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Donald Martin MacPhail
was born at 9
Laxdale, Stornoway, Isle of Lewis in January 1930, and is known locally by
his middle name ‘Martin’.
He always wanted to be involved with farm machinery, and
for as long as he can remember he was mad keen on tractors. But his first
driving experiences, at the age of 14, was not on a tractor but on a van
owned by local Stornoway bakery, Hugh Matheson, driven by Donald ‘Geinigh’
Morrison; a Ness man then staying in Laxdale. Donald would give young
Martin the opportunity to drive the van along the main Barvas road that
leads to Stornoway. Another neighbour, ‘Rob an Deucon’ owned a very old
Morris car and he would also give Martin ‘shots’ at driving it. Martin
recalls getting punctures nearly every day with this car! |
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In 1946 he had his first
chance to get close to a tractor when ‘Dan Churl’ was ploughing a croft near
Martin’s house with a petrol paraffin Ford Ferguson that belonged to the
Board of Agriculture. At break time Dan said to the eager Martin, “There
you go. Have a turn on the tractor”. The
sight, sounds and smells of the tractor fascinated Martin, and this meeting
of boy and machine began a lifetime interest in agricultural and contracting
machinery.
A year later, in1947, Martin
heard that the Board of Agriculture was looking for a tractor driver and he
applied for the job, which he got. He
recalls: “There were two of us going round the country villages with the
Ford Ferguson tractor. There were very few tractors in Lewis at that time:
when you would go on to a croft, everyone young and old would come to see
the tractor ploughing. The old fellows thought it was wonderful, especially
as it could lift the plough at the end of the furrow.”
Together they would plough for eight months of the year.
One day at Achmore, while
heading to do some ploughing at Garynahine Lodge, he recalls there were
eight men - a crew or ‘sgioba’ - cutting peats. The crew all stood up at
the peat bank as the tractor and trailer with the plough in the back drove
past. It was so rare at that time to see a tractor pulling a trailer after
it. On arrival at Garynahine Lodge, large
chains were fitted on to the tractor tyres to offer more grip, as the ground
was very hard and covered with thick rushes. Martin recalls that, even with
the chains fitted, the tractor still sometimes skidded on the soft ground.
Then they would move on to the villages of
Callanish, Breasclete, Tolsta Chaolais, all the way up the West Side of
Lewis to the township of Barvas.
Martin and his co-worker
carried out very little work in Barvas because local man Angus ‘Millichan’
Morrison of Galson Motors, Barvas, had bought the first Ferguson TE 20 that
came to Lewis. Martin remembers ploughing in
Tolsta Chaolais one winter, in the days before anti-freeze, when each night
he had to drain the water out of the radiator into a bucket, then refill the
radiator the following morning. One morning
an old man that was staying on the croft where Martin was working came to
him with a pail of water and spoke in Gaelic: “Seo a bhalaich. Bi cinnteach
nach eil am pathadh air.” (“Here you are son. Make sure it isn’t thirsty.”)
The clerks to the local
village grazing from each village would get in touch with the Board of
Agriculture to request ploughing in his area. The charge at that time was
25 shillings an acre. But as most of the Lewis crofts were made up of lazy
beds (Gaelic: ‘feannagan’) you could plough five or six of them and still
only have half an acre. But if the tractor went on to the croft the charge
was seven shillings and six pence. Martin
laughs and says, “Some people got three quarters of an acre ploughed for
seven shillings.”
The Board of Agriculture also
owned a Fordson Major, which according to Martin was a big slow tractor. He
went on: “On the road it would only do about 6 or 7 miles per hour. But I
suppose back in those days that was very good. It would take you five
minutes to change gears with it, and if you changed gears too quickly you
would hear it miles away!” Martin continues:
“The Fordson Major was used mainly for grass cutting, and had a Ransome
mower on the back. We used to go round all the farms in Stornoway with it,
and it was also used for powering a threshing machine as it had a pulley on
it to drive the thresher. We would go all round the Point area threshing
corn with the threshing mill.”
By late 1948 tractors started
appearing in the various townships one by one, the Ness area in particular.
Also at this time the Board of Agriculture decided to wind up its operations
with the tractors, and the three tractors and all the implements were sold
at an auction held at Battery Park. MacNinch (Manor Farm) bought one,
Geordie Thompson purchased another and Roddy Matheson of Goathill Farm
bought the Ford Ferguson.
