Geoff Phillips on Tractors

Well like the old ones down in shed. The old Fordsons, you had Fordsons and … well there was various old things there was really. You had the Alice Chalmers and Internationals, they come over during the War. Caterpillars, the D2s but there was no technology on ’em, it was all straight forward tractors.

You had your engine and your gears, nothing much else really but today you’ve got satellite navigation in ’em, you can go round the field and it tells you where you’re going to start and all this and what acreage it is and everything else, so there’s a big leap forward really, but whether it’s the right thing or not I don’t know.

I don’t think there is the pleasure in it like you used to get with the old machines really. You used to take a pride in your work those days. I don’t know whether they do so much today or not but the old machines, they could be a torment but it was good fun really, yeah.

The modern ones, if you get a bulb or something going on then and it stops, you’ve got to the man with a computer to find out what’s wrong with it (laughs). Otherwise you’ve had it (laughs).