John Halsall has owned his Ford-Ferguson tractor for over 30 years. It was nostalgia that drove John to buy this tractor because his grandfather James Garnett had bought an identical tractor during the Second World War.
Impressed
The Ford-Ferguson 9N which James Garnett owned had been imported into the UK as part of the government’s Lend-Lease Act. John says: “Apparently my uncle had seen a Ford-Ferguson working, and he had been so impressed he made enquiries to see if he could buy a similar tractor.”
John’s grandfather and uncle wrote to both the Lancashire War Agricultural Committee and the Ford Motor Company, expressing their desire to buy one of these tractors. John still has the original replies that the family received in 1943. The letter writing paid off and in 1944, a receipt from the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries shows that the family indeed purchased a Ford-Ferguson tractor.
The receipt shows the tractor came on steel wheels, with a two-furrow plough, and was bought for the sum of £320. John’s ancestors were keen to make their farmland as productive as possible, for shortly after they had obtained a tractor and plough, they wrote a second time to
