Ploughing our own furrow

The beloved little grey Fergie changed the face of farming forever but the heavy horses it replaced still have the power to captivate an audience

- Neil and Serena Cross

NDC

JUST OVER a decade ago, my father and I were walking-up the boundaries of a friend's farm in Cornwall when we took shelter from a rainstorm in an old granite barn.

In the back rested an old grey Fergie, connected to a saw bench and looking extremely neglected. It is said that they're always grey because that was the cheapest paint after the war when fewer battleships needed painting and gallons of the stuff were available from the Admiralty for next to nothing. It was also exceedingly weather resistant and hard-wearing, which means that after nearly 80 years most of these splendid machines are still to be found patinating in their original livery.

Back to this Fergie, however. Much of the greyness in evidence was courtesy of decades of droppings from birds perching on the beams of the barn and the wonderful elm-trunk cantilever cider press that completed the rustic ceiling arrangements. When we dropped by the farmhouse to leave a brace of woodcock for the guv'nor, I asked him if he still used the Fergie. His response was that the barn was earmarked for conversion by his son and that the tractor must be evicted. A short negotiation saw me walk away as the owner of a rather senior piece of agricultural folklore that had farmed that same valley since 1952.