Old farming men.
- Thread starter Greythundercloudys
- Start date
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
Long story! I saw an advert for a job that sounded like fun and went for it. Got it and been up here ever since. That was over 40 years ago. Land is cheap up here and I don't like crowds!
- Location
- Scottish Highlands
And the bloody things used to arrive 20 ton at a time. Fertiliser in 1cwt bags and all have to be unloaded by hand and carried on your back to the shed. As a student, I remember we'd just unloaded one lorry and another turned up! Small bales hand loaded onto a buck rake, driven to the elevator to put them on the lorry. Again, no sooner finished loading one and another would turn up. The string would play havoc with your hands (no gloves). I think that it was when loading small bales I decided a change of employer might be a good idea!
- Location
- East Essexshire
I was 13 when we got an old backhoe digger capable of lifting pallets, so I'd only had a couple of years able to help unload the cwt bags of seed and fertiliser before it got a bit easier, but even then the top two layers on the pallet would have to be handballed, as it could only lift 1.5 tons, and then the rest of the pallet would have to be unloaded straight away as the driver would always want 'his' pallets back!
It was about that time that we converted mostly to round bale straw too, which more than halved our conventional bale numbers, leaving just the hay to do. But an old boy next door used to put everything into little ones to sell over the winter, and he'd get me to help load the lorries up an old elevator before cycling on to school. There was probably only one lorry a week or so, but I used the excuse that it was an artic and took longer to load as my reason for being late to school a lot more often than it really was.
It was about that time that we converted mostly to round bale straw too, which more than halved our conventional bale numbers, leaving just the hay to do. But an old boy next door used to put everything into little ones to sell over the winter, and he'd get me to help load the lorries up an old elevator before cycling on to school. There was probably only one lorry a week or so, but I used the excuse that it was an artic and took longer to load as my reason for being late to school a lot more often than it really was.
Cab-over Pete
Member
- Location
- Kenilworth, Warwickshire
Not a really old memory, but I do remember trying to help unload 50kg fert bags which were always sticky.
Blue bags with sticky brown glue all over them.
Blue bags with sticky brown glue all over them.
- Location
- N Ireland BT47
Dad talked about carrying 2cwt bags up to the loft and going to the railway station in Dungiven to collect fertiliser in 2cwt bags and knowing him he did it.
I worked on a threshing mill as late as the mid seventies, one on the stack forking, 2 on the mill cutting the sheafs and feeding them into the mill, dad lifting off the bags and two on the baler which was and old Jones baler with the nodding head. I can remember putting in the bars with the twine on them to make the bales and tying it.
I worked on a threshing mill as late as the mid seventies, one on the stack forking, 2 on the mill cutting the sheafs and feeding them into the mill, dad lifting off the bags and two on the baler which was and old Jones baler with the nodding head. I can remember putting in the bars with the twine on them to make the bales and tying it.
They still use Molasses to stop the bags moving about when on the pallet.
Cowabunga
Member
- Location
- Ceredigion,Wales
That was very modern. ICI bags on pallets no less, with glue to hold the bags tight on the pallets.
They were sold loose-loaded on flatbeds before then. My first memories of fertiliser was unloading truckloads of 50kg bags and carrying them into a barn and stacking them to the ceiling, using bags on the floor to make steps three bags high to get the height. Then lifting them off the floor in season, now covered in rat sh!t, and up over the top of a 7 bag Vicon Varispreader.
I remember doing 14 tons over three days on my own when I was 13, which is probably how I got the bad back that has plagued me ever since off and on.
I vaguely remember my dad and his grey MF spinner, which can’t have held more than three or four hundredweight, using paper bags, multi-layer, and opening them by throwing them on the spike built into a bar across the hopper just for the job of splitting the bags. I remember the fertiliser bags being carried by trailer to the fields because of the tiny hopper capacity, and the carelessness with which the bags were often left to blow away in the wind. This carried on for a while with plastic bags and until very recently I found the occasional Shellstar and Fisons bag in the corner of fields, lost for years in the bushes.
- Location
- Near Beeston Castle
There was good trade in empty fertiliser bags around here. Stan Parker or “Stan the bag” as he was known would give good money for them.
I don’t know who he sold them on to but that was his trade.
It used to infuriate me that two of my uncles insisted on cutting them lengthways making them worthless.
I have spread many many tons of fertiliser out of cwt bags with a bucket and cup never mind the 7cwt Vicon.
I don’t know who he sold them on to but that was his trade.
It used to infuriate me that two of my uncles insisted on cutting them lengthways making them worthless.
I have spread many many tons of fertiliser out of cwt bags with a bucket and cup never mind the 7cwt Vicon.
Martinamachine
Member
- Location
- nottingham
Yep have to agree with you thought the was only me lifting 50kg bags in to a vicon and others places when I was 13 , yep suffer/ suffered with a bad back to !
