Anglesey’s Wil Hughes has a tractor, a plough, and a baler, all of which used to belong to old friends, and the machines themselves become like old friends in time.
Wil’s baler was once owned by North Wales’ collector, the late John Bumby. John was a mine of information for he not only spent many years working as a lecturer at the local agricultural college but was also a former employee of Jones Balers. In 1950, John began working as an apprentice engineer for Jones Balers in Rhosesmor, North Wales. The company was producing its self-propelled baler, ‘The Invictor’, at the time. In 1952 Jones began producing their Mark 1 baler. Around this time John Bumby was not only building the balers but he was also going out testing the firm’s new balers on farmland owned by the company. John remembered each model of Jones Baler, the Mark 1, 2, 3 and 4, the Minor, the Major and the Star, and recalled other experimental models that never got beyond the testing stage into production.
It was many years after his time
