I’ve been a closet Massey Ferguson fan for years. Don’t really know why, as we never had them, but I’m preoccupied with the great Harry Ferguson and his pioneering role in tractor (and car) development.

So recently when I thought we needed a light runaround tractor, I bought a 120hp 2017 MF 5712 and it’s grand – provided you haven’t driven a hugely smoother Fendt. It’s like comparing Tina Turner with the classy and refined Katherine Jenkins.

Anyhow, Joe Whelan has opened a Massey Ferguson museum in Kilrush, so one sunny Saturday Mrs P accompanied me in a roadster spin down to Clare and Joe was there himself.

He’s a very engaging man and an absolute authority on MF, with an important collection. Then we went across to his Museum of Irish Rural Life.

There are many things there evocative of times past, and amongst them was a Wolsley shearing machine which brought back memories to me. We had one of these simple hand-powered dinosaurs.

Every year at around this time my father would tell Carr (the longtime herdsman, or as we’d call him herd, and shepherd) to round up the sheep for shearing, which he would do with Rover the Fourth.

The 70 ewes would be gathered into a cubicle shed, the woolsack suspended on baler twine from the roof trusses and the three-legged Wolsley shearing machine set up in a cubicle.

Now I know Ivan Scott would shear 70 sheep in about 10 minutes but to Carr it was a big two-day job, and one he didn’t like. He was a portly wee man and, as I now know, it’s tricky to bend over when your belly is in the way, so shearing wasn’t easy.

With the sheep gathered and the tea taken and egg eaten, Carr would let out a roar to summon me. ‘Where’s Gerryeen?’ Carr put ‘een’ onto most people’s names hence Dickeen, Mickeen and Vineen. I’d appear, ready for action, as we liked Nickeen Carr.

Johnny Malone, maybe a little worse for wear before 10 o’clock, would catch the first big auld Suffolk and shove her over to Carr. ‘Right, Gerryeen, get cracking,’ he’d command.

I was never very athletic or even strong, but this was one job I could do.

Carr would bury the cutting head in the fleece, the load would come on the handle but I’d be ready for it. Twenty minutes later and with me wheezing like a screw bullock with worms, the first sheep would be shorn.

Carr would pull out a paper bag of Torpedoes, toss me one and Malone would light a Major. After that we’d all spit on the ground ready to go again.

‘Right,’ said Carr, ‘there’s another 69 of these feckers to be done. Malone, grab that second shearing head and we’ll do a sheep each.’ Oh, oh.

The two men tore into the two sheep at the same time but I thought I was ready for them. The downward spin on the handle was fine, but the rapidly increasing load was terminal and everything stalled, quicker than the flywheel shearbolt popping in a New Holland 376 baler in a lump of wet straw.

Mixed martial arts my arse. It was like Cassius Clay hit me a killer right handed uppercut, catapulting me over the cubicles and into a sorry heap in the woolsack.

‘Right,’ said Carr, ‘where’s Tomeen?’ Tom(een) is my older brother.

Harvest

The Claas combine will shortly begin the harvest with the patchy winter oats, in what will be a long season not finishing until the beans in mid-October. And desiccating a field of weedy Clearfield rape wasn’t a great start. It’s a horrendous crop – I won’t be disclosing any yields this year. It’s a classified harvest.