In 1949 Martin purchased his
first tractor, a Ferguson TE 20 powered by a four-cylinder Z-120 Continental
petrol engine. The tractor had belonged to John MacKenzie, a Butcher from
Back. Mr. MacKenzie also sold all his implements, which included a plough,
harrows, trailer and a cab for the tractor - all for £275.
The first job that Martin did
with his own tractor was for Kenny MacLeod at No 6 Steinish. He ploughed an
acre of his croft for a fee of 14 shillings.
“When I was finished there,” Martin said, “I took the tractor up to the
pumps at Mitchell’s garage and bought 14 shillings worth of petrol, which at
that time you could buy for 2 shillings and 4 pence a gallon. I went back
to do more ploughing. “I can’t remember how much I earned on the next job,
but it was more than 14 shillings: more petrol meant more work, and I went
up and up from there. That petrol tractor did a lot of work for me - it was
going day and night.”
In August 1954 Martin bought
his first new tractor, a Ferguson TEF 20 diesel, registration number BJS
267. It was bought through the MacKay’s of Dingwall dealership and came to
Lewis on the Mail boat, the Loch Ness. At that time he was very busy, soon
owning a second tractor. Martin then employed Angus ‘Bimbo’ MacKenzie from
Newvalley. Martin would do the ploughing and Angus did the the harrowing.
He recalls: “The tractors
were going night and day. Quite often we would be ploughing up to two or
three in the morning, planting the potatoes with the aid of the tractor
lights and villagers with torches. The demand for hired tractors was that
great it was the only way you could keep up.”
He rated his ‘little grey Fergie’ a brilliant little
tractor, although the engine had to be kept in good order to ensure reliable
starting in cold weather. Many earlier six-volt models ended up being
converted to 12-volt electrics for that reason.
His next tractor was a
four-cylinder Massey Ferguson 35, which he describes as a ‘beautiful
tractor’ - very versatile and comfortable, yet with plenty of power to
handle all the ploughing and mowing. If it had a fault it was that, in
common with a lot of other four-cylinder MF 35s, they were never great
starters. Martin held on to the 35 for many
years, carrying out all the tractor work between Balallan and Tong,
including taking home the peats. “The
tractor was a great thing then,” he says. “They didn’t have to use the old
shoulder-carried creel or use the barrow. The tractor went straight up to
the peat bank.”
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But things did not always go
smoothly, he recalls: “I must hold the world record for getting a tractor
bogged down. That’s a funny record. But people thought it would go anywhere
- it would, but it would also go down! Break the surface on a Lewis moor
and boy you’re in trouble! But back in those days if you bogged everyone
came to give you a hand to get it out. Usually that meant lifting it with
planks and putting timbers under the wheels - there was no other tractor
around to give you a pull.”
It was while taking home the peats at
Laxay in the summer of 1951 that Martin met Joan MacDonald, 19 Laxay, and a
year latter they tied the knot on the 26th
of March and set up home at 4 Marybank |
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A younger Martin
ploughing in Marybank near Stornoway |
Martin carried on working
with tractors throughout the 50s and 60s, but in the mid-1960s, reseeding
work was being carried out all over Lewis. This involved spreading sand
over moorland areas (the lime killed off the heather), sometimes as much as
10 tons to an acre. This meant that large quantities of sand had to be
hauled from the sand pits at Barvas, Coll, Ardroil and Eoropie in Ness.
This of course involved the use of a lorry. So Martin decided to buy one.
His first lorry, a Bedford
powered by a Perkins P6 diesel, was originally owned by Mitchell’s and cost
him £250. But this lorry had done it’s work, and Martin soon required
another one. He had heard of a lorry for
sale outside Paisley near Glasgow, which was being sold by a scrappy, who he
thinks was called Waters. Martin was accompanied by Duncan MacKay from
Ballantrushal. He also started with tractors in1952, and at this time was
also involved in reseeding work and required a lorry.
Together they flew to Glasgow
on Loganair. On arrival at the scrap merchants Martin asked, “How much for
your Bedford tipper?” “Sixty-five pounds,” replied the scrappy.
“Have you got another lorry,” Martin inquired. “Yes,” he
replied, “I’ll have an Albion tipper here tomorrow.”
The following day they went to view the lorries. On
arrival, the scrappy informed them that there were no MOTs or licenses on
the vehicles, but as they would find out later on during their journey home,
this was not all that was missing from the lorries – brakes being the most
important of these!
