Growing up
I have been around agriculture my whole life, my father grew up on a small holding on the Cheshire boarder with Denbighshire. That small farmstead was connected to Crew Hall, which is now farmed by the Jones family, who farm contract and milk lots of cows.
My mum is from the west of Ireland, Co Sligo; where everyone farmed something back in her day. I have fond memories of my grandmothers house which sat on no more than 30-35 acres which was farmed by my uncle.
Even in the 1980’s and 90’s things seemed old fashioned, I saw my uncle cutting oats with a scythe, and tying stooks by hand. I also remember seeing the thrashing box working in “the garden”, these were scenes happening at home 50 years before.
As a kid my farther worked on two farms, Claim farm, in Manley which was owned by the Files family, they also owned Manley Knoll, a stunning estate house and gardens. And when they gave up farming, he worked for the Kinsey family down the road in Ashton Heyes.
Growing up around an expanding farming business was interesting, there was always pretty fresh equipment around, and different approaches to getting things done. The Kinsey’s had two milking herds, and grew arable crops also.
At school, I was not a good student, not naughty; but always struggling to learn in the way I was expected. I couldn’t wait to get out of education, after doing two weeks of work experience at Bruera Agricultural services when I was in year 10, they offered me a job when I left school.
Starting work
As a youngster in the workshop, I was quiet; I was placed with one of the mechanics Bill Rose, but he was already planning his own business by then and left after a few months. I tagged along with anyone who would teach me, but after two years, we were all called in to the canteen by some men in suits.
Basically the news was, the firm had run out of money and we didn’t have a job anymore, which sucked, as I really like it there. Anyway, after a whole week of unemployment my dad had been dispatched to collect a tractor from Shukers, a Massey Ferguson dealer.
He got chatting to then depot manager and bam, I had an interview a few days later, As it was all kicking off at my first job, so was the case at Shukers, Massey Ferguson had told them they were no longer a dealer, so they took on Deutz-Fahr and Valtra; which was handy, as I knew a little about Deutz-Fahr, as that’s what I started my career on.