Well respected Longford man keen to keep county's vintage tradition well and truly alive
This year’s Lakeland Vintage Show took place in Abbeyshrule on Sunday.
The popular event attracted crowds from all over the country to display and admire the vintage machinery, tractors, cars and engines.
The Lakeland Vintage Club’s annual Rally and Autojumble hosted lots of entertainment for the children and all the family to enjoy, but the machinery from yesteryear were the big draw.
Among the vintage enthusiasts showing off their lovingly restored vehicles was George Farrar, who said it was a great day out: “The show was very successful. It was a lovely day. There was a lot of machinery and lots of tractors and cars.”
George had nine tractors on display at the event: “I had nine Ferguson 20s, all with mid mounted mowers. There were a total of nine finger bar mowers altogether.”
George has circumvented the difficulty of getting parts for the vintage machines by doing it himself: “I make parts for them. I worked at them since the 1960s. My first real job was working on finger bar more. I never though I would be back at it after 60 years, but however, here we are.”
The mowers have enjoyed a resurgence in interest. This new appeal is in no small part to the fact that George makes parts for them: “I started making parts that people couldn't get.
"I sell parts all over the country now at the moment. We have a small workshop here at the back of the house. We were building truck bodies for years, until I retired. This is a hobby for me now.”
George is not content with just having the movers for show, he is a firm believer in using it if it is useful: “We use them every year. If a farmer lets us in to light meadows, then we'll cut it for them. We have done that for the last couple of years. Some of those machines are 70 years old, and they're all fully restored and they're all in perfect work and condition.”
Their appeal is as enduring as the machine itself: “They were built to last forever. We have some that are as good as they were on their first day of use. The oldest one I have is from 1934 and it's 100%.”
Among the machines George displayed at the Lakeland Vintage Show in Abbeyshrule on Sunday was his 1949 Fordson Major, which has a side-valve engine fitted with cast iron pistons, splash feed lubrication, magneto ignition and a hand starting handle. On the back was the vintage Bamford finger bar mower.
George is looking for farmers who would like to have their meadows cut by a traditional machine: “All we do is cut it. It's up to the farmers after that. It's a day out for us.
There are three or four of us here that do the mowing.“I'm in Abbeyshrule, a lot of people know me. I'm be sure that if anyone in South Longford wanted light meadows cut they would be able to get in contact with me and they could see the old machinery in action,” he concluded.