Geoff Phillips on Combines

Well going back with a combines, you had … I think there were two big ones on here, two or three big ones.

They come from America to start with and I think they were put together at Shaw Plant at Buckingham and that was the Massey Harris but there were little ones that you towed with a tractor.

There was quite a few different ones of those about and you used them, but as the years went on, there was the self-propelled ones were more developed then and they were made in this Country and they gradually got more and more.

Everybody went to the self-propelled instead of the ones you towed about but they got round it all but what they didn’t cut with a combine they used to cut with a binder and put it in the barn and thrash it with a threshing machine. As the years went by, it got less and less and the combines took over the whole lot.

Now if you do any with a thresher, it’s just for a demonstration today, but the combines changed completely to what they were originally. The modern ones today, what are they, 24 feet cut all headers on them.

Terrific to what they … ‘cos if you had an 8 foot or 10 foot you thought you were somebody but today I think they are about 24 foot I think, the headers on ’em so completely different isn’t it? All press button.

You haven’t got to set the thing, you’ve got a computer in there you programmes it all in and it does it all.

Years ago you used to have to get in the back and set the sieves and the wind and everything else, but it’s all done now on a computer. That’s how it’s changed.