For Syd, they don’t make them like they used to. His newest tractor was built over 40 years ago, and he still makes the trip into town in his white Falcon ute from 1990.
“When you come to his farm, it’s like walking into a museum,” says Syd’s daughter, Della Brown. “We have machinery from his grandfather.”
Syd has worked on the farm since he was 11. When his dad fell ill with pneumonia, Syd’s grandpa pulled him out of school for the first time to come and help with the sowing.
“I could hardly believe my luck!” said Syd.
“Grandpa was a semi-invalid and not familiar with Dad’s new tractor and combine seeder, but he took charge and changed the shifts. Our employee Ken got the night shift, and loaded the truck, while Grandpa and I did the day shift. I drove the tractor and Grandpa rode sitting on the combine seeder box during the 12-hour day shifts. It was far more educational than school to my mind and I loved that week!”
After that sowing in May 1955, in the Spring of 1955, Syd drove the tractor pulling the reaper and binder, making sheaf hay. His job, when the hay was trucked in, was to cut the twine off the sheaves as they were forked from the truck onto a platform and push the hay along to his dad, who fed it into the chaff cutter. “That was all a totally elating experience for me and I felt like a grown-up, working with the men.”
Later on, and with daughters of his own, Syd described harvest time as a family affair. He recalls the first harvest with everyone on board, being a great crop, with a thousand acres of wheat to strip using a 14-foot PTO header pulled by a tractor.
“As always, my wife drove the truck, I drove the tractor and header, my 15-year-old daughter drove the tractor and chaser bin, the 13-year-old was the cook, helped by the 11-year-old who delivered the lunch and smokos to the paddock. The big twenty-ton mobile field bin had my faithful old Massey Harris 55K powering it.”
Today, Syd’s sheds are a time capsule full of old machinery, including fourteen tractors – one from 1925. After a coincidental purchase of some hay making machinery from a friend in 1974, Syd started into hay making.
“I’ve always been interested in hay. And it just so happened that during those years where we had little or no crop, the hay making machinery was wonderful to have. South of here, they had enough rain to start crops but not to finish them, so I made a lot of money contract hay making.”
Syd was kind enough to share his story and some photos of his collection with GrainGrowers. If you have some photos to share, we’d love to see them!
Photos provided by Sydney and Della Brown
