The Classic Machinery Network

Done a bit of research - that is, re-read some of Stuart Gibbard's book, The Doe Tractor Story.
It was George Pryor who came up with the idea and collaborated with Does to produce the first D in 1958 - so yes, it did pre-date the others.
I attended my first Doe Show in 1965 while a student at the then Essex Institute of Agriculture (Writtle) on the Diploma in Agricultural Engineering Course. We all took the afternoon off to attend the show much to the annoyance of the principal, Ben Harvey, who couldn't see any benefit to our studies. He did his pieces and we all had to write grovelling letters of apology under the threat of being chucked out.

modelman093 wrote:Done a bit of research - that is, re-read some of Stuart Gibbard's book, The Doe Tractor Story.
It was George Pryor who came up with the idea and collaborated with Does to produce the first D in 1958 - so yes, it did pre-date the others.
I attended my first Doe Show in 1965 while a student at the then Essex Institute of Agriculture (Writtle) on the Diploma in Agricultural Engineering Course. We all took the afternoon off to attend the show much to the annoyance of the principal, Ben Harvey, who couldn't see any benefit to our studies. He did his pieces and we all had to write grovelling letters of apology under the threat of being chucked out.

You might have overlapped with my old bosses at Writtle. Dan or Huff Squier?

Harvey was an autocratic figure by all accounts and, according to one of my old lecturers who started as a young man under Harvey, he [BH} held back Writtle in the dark ages unable to move over.

Whoops going off topic

"You might have overlapped with my old bosses at Writtle. Dan or Huff Squier?"

Dan, I think , but memories fade! I did an NDA and followed it up with an NDAgE before joining Caterpillar in Glasgow where my first boss was another Writtle man, Terry Quadling. They were good years but as you say BH did tend to treat the place as his own.

Scooby wrote:Good morning Richard, I hope all is well with you. Thank you for the photos. One thing that I have never driven is a Doe (as they were collectively called round here) but having said that I only know one large farming enterprise that had one. I was driving along the road one day and it was quite bizarre to see the front end of a Super Major seemingly coming straight through the hedge when the tractor driver was ploughing, only to turn at the last minute to get as short a headliand as possible.

Hiya Scoob, good to hear from you....all well down here on the edge of the world.....just finishing the lambing now.
Whats new with you?

Apart from at the Ford/County shows in recent years I don't think there were ever many Does around us. It would have (and still would be) a right old caper driving it around the lanes.....certainly make the grockles stare

Hi Richard. Hope you didn't get too much of a belting with Doris. Certainly sorted some stuff out around here. Hope the lambing went well and not too many cades !