Wartime threshing memories

[sahara]

@Henarar , My family were threshing contractors back in the 50's, we also had a mobile saw bench, by all accounts they would travel quite far, maybe it was us!

 

[Henarar]

@Henarar , My family were threshing contractors back in the 50's, we also had a mobile saw bench, by all accounts they would travel quite far, maybe it was us!

Was during the war, I think they only grew the corn there for a couple years, its not really corn land here

 

[sahara]

I don't know the exact time line of when they started but I know that they were active before the war. Apparently the big saw bench went to South Devon in the mid twenties for a couple of years. I've seen a couple of letters from Manns I think it was, discussing the sale of something like a Class trusser, I think these were dated 1939.
My great uncle remembered cutting wheat in fields locally that were planted under the direction of the War Ag, and commented that they were rarely worth the bother.
Locally there was another contractor, quite a big outfit I gather. Run by the late Geoffrey King, W G King from Bishops Lydeard.

 

[Henarar]

I don't know the exact time line of when they started but I know that they were active before the war. Apparently the big saw bench went to South Devon in the mid twenties for a couple of years. I've seen a couple of letters from Manns I think it was, discussing the sale of something like a Class trusser, I think these were dated 1939.
My great uncle remembered cutting wheat in fields locally that were planted under the direction of the War Ag, and commented that they were rarely worth the bother.
Locally there was another contractor, quite a big outfit I gather. Run by the late Geoffrey King, W G King from Bishops Lydeard.

If they bought a trusser then they must have been reed combing as well as thrashing.
Dad said that it was only any good the first year after that it was a waste of time.
I had heard that kings were in to thrashing years ago

 

[DrWazzock]

My maternal grandfather being one to hang on to older techniques, bought out the threshing machine business of a Mr Saunby of Market Rasen in the 1930’s. He carried on threshing for many customers well into the 1950’s and also had a clover dehuller. Mother recalls the phone never stopped ringing and that his father used to get angry, reckoning he always did the customers threshing before he got round to their own. The machines were kept in a barn till 1976 when he died. My father torched the lot apart from maybe a couple of the better ones. Maybe made by Marshall’s of Gainsborough. I can only vaguely remember them but do remember winding my finger in to the bevel gear of one of the machines on sale day! Taught me a lesson I didn’t forget in a hurry.

 

[Exfarmer]

I don't know the exact time line of when they started but I know that they were active before the war. Apparently the big saw bench went to South Devon in the mid twenties for a couple of years. I've seen a couple of letters from Manns I think it was, discussing the sale of something like a Class trusser, I think these were dated 1939.
My great uncle remembered cutting wheat in fields locally that were planted under the direction of the War Ag, and commented that they were rarely worth the bother.
Locally there was another contractor, quite a big outfit I gather. Run by the late Geoffrey King, W G King from Bishops Lydeard.

I did not think Manns took on Claas till after WW2, but may well be wrong!

 

[timff]

Quite a lot on Bill Mann & Claas in the latest Classic Tractor Mag

 

[Suffolk Serf]

I did not think Manns took on Claas till after WW2, but may well be wrong!

As I understand it, pre war there were two or three Claas importers, including Manns, who got exclusivity post war.

 

[sahara]

@Exfarmer , you could well be right! It was quite a while ago that I saw the letter. The main thing that stuck in my mind was that they were quite confident of having no supply problems and the date on the letter was not long before the outbreak of war.

 

[Hawkes]

I worked as a farm student in the 70's for Horace Netherway at Cotleigh. He still grew a few acres of wheat for thatching straw then and local contractor Rex Summers used to come with his reed comber. There were 11 of us in the threshing gang I recorded in my diary and it was a cold dirty dusty old job too. The only thing was it was a time for a group of men to work together and talk, take the mick and swap jokes etc. Today the majority of us work on our own I would guess.
I found this pic of my father in the war years, he had been invalided out of the RAF by then and was back on the farm.

Father has the eye patch on . Several farm staff , a land girl and my Auntie on the end. Small boys seemed drawn to thrashing machines in old photos! I am pretty sure I remember that Ransomes being burnt for the scrap metal when I was a boy.

 

[colhonk]

Oh no he didnt.
e27n came out 1946/7.

OH yes he possibly did. my grandad bought this farm in early 1945,and had to apply for a tractor and got 1 of the first Majors, a utility model, steel wheels,no hydraulics, no foot brakes just a handbrake.
previously my dad had taken the bodies off two old (probably not that old) Austin cars and used them as tractors,when they got the Major,he built a shooting brake body back onto one of the cars and ran it for years on the road. Also, my dad never had to take a driving test. sometimes thought he should have though.

 

[Lazy Sod]

I am reminded of a chap I got to know as he was a rep for Silcocks who were feed millers. Derek told me that as a young man he was invited to go to a farm and help when the theshing outfit came to the farm. He was told that, unlike the farm workers, when the work stopped for lunch he should go and eat in the farmhouse with the family. When the farmer's wife saw the state of him, she made him take a bath before he could sit at the dinner table.

 

[Splitpin]

I worked as a farm student in the 70's for Horace Netherway at Cotleigh. He still grew a few acres of wheat for thatching straw then and local contractor Rex Summers used to come with his reed comber. There were 11 of us in the threshing gang I recorded in my diary and it was a cold dirty dusty old job too. The only thing was it was a time for a group of men to work together and talk, take the mick and swap jokes etc. Today the majority of us work on our own I would guess.
I found this pic of my father in the war years, he had been invalided out of the RAF by then and was back on the farm.
View attachment 932472
Father has the eye patch on . Several farm staff , a land girl and my Auntie on the end. Small boys seemed drawn to thrashing machines in old photos! I am pretty sure I remember that Ransomes being burnt for the scrap metal when I was a boy.

Sure that would be the same thresher and comber that the Summers family bring to honiton hill rally. Always do a grand working demonstration

 

[Kidds]

A tale I was told was when the threshing gang came to my old farm in the 30's the then owner asked if there was a sale on that he hadn't been told about.
So many unemployed men in the depression that had nothing to do so they followed the threshers, his yard was full!