Leaf of the Day: The Steam Plough Club

After some glorious days of sunshine I am leaving Lincolnshire and driving south and it's raining. I have collected some more of the old African negatives from home for my Darling Popsy Blog and am calling in on Mike Goodman who is president of the Steam Plough Club of Great Britain. Also to meet me is Charles Roads who is a mine of information about Fowlers in general. It was such an interesting morning and it seems that a colleague of my grandafther may have been living at Grantham, (unbeknownst to us)very close to my parents all these years. What a shame, my mother would have loved to have met him.

I was fascinated as they both examined the photographs and remarked on the model number or the fact that this or that piece was missing. These wonderful enthusiasts go all over the world to find old steam ploughs and bring them home to be restored. Many of the engines were just left abandoned when the newer diesel models came into production in the mid 1930's.

Here is one of the photos from the blog. This magnificent machine is the Fowler Z6 ploughing engine photographed on N'gata Farm, Njoro, Kenya in 1926. It is just possible that this engine may still be in Africa waiting to be found. How I would like to go and find it!

A Journey to Africa and India

No drawing today but a screen shot of my other blog just to prove I have not been seduced by Mickey and his gang just yet.
I have spent all day getting this up and running and the first post written. Just the research takes hours and that is without getting horribly but wonderfully lost in numerous blind alleys.
If you know of anyone who might be interested in the subjects of John Fowler of Leeds agricultural implements (steam ploughs and traction engines and the like) and /or Africa and India in the 1920s and 1930s do pass this on to them. I have many missing details..
The site is
http://www.darlingpopsy.blogspot.com/

The letters and photographs sent back from Africa and India to my mother are delightful. The first ones from my grandfather Allan Thackeray when he was on his own in Kenya are charming. They are to a young girl (my mum was 8 at the time) so tell about the wildlife and the beauty of Africa..and his neglect in letterwriting.. but then who could blame him faced with such a great adventure