As promised, the scrappy
delivered the lorries across the Clyde to Cardross, and at midnight they set
off with nothing but a pair of trade plates and a vice grip between them.
They headed for Fort William. Duncan was leading the way,
and Martin followed closely but soon noticed that the lead vehicle was being
driven at a fearful speed along the bendy road.
Martin kept his foot to the
floor, but he still could not catch the speeding Duncan. Eventually, Martin
emerged from a bend in the road to find Duncan parked in a lay-by.
Approaching Duncan, he said: “Here boy. You seem to be in an awful hurry.”
Duncan, maintaining a calm exterior, replied
nonchantly, "Hurry. I’m in no hurry. I’ve no
brakes!”
To make matters worse it was
Christmas Day and the roads were covered with ice. When they reached Fort
William, Martin took over as lead vehicle as they headed towards Kyle of
Lochalsh. Approaching Kintail, Martin heard
and felt something bang at the back of the lorry. At first he thought the
gearbox had gone. But as he was still rolling he drove on for about a mile
or so before checking his mirror to find that Duncan was no longer behind
him. He knew there must be something wrong and he went back to find Duncan
armed with a stone, trying to bash out part of the cab. It transpired that
it had been Duncan’s lorry that had ran into the back of Martin’s vehicle.
The cab had bent, and when Duncan depressed the clutch, the pedal would not
come out again.
Martin recalls: “Here we were
at 4 o’clock in the morning; no clutch and no brakes and all the tools we
had was a vice grip. Somehow we made it to the ferry at Kyle, then on to Uig,
Tarbert and finally the Ardhasaig Brae (Harris), which was really icy and
slippery.”
They made it up Ardhasaig and
on to the Clisham - this was the last time Martin saw Duncan’s lorry on
their homeward journey as it went out of sight at Bowglass.
On reaching home Martin phoned Duncan’s wife to tell her
that Duncan would be home shortly. “What!” she said, “Duncan’s sitting at
the table.” Martin laughs, “From Cardross to Ballantrushal with no brakes.
That’s not bad going.”
There was plenty of work for
lorries back in those days: puffers were bringing coal, bricks, road salt
and cement into Stornoway harbour. He also got a lot of work from the local
authority’s roads department. Martin hauled the sand that was used for
reseeding work from Ardroil in Uig. He had a loading shovel on the grey
Fergie and used the Massey 35 to pull a spreader. Later on, in the 80s, the
IDP (Integrated Development Programme) started, with crofters being given
generous grants for fencing and reseeding work. The joke at the time was
that IDP stood for “I Don’t Pay”.
At this time he bought a
four-wheel drive IMT tractor and spreader and later a Massey Ferguson 290
with a land-drive spreader. I asked Martin
what was the biggest difference between his first Ford Ferguson and his high
spec Massey 290. “The power,” he replied. “On a cold winter’s day the Ford
Ferguson would be banging and spluttering away, and the smell of paraffin
would almost choke you,” he laughs, adding, “You could smell the tractor
before you would see it!”
To complement his lorry hire
work with the local authority, Martin bought his first digger in 1967. A
Massey Ferguson 65 that came from Christies, an Aberdeen based firm that was
laying cables in the town at the time. One
of the first jobs that the digger was used on was a site clearance for a new
house for Mrs Mary Evans, 93 Balallan, Lochs. The charge was £5. The
digger was also used for a site clearance for Margaret MacKay’s new house at
Dalbeg. The digger also worked on various drainage jobs before it was
eventually sold in1972 to John Murdo Smith, 1 Lionel, Ness. Martin
then purchased a new Massey Ferguson 40 digger, which he worked until 1979
when it was traded in for a new Massey Ferguson 50B digger, which he still
owns.
Martin volunteered, “I’ve
been ploughing with horses, tractors and oxen when I was out in Africa.” I
had to ask how he came to be ploughing with oxen.
He explained, “My daughter,
Marion, is married to a Minister, David Fraser, and they are in a place
called Umtata in South Africa. One time when we were visiting them I got a
chance to plough with oxen.” He went on, “When I went to this man’s hut,
the table was outside the hut and the plough was inside. He tied four oxen
to the plough, and he had four wee boys firing on the oxen with sticks. The
ground was very hard and dry, it was an experience.”
Martin has no word on
retiring and still does odd jobs with the digger and tractors. I would like
to thank Martin and his wife Joan for all the kindness and hospitality I was
given when I went to interview him on his life with tractors. We had a
great night.
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