I have mentioned in earlier posts how indebted we are to the agricultural community for their relaxed approach to tidying up after themselves. It is this trait that we need to encourage as it affords us these priceless moments of excitement as we drive around the countryside. This little Massey bagger combine was parked up after a hard days work in 1969 and hasn't turned a wheel or gasped a breath since. It has been left for dead in the battlefield that is cereal production, and now stands as its own memorial to those more lively harvests of hard graft, sweat & cider and perhaps some horse-play. Early harvests do bring to mind that lovely passage of Patrick Leigh Fermor's in Between The Woods And The Water, when he and his friend enjoy a lazy hay stack afternoon with a couple of peasant girls after a swim in the river. It is frightening to think that as Brian Aldridge trudges the shows in search of yet bigger and more efficient kit, he too perhaps enjoyed the pleasures of bagger combines,not so long ago. MORE SWEAT.