- Location
- S. Staffs
@Cowabunga I could have written your first paragraph exactly the same, lifting those 50kg bags off the floor set like a brick screwed my back too, ended up with a slipped disc and have never been 100% since !
Yup! been there-got the Tshirt-used it to mop my blood off the floor.
Cowabunga
Member
- Location
- Ceredigion,Wales
I had terrible back pain while at college at one point. Had my first of three slip discs at 27. I passed out with pain while having a pee and hit my head on the bath I remember.
Last time I had it really bad was about six years ago in the dealers shop when I was literally brought to my knees right there.
It’s been ok for most of the time between boughts but funnily enough I’ve had twinges over Christmas.
Martinamachine
Member
- Location
- nottingham
Hi cowabunga I’ve been going to the chiropractor for the past 6 years which has helped a lot but maybe if our fathers had said don’t lift those bags when we were young teens we maybe not stuffing as much
- Location
- S. Staffs
Sympathy like, been there too. I once got on a tractor with the header trolley, combine behind waiting to leave the yard, and as I sat down my back went into a spasm and I was just frozen, couldn’t move at all! The pain was incredible, must have been four or five minutes before it eased enough for me to gently get off and I was flat on my back for a week after that.
And that was after the actual slipped disc!
And that was after the actual slipped disc!
- Location
- south norfolk
Think all of us of a certain age have experienced this.can remember unloading cwt bags of fertiliser that where sticky and when moved again where all wet and slippery too.used to use a lister elevator to load our 2ton trailed vicon spreader,when it would start.then progressed to filling digger front bucket and lifting with that.thank god for modern half ton bags.did anyone get involved in the dumpy bags
Nick...
Nick...
Cowabunga
Member
- Location
- Ceredigion,Wales
Trouble is, we, certainly I, wanted to do it. But 50kgs off the floor, or probably at all, at that age was too much. Fathers should have said ‘no’.
DeeGee
Member
- Location
- North East Wales
Yes, load the hundredweight bags from the floor onto a trailer to take them to the field with one tractor (often only perhaps a ton or so) because the spinner on the other tractor only held a few little bags! But those little spinners often had a high narrow hopper so were awkward to fill if the bags were on the shed floor.
In the early 1960’s ours was a Teagle model that held all of three bags (150kg not 1800!) and had to be driven round and round the field in ever decreasing circles rather than up and down because it was actually designed to throw more fertiliser to one side than the other!
And some still call them the good old days!
Red Fred
Member
- Location
- Hants/Dorset border
Painful memories here! Putting ten ton loads of bags onto the flat-8 hay trailers from the lorry so you could take them to the field.
Our very knowledgeable and progressive neighbour used to dismiss all of us lesser neighbours by saying "Oh, they're all just a bunch of blue-bag men", meaning we only used nitrogen as we were too simple to understand compounds. He isn't here any more either, though!
Our very knowledgeable and progressive neighbour used to dismiss all of us lesser neighbours by saying "Oh, they're all just a bunch of blue-bag men", meaning we only used nitrogen as we were too simple to understand compounds.
He isn't here any more either, though!
Super phosphate used to arrive here by train in stiff hessian sacks, spread with shovels whilst standing in trailer.
some had a disc bolted onto the diff off a car to tow behind , first spreader was a little hopper with a belt driven disc ,maybe a Lister ?
Slag was always the worst to deal with, tiny paper bags.
Big bags, was it Hargreaves fert that was first, would not come west of exeter,
Westward fert St Columb was the first down here with ton reusable bags, think we was about the first to use them.
Also had access to nitrogen bags that had gone solid, that took some using
some had a disc bolted onto the diff off a car to tow behind , first spreader was a little hopper with a belt driven disc ,maybe a Lister ?
Slag was always the worst to deal with, tiny paper bags.
Big bags, was it Hargreaves fert that was first, would not come west of exeter,
Westward fert St Columb was the first down here with ton reusable bags, think we was about the first to use them.
Also had access to nitrogen bags that had gone solid, that took some using
This talk of uploading 50kg fertiliser has brought back memory of my first week at work as a little 16 year old 9 stone wet through
Local stone and lime merchant used to bring a load last thing at night after milking when quarries had shut. One day I was on my own milking and just finished when he turned up so had to unload 15 ton with the driver. Had muscles in my spit when we finished.
Another firm, Hadfields I think, used to turn up with 3 men in cab and just got on with it without any help
Local stone and lime merchant used to bring a load last thing at night after milking when quarries had shut. One day I was on my own milking and just finished when he turned up so had to unload 15 ton with the driver. Had muscles in my spit when we finished.
Another firm, Hadfields I think, used to turn up with 3 men in cab and just got on with it without any help