When I was about eight years old I was allowed to go to the village farm with my brother Mark and my best friend, Mark Brightwell. We used to play in the haystacks, chase the chickens and peacocks and make dens - but the best thing we could do was sit on Claude's tractor. Claude owned the farm and worked it with his son Rodney. His tractors were mostly Fordson Majors, one a 6D six-cylinder version, but there was also Claude's own Ursus, which nobody else was allowed to drive, and a bright orange Allis-Chalmers ED-40 Depthomatic with a mid-mounted hoe which Rodney used between the sugar beet: and that was the only time it got used.
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