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Burnin' rubber!
Back in 1999, 'Fergie', my 1957 Ferguson ‘FE35’ tractor, was in very good. clean condition and she performed faultlessly. However she had been repainted at some time in her career and although the job had been completed well enough, the wrong colours had been applied. I therefore felt she deserved to be repainted in her original, correct and relatively rare 'grey and gold' livery. It looked quite pretty in its day (if you're in to that sort of thing!) and was, as I say rare. They had only been produced in this unusual livery for around 18 months. This meant a trip of around thirty kilometres to a contractor with the necessary grit blasting equipment to take 'Fergie' down to bare metal prior to applying a primer. At the same time I thought it a good idea to have the little single furrow Ransome 'Competition' plough I'd also acquired restored to its original Royal blue colour.
The first ten kilometres was covered at a stately 20 kph and went without a hitch. I kept well over to the right so as not to impede traffic. Overtaking lunatics though seemed determined to remove their near-side mirrors on my back tyre so I spent the otherwise boring time musing over who would come off worse if they misjudged their suicidal manoeuvres by another ten centimetres or so. Ahead of me lay an infamous ‘rondpont’. This one had been designed back in the '80's by a road engineer more as a fashion statement than as a useful adjunct to road safety. Its designer obviously had a wicked sense of humour combined with an equally obvious hatred of motorised transport. Choosing the correct lane was a lottery and combining totally illogical lane markings with impatient locals plus confused tourists helped maintain steady business for the car repair trade as well as the hospital down the road. It is a fact that during peak season periods fully crewed ambulances would park nearby, 'in anticipation' as it were, within a few metres of this blackspot roundabout. Thus gaining a few precious moments extra time for its victims and cheating the undertakers in the process. All that was really needed was a pot of white paint to apply correct lane markings but thus far this task seemed to escape the attentions of 'The Marquis de Sade' or whoever it was in charge of such things down at the local road planning office.
I approached cautiously and with lack of such modern innovations as indicators, with much waving of arms and gesticulation so as to try and effect a lane change without collecting a 40 tonner on the single furrow plough hanging on the back. I didn't quite make it and got carved up by an eager red Porsche with a pychopath behind the wheel. Now here I am in the middle lane when really I would have been better off in the far left when the lights changed to red. The 40 tonne truck draws up close behind me and the red Porsche to my left in the lane I should really have been in. I tried to catch the attention of the Porsche driver. When eventually he did acknowledge my gesticulations you could see that he clearly thought I was akin to something unpleasant he might find upon the sole of his shoe if not too careful about where he trod.
Now 'Fergies' are not noted for their top speed. As I’ve already explained, I'd covered the last ten kilometres at twenty kilometres per hour and that was flat out! What a lot of people, especially dead from the neck up Porsche drivers, don't know however is that tractors of this vintage don't have synchronised gearboxes. They don't need them. From stationary the driver simply selects the gear needed to work in for the proposed task and sets off. Be it low first, low second or low third or high first, high second or high third. High third therefore effectively being 'sixth' gear. Old tractors like this, although not very quick, had such massive torque relative to their weight that they simply set off at whatever velocity chosen. No acceleration period to speak of. One moment you were stationary, following the next neck snapping second you were doing whatever speed the chosen gear, combined with hand operated throttle setting, dictated you would do. And trust me, 54" back tyres also means there isn't much chance of wheel spin either. Particularly on dry tarmac. I cranked open the throttle to her smooth 2,400 rpm maximum engine speed and simultaneously selected 'high third'. Top gear that is. With foot slowly releasing the clutch pedal until the clutch was just beginning to ‘bite’ I held dear old Fergie stationary on her brake waiting for the lights to change. "Right you bugger", I thought. "Never judge a book by its cover!"
Although the Porsche did actually beat me away from the lights it was only by a whisker and I swear that it was only the raucous old diesel pounding away full bore beside him that actually gave the game away. He anticipated what I was attempting. I had set off like a bolt out of a crossbow though and my concentration on the competition with the Porsche meant I'd failed to notice the tired old hydraulics supporting the heavy and rusty old plough on the back had given up the challenge and dropped it. Thus allowing the plough's foot, the sharp 'business end', to engage the warm tarmac road surface. 'Fergie' must have travelled a good six metres from the lights before finally failing to overcome the resistance of twelve inches of ploughshare embedded under the last three metre stretch of tarmac. She stalled and she stopped just as abruptly as she had set off. The 40 tonne truck behind me however didn’t. The astonished truck driver did though manage to bring his rig to a halt immediately after his front bumper had pushed the plough a further six inches or so under the surface of the road. Just for good measure.
Tourist traffic was exceptionally heavy that day. Cars and trucks immediately backed up right around the roundabout. I couldn't move of course because I needed to reverse in order to extricate the ploughshare. I couldn't do that because the truck was still impacted upon the plough. The truck couldn't reverse because he couldn't make himself understood to the old man with the Renault Scenic with the caravan hanging on the back and which had stopped suddenly right behind him. Even if the Renault driver had understood I don't think he was actually capable of reversing with a caravan. Anyway by this time scores of vehicles were forming a long queue behind. The only good news was that there was nothing in front of me. Perhaps it was the sound of Police sirens that made 'Fergie' think she should pull her socks up and wind up her hydraulic pump to full bore and try even harder at lifting the plough out of the tarmac. Just like a faithful old friend she performed just when needed, lifting her skirts along with the plough set off at zero to 20 kph in, well, 'nil secs' actually. I just had time to see the looks of amazement on the faces of the coppers as they peered up and down the 18" deep furrow across the entire width of the roundabout's middle lane that 'Fergie' had left in her wake. Fortunately for 'Fergie' and me their 'jam sandwiches' were also now stuck with the other couple of hundred or so other vehicles now caught up behind the truck, the furrow and the rest of the chaos. The plough, freshly raised to its maximum travelling height thus obscured Fergie's back number plate. This, combined with a hasty bolt down an obscure wooded country lane as soon as we were out of sight, has meant Fergie and me have remained anonymous to the authorities to this day.
What reminded me to recount this story (as with all the others, this very true story!) was my friend and neighbour asking me the other day why I kept Fergie. Even after having moved to a much smaller property where clearly I had no real practical use for her.
"When are you going to sell her?" he enquired.
"Sell her!?" I remonstrated, rhetorically, except rhetorically in French. "I'll never sell her. Perhaps I might marry her but I'll never part with her!"
For once my Froggie voisin understood my mangled French but from the sad expression on his face
clearly not my sentiment. No passion these Froggie types!
I've finished ploughing now.
For the day anyway.
