The Garden in the Clouds: From Derelict Smallholding to Mountain Paradise. Antony Woodward
The original, sturdy stone stack, when the house was enlarged, had been given mean, spindly brick extensions. But rebuilding the whole chimney was too expensive. Besides, fresh advice informed us that this was not the fundamental problem, which was almost certainly one of downdraught, caused by the position of the house relative to the rise of the hill and the prevailing wind. Just as we were about to despair, one day in the builders’ merchants a leaflet caught my eye. It advertised chimney cowls. And there, amongst the chimney cappers and birdguards, the lobster-back cowls and ‘H’ cowls, the flue outlets and ‘aspirotors’, was the very item for which we’d been searching:
In constant production for thirty years, the Aerodyne Cowl has abundantly proven its worth in curing downdraught, showing clearly that the laws of aerodynamics don’t change with the times. As wind from any direction passes through the cowl the unique venturi-shaped surfaces cause a drop in air pressure which draws smoke and fumes up the chimney for dispersal. The Aerodyne Cowl is offered with our money-back guarantee. If it fails to stop downdraught simply return it with receipt to your supplier for a full refund.
Why had no one suggested this? An ‘Aerodyne Cowl’ was duly ordered. It took three weeks to arrive, two more to be fitted, but at last we were ready once more. All I can say is it was lucky about that money-back guarantee. If anything, the fire smoked more than before.
So we gave in. We ordered a wood-burning stove. By this stage I had my doubts that even this would work, but the man in the stove shop guaranteed it. And it did. The fire roared and crackled: it just did so behind glass. And thus, at last, we had an authentic need for logs. Which is how, by the convoluted way of these things, I came by my first tractor.
Amongst the chattels that came with Tair-Ffynnon (which included two mossy Opel Kadetts, a collapsed Marina van, numerous bathtubs and an assortment of broken and rusting bedsteads, trailers, ploughs, cultivators, rollers and diesel tanks) was an iron saw-bench. A farm saw-bench is a heavy cast-iron table with, protruding through a slit in the top, a big circular blade with scarily large teeth. They date from the time when farmers cut their own planks, gateposts and firewood. Many old farms have one somewhere, superannuated, rusting away in a corner. The moment I saw ours, I wanted that saw-bench back in action. It spoke of self-sufficiency and self-reliance, of replenished wood stores and cold winter months. It was, to an almost baleful degree, a renegade of the pre-health and safety era. Like most of the older ones, ours was worked by a pulley belt, which connected the bench to a parked tractor. Modern tractors ditched pulley wheels decades ago, but a couple of the older makes, Fordsons and Fergies, still had them. All I needed to get the saw-bench into action was one of those.
The more I thought about it, the more obvious it became that an old tractor was just what Tair-Ffynnon was missing. Now the requirement for firewood spelt it out. Jonny’s remark came back to me: ‘Looks as if you’d better get yourself a tractor.’
‘Why?’ said Vez.
It was one of those typically female questions that, on the spot, it’s surprisingly difficult to answer. Arguments that a tractor was self-evidently a Good Thing to have, that it would lend tone to the place, in our straitened financial circumstances, lacked weight. ‘For towing and mowing and pulling stuff. For cutting logs…everything.’ My answer was necessarily vague, as I wasn’t absolutely sure myself of all the myriad uses to which an old tractor might be put.
‘You can buy a lot of logs for the price of a tractor,’ said Vez. ‘How much does a tractor cost?’
‘Well, you could probably get an old Fergie or a Fordson for about £1,000, but I should think…’
‘A grand! A grand! Are you out of your mind? When we haven’t even got a dry place to store anything. And Maya needs shoes.’
There’s no arguing such a case. Even I could appreciate that an inclination to see an old saw-bench back in harness, coupled with the knowledge that we could cut our own logs, sounded a little thin when ready-cut firewood was available for £40 a load.
