Tractor heritage, news and features

There's no business like snow business

Having said that, going up would take a few runs, and going down made for a bit of a white knuckle ride. Lack of salt (or money) meant that only the main roads were kept gritted, and even the salt boxes here were empty after the first few days.

I don’t own personally own a four-wheel-drive vehicle, although my partner has an old one for towing and the like. It seems that some people spend so much on their 4x4s that they daren’t risk getting them scratched or dirty, which to me rather defeats the object. If I do ever get another 4x4 it will definitely be the sort that you can carry a wet sheep and a bale of hay in, and not some great big shining Chelsea Tractor. I don’t object to 4x4s at all, as long as they are used for the purpose that they were intended for.

When I was a child the lanes were rarely gritted, and only the farmers had Land Rovers. When it snowed you either stayed in, or you got off your backside and walked down to the village, it was as simple as that. It seems these days that people are so reliant on their cars that they can’t cope with the concept of not being able to get behind the wheel every day.

I suppose I’m no better because during the last snowfall I decided to take the MF 35 out for a totally unnecessary journey. I hadn’t anticipated quite how useless it would be in the snow. I know full well it’s a two-wheel-drive machine, but somehow I thought it would perform better than the car, but I was rather mistaken. The lane was steep and covered in hard packed snow. In hindsight I should have stayed in and baked a pie, or got the knitting out, but it’s not often I get a few hours without any children, so I thought “I know I’ll go out tractor scrambling.”

When a vehicle ‘takes off’ going downhill on snow or ice it is quite alarming just how much speed it can gather... Put it this way, I’ve never travelled so fast down a hill before on a tractor, and hopefully I won’t ever again. I resisted the urge to touch the brakes and I kept the steering straight, and I prayed and I swore (sorry God, but it was quite scary). Eventually the tyres found a spot of Tarmac, and with a roar and a skid we rather abruptly resumed normal speed. The other occupants of our little hamlet had the brains to stay at home, so thankfully there was nothing coming the other way, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this now, I would probably be head to toe in plaster, and no doubt facing some kind of expensive and troublesome motoring charge.

Coming back up the hill the 35 wouldn’t even look at the icy slope. The only way home was backwards, using the independent brakes alternately to ‘wiggle’ our way up. I thought at one point of leaving the tractor in a layby and walking home to phone a ‘proper farmer’ to come and tow me up, but since the nearest ‘proper farmer’ happens to be my brother, I decided that if I ever want to hold my head up high in the family again I’d better keep quiet and get home, by hook or by crook, and then just stay there.