Memory Lane The Standard Fordson Tractor
Back in the Middle Ages of the 1950’s at Priding motive power was exceedingly scarce.
But my neighbouring friendly farmer owned a pre-war Fordson Standard Tractor and if you were ever to get to drive it you had to look and learn for a long while. Another requirement was twofold. One that you had enough body weight to depress that mighty clutch pedal on the right hand floor pan and secondly you had to be able to swing the starting handle fast enough to start the beast. I did not think I would ever achieve the second task.
But visit after visit you gained more experience. Their model was with rubber tyres all round with cast wheels at the front with rubber tyres and the two large rear wheels were similar but with massive zig-zag treads. It seemed there was always a need to inflate these on every visit which was an art form in its own right. Once the engine was running it would be stopped and a spark plug removed and a long air hose taken out of the shed and one end had a spark plug fitting and the other a tyre valve connector. This was connected and the engine restarted and each tyre inflated until it looked about right. But rear wheel punctures were a morning wasted, ….. find a jack, find a large lump of wood ,find the wheel brace then find a four foot length of 2 inch pipe. Release the nuts by standing on the pipe attached to the wheel brace, one hour gone! Jack the wheel up and take the wheel off and lie in on a dry piece of the yard to work on it with the tyre levers. Take out the inner tube and pump up the tube and put it in the cows drinking trough and find the leak. Another hour gone. Once repaired it all had to be put back together and that is the morning gone!
Before a day on the tractor could begin the pre flight checks had to be done. Unscrew the water cap on top of the radiator. Find the watering can or the bucket and fill the water up. These Fordsons drank /lost water and would boil any time you liked. Find the starting Petrol, that’s in the red can with SHELL-Mex pressed into it. At this time the engine must NOT be running as the spark plugs were on the top of the engine and there was always an aurora of blue sparks when she was firing. Secondly you filled the TVO (tractor vaporising oil) (Paraffin to you and me) tank up. Thats the large square green can and it smells like paraffin. Next find a small Hessian sack printed “Gospil Brown Sack Hire Gloucester” on it. This is vital and has two uses. Firstly it folds up and becomes a seat cushion on the cold and wet steel drivers seat but also if the TVO leaks as it does, the fuel sometimes goes onto the magneto and it all catches fire. Well you can beat the flames out with the sack! Check the tool box for the day’s essentials…the Fordson had a square tool box on the side with a steel lid the contents of which were four rusty spanners that had never been used since the tractor was new, the regulation bent rod Ford screwdriver that every Ford owner had and a Tecalamit alloy cased grease gun. The grease gun had very serious learning to it as you had to know which component would fail that day and before it did you pumped it full of grease until the grease fell on the grass below.
We are ready to go..”Can I drive…Can I Drive”. “No, not until we get into the field”. What an achievement that first time you are solo. This is better than aviation. At fifteen or sixteen one would drive and turn hay hour, after hour or chain harrow an orchard until there was nothing left. For my lovely friendly farmer it was trust in me to drive and he could go and trim a hedge fix a fence whilst I play. Clutch in , into gear and latch the throttle part way open, you were king of all motive power. Many farmers with this tractor had a bit of stick found in the hedge in the hand throttle ring to make using it easier. Not for this lady I remember an elegantly turned handle, probably a belaying pin, maritime meets agriculture!
These Standard Fordsons were simple but so so reliable and needed to be as every morning two churns for Cadbury’s would be put into the small trailer, lashed in and taken from Framilode Mill to The Pike for collection. She never let you down.