Willie was still ploughing at 91 years

THE field beside Kilpipe church in south County Wicklow was shorn, ready for the crop of cars that would populate it during the funeral service for Willie Stedman.

Stewards in fluorescent jackets – all neighbours and Tinahely Show comrades – guided drivers to park in sensible straight lines from the top of the field down, efficiency obvious.

Willie Stedman wasn’t part of the organising team this time. Instead, others were doing for him and his family what he had done many times for others.

Well-known and well-liked, the Wicklow tillage farmer and contractor whose photograph appeared in the Irish Farmers Journal only a few weeks ago, still ploughing at 91 years of age, died on Sunday, May 21, in Naas hospital.

In hospital on very few occasions in his life, he had collapsed at home a week before but, sadly, hadn’t pulled through.

At his wake most people spoke of how that was the way he would have wanted it – not to linger too long when his time had come and quality of life would no longer be available. The man whose recipe for a long life was ‘ hard work and just enough to eat’ always said that he would keep going as long as he could. And he did.

Willie Stedman was involved in everything – parish, community, show committee, vintage ploughing, gun club and bowls and he was also a frequent organiser of charity whist drives and tractor-runs.

Renowned for attending funerals, he was always engaged with life and interested in people and the world, leading to him having friends from many walks of life.

He was recognised, too, as the local genealogy resource person. If someone arrived in a yard in the locality looking for information about a particular family or homestead, the reply would be: ‘I can’t help you, but I know a man who can – Willie Stedman’.

His conversational ease and personality led to him being ‘radio gold’ too. He was interviewed for a Dylan Haskins’ RTE radio documentary ‘ The Murderer, Me and My Family Tree’ last year because he was the man who could recall the handed-down story – and tell it well – and he will soon feature in a 7-part radio documentary series about the history of the sugar beet industry, to be broadcast on KCLR this summer.

He appeared on television, too, on RTE’s Nationwide in 2010, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary ploughing match in the village of Coolboy, near his home. Willie was born in 1926, one of seven, to parents who operated a mill. Mechanical ability – a hallmark of the family (along with tallness) – led to them generating their own electricity and having wireless radio ahead of others and to him working with threshing teams in his youth.

Enterprise was part of his nature, however, and, in 1946 he and his brother, Tommy, bought an ex-US army tipper truck. They got work with this building roads, hauling cattle and even drawing turf from the midlands.

Always a person to move with the times he bought his first combine harvester in 1951 – a Massey with an 8-foot cut.

Combine harvesting was to become a big part of his life and there was nothing he liked better than to hear the hum of the drum as he sat in the driver’s seat. At his funeral service, his eldest daughter, Vera, spoke of how the sound of a Claas Dominator would be forever associated with him.

This contracting business went on to help him and his wife of 63 years, Sadie, buy a farm in Coolroe in 1965 and in 1991, when he was 65 years of age, to purchase Coolalug, the home of the Taylor’s, land across from his original home that he had rented and tilled for many years.

Ploughing was a major interest of his also and he made the 3-day pilgrimage to the National Ploughing Championships each year. He was a respected coach, helping his son William to reach five All-Ireland competitions in Under-21 and Under-28 classes, competing himself at vintage level as well as tutoring County Wicklow competitors in the vintage classes for many years also. Ploughmen from all over County Wicklow formed a guard of honour at his funeral.

The Reverend Ruth Elmes, who preached at the service, spoke of Willie’s work ethic, of his positive attitude to life, of how he had served as a churchwarden at Kilpipe church for over 60 years, of how he loved Plough Sunday and Harvest Thanksgiving services and of how his faith was linked to the land.

Father of three and grandfather of six, Willie Stedman died on Rogation Sunday, May 21, the day when the crops are blessed each year.

A time to plant… A time to die…

It is difficult to believe that he won’t be around for harvest 2017, to cut the crops he helped prepare the ground for, but