Hebden Bridge: The Christmas Eve tractor run that keeps on growing and bringing joy to Yorkshire's real Happy Valley

“We didn’t realise how exciting it would be for everybody. We just thought it would be a bit of fun,” says farmer’s wife Meg Whitaker, one of the organisers.

A Christmas Eve Tractor Run is something really special and Hebden Bridge’s is the only one of its kind in Yorkshire, unless you know different.

“No-one seems to do anything special on Christmas Eve anymore, especially after lockdown,” says Tom Newsome, who says his two young sons Ernie and Stanley are obsessed with tractors. “Everybody used to go and see friends and family. We’ve done this as much for the kids, but it was also a good reason for us all to get together again.

It was Tom’s son Ernie who inadvertently set off the idea of a Christmas Tractor Run.

“Ernie was then 6 years old,” says Tom. “There’s a local garage near us and they’ve got an old Peterbilt wagon which they drive through the valley with Father Christmas ringing the bell out of the back. I asked Ernie what he wanted for Christmas one day and he said he’d really like to see a Tractor Run or something similar.

“I mentioned it to a few friends at our local pub the New Delight and everybody agreed to make it happen. Earlier that year we’d lost someone very special to a lot of us, Chris Greenwood, who ran a local farm machinery company, so I approached Julia, Chris’ wife, and said we were considering doing this and instead of it just being a tractor run, we could raise money for a good cause. That’s what we did, Julia’s been on board since day one and we set off the run from one of her businesses.

“We had 20 tractors the first year and thought wow! We couldn’t believe how many people turned up, and then last year with a bit more organising we had nearly 60.

“We made sure the route went past Tom’s boys,” says Meg, who handles all the event’s administration and marketing.

Julia says the charity they started with was British Heart Foundation.

“I lost Chris to a sudden heart attack in June 2021. I got a bit involved with British Heart Foundation and realised how much they do, how much they need more funding. Tom is a good friend as well as being our electrician and when he asked me about the tractor run and if I was okay with it being in Chris’ memory I thought it was a fantastic idea and said it could set off from my yard.

“Last year I went out in my car with my sister and a friend, with collection buckets and chatted with people.

“Everyone said what a wonderful thing it is for the children and everyone on Christmas Eve. It has really brought the spirits up of the town after Covid and the cost of living going up. We were amazed at how many people turned out by the roadside in Hebden Bridge last year.

“This year we’ve extended it to turn around at Moderna Trading Estate in Mytholmroyd, so we’ll start in Todmorden, go through Hebden Bridge, turn in Mytholmroyd, then back to Hebden Bridge and through Heptonstall, finishing at the New Delight in Colden.

“It is emotional, evoking memories of Chris, but he would have loved it. All the tractors start congregating from half past two. People bring children down from three o’clock. We have Santa there on his sleigh, on the back of my truck, to save his reindeer’s efforts for later in the night. The tractors set off when it has just dropped dark.

“One of the tractor drivers has Baby Shark on his phone, so he plays that over his air horns on his tractor and all the kids love it, as he keeps playing it through the valley. This really is Happy Valley. We raised about £2000 last year. This year we are raising funds for the children’s cancer charity Candlelighters.

Julia says she is so appreciative of the time all of those who have tractors put in to make the evening so special.

“It’s one of the the busiest times for livestock people, which many of the farmers are around here, and they’ve been working all day, but they’ve then washed all the tractors down so they look fantastic and every one of the tractor drivers puts the biggest of smiles on their faces and they light up the rest of us.

“This really is Christmas. It’s great for people watching who have finished work, but it also shows the dedication of farmers and that effort they all put in, probably from lunchtime when they are getting ready, right on until night time when they are back home bedding up their animals.

Meg says the coming together of the first Christmas Eve Tractor Run was particularly poignant for her.

“We’d got married at the end of November and then just before the tractor run I tested positive for Covid, so I didn’t get to the start because I couldn’t mingle. I’d only joined it at Heptonstall. It was just great and I cried my eyes out at how good it was and what it was for.

Todmorden farmer Jonathan Stansfield has three tractors in the run this year and says it is an amazing event, one that his good friend Chris would have been proud of, and that last year’s run was very special for him.

“Chris was a larger-than-life guy who helped many young people in farming in this area. Tom is also one of my good friends and his kids asked if they could decorate a tractor and go for a ride in one a couple of years ago.

“Hebden Bridge Christmas Eve Tractor Run is such a good thing for the community, for farmers, for children, for everybody. It puts smiles on everyone’s faces and it has just snowballed from where we started.

“It’s good to be able to take part. My middle daughter Lily is now 17 years old and she passed her tractor test just four weeks prior to last year’s tractor run. We’ve two John Deeres and one Fendt this year. We had one of our diggers on the back of one last year with lots of lights around it.

Tom says the run has caused such a buzz around the valley.

“It’s nice when in June people are saying, ‘Are you doing the Tractor Run again this year?’