Steadsburn site of the Maidens Hall open-cast coal mine. This (left) is one of a series of pits excavated above the seams of the original deep shaft mines. Water bubbled up from the flooded working beneath.

Here (right) an O&K RH170 face shovel was working. This is the only one, Steve said, in the country.

This (left) mighty face shovel loading a Cat 789 was Maiden Hall's O&K RH200. We were to see a newer version at another Northumbrian site.

The Cat 789 (right) was tipping to a Cat D10R.

There were a couple of O&K RH120-C excavators loading Cat trucks with boulder clay.

I only regret I didn't get to see Chevington Collier at work, a Bucyrus-Erie 1260W walking dragline.

The 3,500 ton machine excavated 43 tons at a time with a 32 cu metre bucket suspended from a 54 metre high boom. When we were at the mine the dragline was waiting shipment to South Africa.

We were grateful to Trevor Meek for looking after us at the mine. In the photograph from the left are are Director Jonathan Theobald, cameraman Roger Wiltshire, Trevor Meek and tripod-carrier Steven Vale.

Continued on 20 July ...

Peter Hall's Akenfield film on DVD

Every now and then someone contacts us at Old Pond to ask if we can supply a DVD of the film Akenfield. I wish we could, but we can't.

However, we understand that a supply of the 2004 Limited Edition DVD is held by the manager of the Aldeburgh Cinema, Dave Gregory. He can supply copies at £17.50 plus £1 post and packing (UK). The contact is [email protected]

Akenfield (1974), based on the book of the same name by Ronald Blythe, explores changes and continuities in a Suffolk village. In the 1970s young Tom is struggling to decide whether or not to leave. While he wrestles with his future he continually encounters his dead grandfather who, sixty years earlier, also tried to leave - but failed.

Peter Hall used local villagers as actors, with improvisation. Among the stars was Peggy Cole of Charsfield whose 'Akenfield' garden later raised much money for charity. She remains the 'country girl at heart' contributing to local radio and newspapers.