Final Word: The Tractor Boys

by Paul Moore

If one lives in a rural area and frequents garages one will have certainly been confronted with the tractor boys.

Their discussion normally takes the form of a good natured slagging match as to which machine is the more perfect for the small holding, the Fordson Dexta or the wee Massey. If there is one or other of these icons in the vicinity the same men are able to tell you at a glance if the Delta grey is just right or if it is a tad too dark, or whether or not the front grill on the Massey ought to be set back another inch since that would have snagged on whatever front facing sprangle-dangle needed to be attached to the front.

If there is a show in the offing these little machines will be polished within an inch of their considerable lives and the owner will set off at six o’clock in the morning to make an event which starts at ten o’clock and on arrival will spend the rest of the day looking at other people’s identical tractors and staring wistfully at stationary engines which, if one is lucky, will render an occasional paraffin fart and then settle down again to doing the very little they were made for.

And so it was that last Sunday morning I was told of a tractor rally which was to be held in the home place and Sunday being the most boring day of the week I made the decision to attend said event, something I confess I would not normally do knowing nothing about tractors or their uses.

To say I was shocked would be the understatement of the year. Nothing had, or could have, prepared me for the spectacle which unfolded over the morning. I now understand fully the concept of the ‘wee’ Massey. Modern tractors, all of which were at the Sunday show, are like something from the War of the Worlds, giant 21st century dinosaurs towering over everyone and everything like Godzilla in New York.

I have, of course, encountered these rumbling giants on the road but somehow they do not seem as mammoth or as threatening, possibly because they fly past before one can get a proper look.

I was also staggered to hear they can travel at up to sixty miles per hour which suggests they should be racing them rather than farming them. But stationary and looming they take on a greater menace.

The bright colours in which they are painted – oranges, greens, reds, piercing blues – make them more ominous that less and when you see a row of 20 or 30 of them they do look as though they are ready to go, and win, a war. My favourite, if that is the correct term for what I felt, was a Finnish tractor painted black and I allowed myself the conceit that this was the Goth tractor chapter, something that Herman Munster would drive in the Wednesday television show.

What I did learn from a couple of conversations was that these monsters are the reason why very few farmers now have their own tractors. With a six figure price no small farmer can afford, they have to hire them from plant companies who make a good living out of tilling other people’s land. The deep affection for the Dexta and the Massey suddenly became clear and understandable.

I have never wanted a tractor. Now I find myself wanting the Finnish black job and, having done some casual web searching, I also now crave a tractor Porsche (yes that Porsche) made in the 1940s for work on coffee farms. It is completely enclosed and looks like it came from 2090 rather than 1940. It is bright orange and my life will not be complete until I find one.

There has to be one in a barn in Fivemiletown somewhere.