Old Pond publishing days

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

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.

New Brewis Audio CD in stock

Second Helpings by Henry Brewis, Audio CD, approx 60 minutes is now in stock at Old Pond. Retail £7.95 inc VAT. For more details see blog 25 February.

Ax Men and Steiger 2 in stock now

Two new DVDs are now in stock at Old Pond:

Ax Men from the History Channel (for details see blog 21 February)

Steiger Part 2 from Toy Farmer magazine and Peter D Simpson (details -  blog 26 February)

Britains Toy Tractors 1998-2008 new book advance information

Yes, Dr David Pullen is at it again, with a third book on Britains' farm models on its way from Veloce Publishing. This one is called a pocket guide but it's going to be a blockbuster: a shade under 500 pages with 1,450 photographs. The amount of work that must have gone into this is staggering.

According to the publisher's release,'The book describes all the model tractors released in the UK, North America and Europe since 1998.' Presumably this means the Britains models released in that period, the ten years since production was transferred to China.

Each tractor is illustrated in six full photographs showing the model from different angles and the original packaging. As well as general releases, the book includes details and photographs of prototype and rare models, complemented by a catalogue describing the main features, differences, issue dates and codes of each model.

The word 'bible' is sometimes loosely applied to big books; in this case it seems that it will be completely fitting.

Pocket Guide to Britains Farm Model & Toy Tractors, 1998-2008, David Pullen. Hardback, 210 x 148 mm, 496 pages including 1,450 full-colour photographs. IN STOCK at Old Pond Publishing  at £29.99.

Ice Road Truckers Season Two DVD advance information

Ice Road Truckers returns for a second high-tension season, but this time the job takes them even farther north, 100 miles inside the Arctic Circle. They are here for a new mission: to haul the heavy metal of natural gas drilling rigs not only on frozen rivers but also over the Arctic Ocean! In just three months the drivers will earn a year's salary but they'll have to endure one of the most perilous stretches of road anywhere in the world, where jack-knifing, breakdowns and frostbite are commonplace and any wrong move could see them sucked into the frezing water as the ice gives way beneath their wheels.

It's a treacherous, bone-numbing job - just the kind of challenge that keeps this special breed of driver coming back for more.

Ice Road Truckers: The Complete Season Two (The History Channel), 3-DVD set lasting over 9 hours is IN STOCK at £19.95 from Old Pond Publishing

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....

Steiger Part 2 - new DVD advance information

Steiger Part 2
No. 3 in the "4WD Tractor Pioneers" series by Peter D Simpson and Toy Farmer magazine. DVD, approx 68 minutes. NOW IN STOCK at Old Pond Publishing, £16.95. 

The programme interweaves two Steiger archive films of 1974 and 1977 with filming and interviews from 2008 to show the second half of Steiger's life. There's footage of a Tiger, claimed to be one of the oldest Steigers still at work. Farmer Roy Bultman talks about and demonstrates the Wildcat he has owned since 1981.

After more archive featuring Steigers at work with sugar cane and rice we move on to Series II machines, watching a Cougar and Wildcat working together with chisels and discs. Then a Panther goes through its paces rolling. This is big-field work with big implements.

North Dakota salesman Warren Rust tells us what it was like to sell these machines. Besides their power and good weight distribution, he valued their durability, good trade value, dependability and the ease with which you could get to the engine for repairs.

More Steigers in action: two 9180s, the last to be painted Steiger green, and a Puma, the smallest of the Steiger clan, introduced in 1986. Ben McIntyre of BTP (Big Tractor Parts) talks about the insatiable demand for Steiger parts worldwide and how his company reverse engineers to be able to supply them.
Some account is given of Steiger's many alliances, with footage of Ford FW-30s at work and stills of rare machines, including the one prototype of the high-horsepower two-wheel drive tractor. The mechanic cried when he took it apart.

More archive deals with Steiger's yellow days, with industrial machines pulling scrapers.
The programme brings the story up to date with a look at the STX range and the benefits of Quadtrac design.

"A farm boy - he wanted Steigers. That's all he wanted. Steigers."