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Confessions of an Engine Collector By Willy Carson
The Ruston & Hornsby, the first engine in Trevor’s collection o gather together, to accumulate, as a hobby or for study,” this is what the dictionary has to say about the word ‘collect’. To those in-theknow, collecting things is much more than this simple definition might indicate. The thesaurus includes an extensive list of synonyms such as acquire, accumulate, amass, congregate, flock together, rally and assemble; verbs which suggest some complexity to the initial concept.
“T
Consider the farmer keeping a close eye on the performance of his plough as the furrows turn over. A glint of light appears on the up turned soil. He takes a moment’s pause from his work, walks back and unearths an old bottle which may not have seen the light of day for several decades. He rubs off the worst of the dirt and sets it behind the tractor seat for further examination at the end of the day. That’s not a collection, that’s just a bottle but when the same thing happens a few days later, it’s the start. He tells the neighbour what he has found and before long he receives a box with a few old bottles that have been sitting on a shelf in someone’s shed for years. It would be rude to say no. From that moment on there is no going back; he’s a collector. Is it instinctive behaviour? It certainly isn’t something which has to be learnt. It may be a case of being in the right (or wrong) place at the right (or wrong) time. Some will even blame it on bad company but whatever its origins, collecting old stuff has been a recognised condition for years and a cure has yet to be found.
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Trevor Cooke from Gortin, Co. Tyrone understands. “It all started more than twenty five years ago when my father-in–law, William, bought a Lister D to restore and take to shows. He knew little about old engines and I knew less so we went to the late Bertie Marshall who was an engine man and he kept us right. The engine was complete and the mag was good so it was just a matter of cleaning the carb and some of the moving parts. William then acquired a Lister H3 water pump which needed a bit of work and when it was working properly we made a trolley for it and the engine and took it to local rallies.” Before long Trevor decided that he needed an engine too. Finding a Ruston Hornsby 3hp PB complete with a water pump for sale in the classified ads in a magazine, he made his first engine purchase. The engine was in Wigan and it could have cost him more to bring it home than it cost to buy it but he had a plan. His brother was a student at Harper Adams at the time and he arranged to borrow a friend’s trailer and transport it as far as a farm near Dumfries in Scotland. It stayed with an expat Tyrone man for several months until he was returning to Northern Ireland with a cattle lorry and was able to complete the engine’s journey to Trevor’s yard. The Ruston was in good condition and before long Trevor had it running and ready for a cosmetic restoration in original livery and with new transfers. It takes more than one engine to start a collection but the Ruston didn’t have to wait long before it had
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