Alan Emery on Combine

Harvesting? No we only used a binder for about two or three years. After that it was all combine and of course we eventually finished up with a self-propelled combine.

We weren’t … I think it was about the third year I was there we had a self- propelled combine that was a vast improvement then of course.

That’s when soon as we got the drier in it had to be in bulk because the first year when we … 1956, we were building the drier, which as I said was all with farm labour, and one of my old chums in his ’50’s put all the blocks and the reinforcing ‘cos you went down a ladder, 22 feet to the bottom of this thing and then two feet up from that was a tunnel that went right through, that was six feet high, and then above that and then there was a ceiling and above that was a three feet high, that was the air tunnel and the controls came down through tubular sort of conduits so when you wanted to blow, you pulled on this thing and clipped it down and the air was diverted up through the grain.

The last year that we used sacks, any bags was 1956 and then the next year we had the pusher combine and did it all in bulk.