Labour of love to bring an old friend back to life

It was a late model with narrow mudguards from around 1945 and had been repainted in green by the farmer who had ideas about restoring it but he had never been able to start the tractor.

When I was in my early teens, I used to drive a Fordson Standard regularly and I loved it, I preferred it to the "Fergy". I would disc and harrow the fields and bring in the hay with it; the smell of that TVO exhaust as it sat ticking over in the meadow, as we loaded the bales on a hot summer's day, was something to experience – it was a special smell all on its own. So it was with nostalgia lingering in my nostrils that I bought the tractor. I, too, tried to start it but it just banged and cracked in protest so I was forced to get it back to my farm by towing it.

While I used to drive a Standard when I was young, an adult would get it going for me and therefore I was not really familiar with the starting procedure. When I got my new purchase home, I played about with it but had no joy in getting it running – it continued to bang and crack at me and frighten the crows. No one in my vicinity knew anything about Fordsons and I was at a loss but not beaten – I would ring the makers, Ford at Dagenham. I rang the main switchboard at Ford and explained that I had a tractor of theirs that refused to start.

The girl kindly put me through to the Agricultural Division and I spoke to a gentleman, again explaining the reason for my call. He, as cool as a cucumber, as though he got a dozen calls each day from people asking how to start old Fordsons, put me through to Mr Brides-Wise, the man in charge of their Archives Division.

Mr Brides-Wise understood my frustration and commented that he was in throes of restoring a Velocipede and that it had taken him nearly seven years to find a wheel for it. He located the manuals and read through the recommended starting procedure: "Make sure the magneto is properly lined up with the timing marks" – "Having made sure that the leads to the plugs are in the correct order – turn off the magneto, turn on the petrol feed line, open up the choke and pull out the accelerator lever and with the tractor out of gear engage the starting handle and lift it twice – then switch on the magneto and half close the choke and give another pull with the starting handle and it should start".

I followed Mr Brides-Wise's instructions to the letter and, bingo, it cracked up and ran like a bumpy Swiss clock. I could not wait to ring the man that I had bought it from to let him hear its throbbing beat over the phone – I think he was now rather annoyed that he had let it go.

Underneath the green paint was the trace of Ford Blue and I re-sprayed it in that colour with the wheels in Ford Orange – it looked cracking. The rear wheels were not of the normal Fordson "N" Series style and I found out from Rufus Carr of Rimmington that they had been made by Hollands at the Broken Cross Foundry in Cheshire to their own design.

Rufus, who was an authority on Fordsons, said the tractor probably started out life with spade lug wheels and at some stage was converted to rubber tyred wheels.

He said that because of the shortage of scrap at the end of the war, a farmer wishing to change to rubber tyres would probably gather up whatever scrap could be found around the farm to make the wheels.

An inspector from the DVL came to authenticate the tractor and it was re-registered with an old, un-issued number of JSV 895. Unfortunately, I ran short of cash and had to sell the tractor but while I had it, I had some very enjoyable times with it and it brought back some lovely memories for me.

From: Steven W Beasley, Barker Cote Farm, Haworth Old Road, Wadsworth. Hebden Bridge.

CW 4/9/10