All this I had only half worked through in my mind when I arrived on a Saturday in mid-July at the annual East Wales and Borders Vintage Auction, held, conveniently, in a field at the bottom of our hill. Over the last few days the field had been cut for silage and a tented village had sprung up so that now, although it was windless and grey, the white canvas and bunting presented a cheerful scene. Vintage auctions being the sole recreation my brother and I shared, he and my nephew Thomas had come over for the day, taking the opportunity to see us all, as had my father from Somerset. Jonny had arrived early for his usual forensic examination of the lots and announced that, amongst the collections of old railway sleepers, feed bins, mangles, chaff-cutters and nameless implements and agricultural bits and bobs, there was ‘a very nice Fergie’. And sure enough, there amongst the junkyard tractors, Lot 571, was a peach of a machine.
The finer (and indeed the broader) points of tractor mechanics meant nothing to me, but I could see this was something special. For a start, unlike the other tractors on sale, it was complete. It had four wheels, two matching mudguards, and so on. no one had attempted to spruce it up; it had a couple of dents, a buckled number plate, but still a fair amount of original grey paint. Headlamps either side of its radiator grille gave it a friendly, if slightly melancholic air. Here was one of those gems, it was clear, one might never forgive oneself for missing. Befitting its exalted status, it was one of the final lots, but the auctioneer and his throng were already working their way steadily down the rows towards it. Jonny, who knew about old Fergie prices, said not to go a penny over £1,200. By the time the brown-coated auctioneer approached, he had established himself as a waggish figure whose skilful manipulations of his bidders was drawing a larger-than-average crowd. The auctioneer hoiked his foot onto the front wheel and, as his sidekick clambered into the seat, made a whirling motion with his hand. ‘Start ’er up, Jack.’ The sidekick pressed a button and the Fergie clattered cheerfully into life with a cloud of black smoke and diesel fumes, settling down to a homely chugging rattle.
There was no shortage of interest. The bidding flicked rapidly upwards. Soon it narrowed down to me and a small, sharp-eyed, fox-faced man with a peaked cap pulled well down over his eyes. By the rubber overalls under his shapeless tweed coat, I was pleased to note he was a hill farmer rather than a restoration enthusiast, so presumably wouldn’t have absurd amounts of money to spend. £1,160…£1,180…£1,200…I could feel my pulse quickening. My adversary looked shrewd, informed, sure of himself. If he wanted the Fergie, it was plainly a good buy so it would be doubly foolish to miss out. £1,220…£1,240…My opponent’s face was a mask. He communicated his bids by tiny, almost imperceptible nods, hardly more than twitches. £1,360…£1,380…£1,400…Would the man never give up? How much did these hill farmers have tucked away? The auctioneer sensed my wavering. ‘Go on, Sir, you’ve come all this way’—(where did he get that idea?)—‘Not going to lose her for a couple of quid, are you?’
‘£1,500,’ I said crisply.
He turned to my adversary. ‘He’s way over his limit, Sir. I think you’ve got him.’
Another expressionless twitch. The auctioneer turned back to me. ‘Come on, Sir. You know it’s got your name on it.’ The crowd was loving it. Well, suffice to say, I got her. In the adrenaline rush it seems I also bought Lots 572, 573 and 574, the all-important pulley wheel, assorted bars and links that Jonny had announced went with the Fergie, and a complicated-looking hay mower with scissor blades that looked like a big hedge trimmer. As the crowd moved on, and the Fergie was again deserted, I sat on its front wheel in a daze of mixed emotions: happy fulfilment (I owned a tractor!), guilt (the purchase was indefensible), trepidation (what was I going to tell Vez? How did the thing work?). My father looked nonplussed. ‘How much was it?’ he said. ‘What ever will you do with it?’
Jonny climbed onto the Fergie and pressed the starter. Nothing happened. ‘Notoriously bad starters, Fergies,’ he said. He fiddled with various switches and levers and tried again. Again, nothing. ‘That’s odd,’