GET AKTIV

My interest in small combines probably started on a harvest day in the mid-Sixties, when on my way home from primary school, I saw an Aktiv trailed combine, bagger model, cutting a small crop of barley on our neighbour’s farm. At the time, my father had a Bisset semi-mounted binder and a Garvie thresher which he used on our own small farm and also for small scale contracting work on neighbouring farms in our area, on the borders of counties Longford and Cavan in the north midlands of Ireland.

Machinery minded

My interest in farming really only extended to tractors and farm machinery, so thankfully my younger brother Eugene took over the running of the family farm in the Seventies, while I spent my working life in local government administration. I availed of a one acre site to build a house on the farm, which was more than enough land for me (by coincidence, it happens to be just across the road from our neighbour’s field where I first saw the Aktiv combine at work).

My new home was convenient, especially during the summer, when extra help