Endless Fergie time
Pulling power... John Vincent takes an affectionate look at Britain’s most popular tractor.
The little grey Fergie... such an endearing nickname for a farmyard workhorse. But, then again, the Ferguson (later Massey Ferguson) TE20 is no ordinary tractor. Driving one is child’s play, literally. From the age of five, in less restrictive times, I was allowed on my father’s Fergie, earning a penny a load “muck spreading” – driving slowly up and down a Norfolk field, occasionally using all my weight to jump on the clutch when the men on the trailer behind shouted: “Whoa”.
Yes, it’s easy to wallow in nostalgia where the little grey Fergie is concerned. Nearly 520,000 were produced between 1946 and 1956, from when they were painted red, making them Britain’s most popular tractor. Squat, lightweight, versatile, manoeuvrable and easy on the eye, they were so reliable that some are still in use today. For many farmers all over the world, the 20-horsepower Fergie was the first tractor sufficiently inexpensive to allow it to replace carthorses and manual labour.
One man who fell in love with the Fergie decades ago is Yorkshire farmer Alan Bancroft, whose spectacular collection of 40 high-quality tractors, plus vast quantities of implements and spares, is going under the hammer today at a unique sale being staged by East Anglian auctioneer Cheffins online and on site at Mr Bancroft’s old farm at Rowan Bank, Horton in Craven, Skipton.
Two vintage grey, diesel Fergie TE20s are on offer, one from 1948 and the other 1962. Best prices for the remaining red tractors are anticipated for a 1982 Massey Ferguson 1250, estimated at £40,000, a 1975 model 148 (£8,000) and 1995 model 390T (£18,000). Total proceeds could well top £500,000.
Fergie facts: The first TE20 (the TE stood for Tractor England) rolled off the assembly line in Coventry on July 6, 1946, brainchild of engineer and inventor Harry Ferguson (1884-1960), its revolutionary features becoming the international standard for tractors of all makes and sizes while playing a large part in introducing widespread mechanised agriculture.
Seven TE20s were used on the 195558 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by Edmund Hillary; one was depicted on the New Zealand fivedollar note and $1.50 stamp; yet another appeared in a TV series for pre-school children The Little Grey Fergie; Australian folk musician Peter Pentland released an album called Me Beaut Little Fergie Tractor; and there is a monument in Wentworth, at the junction of the Darling and Murray Rivers in New South Wales, commemorating the time in 1956 when both rivers flooded and a fleet of little grey Fergies was used to build levee banks to save the town.
In 2003, Terry Williams drove a Fergie known as Betsy 3,176 miles around the British coast, the longest journey undertaken by tractor. Betsy is displayed at the Yorkshire Museum of Farming, near York.