BRADLEY’S CORNER WORKING DAY

by Willy Carson

World War 2 may be a distant memory for those who lived through that horrific period, but there are many stories of its effects on ordinary people who lived miles from the front lines. Even in Northern Ireland tales have been passed down by those who witnessed some strange events.

My uncle often tells me of the four plane crashes he saw from his home farm in Co. Antrim, one of which involved a bomber whose engine had failed, resulting in it coming down in the townland of Ballywatt, almost taking the chimney pots off the neighbour’s house. As the crew emerged from the damaged aircraft, and made their way along the road toward the gathering crowd of concerned locals, the navigator asked where exactly they had landed; “Ballywatt”, came the unanimous reply. It appears that there then followed an awkward conversation, in which the locals felt that they had given the most accurate information concerning the airmen’s crash site, and any further enquiries should be made elsewhere. Retrieval of the stricken aircraft wasn’t any more straight forward; by the time the recovery lorry had completed its task, not a gatepost was left standing along the entire length of McKanes’ lane!

My father, born in 1936, told me of a memorable day after hostilities had ended. All German naval commanders at sea had been ordered to surrender their vessels to the nearest allied port which, for the U-boats in the Atlantic, was Lough Foyle on the north coast of Northern Ireland. My grandfather took him to Lisahally Docks to see the submarines, where he was able to climb aboard and see inside one of the boats that had threatened to cut Britain off from its vital seaborne supplies.

The Bradley’s Corner Vintage Club held their working day on Saturday 8th April, near the village of Desertmartin, on land owned by Geoffrey Stewart. It wasn’t just the tractors which provided the interest at this event, as my conversation with Geoffrey wandered back into the

1940s, revealing the part which the farm played in WW2. During the war, so much war materiel was being shipped across the Atlantic that cargo space had to be managed very efficiently. This meant that many vehicles, tanks included, were broken down into ‘flat pack’ form before they were loaded at US eastern seaboard ports for the voyage to the UK. Once unloaded, the tanks were taken by train to depots where US Army motor pool mechanics reassembled and tested them, before they were loaded onto railway freight trains and transported to their armoured units. With the Luftwaffe doing its best to disrupt munitions production, it made sense to disperse as many of these operations as possible. So, since Goering was unlikely to look for Sherman tanks anywhere near Desertmartin, the townlands of Luney and Motalee provided an ideal location for this vital operation. Geoffrey explains the impact of the war on his farm; “The railway line from Magherafelt to Draperstown passed the farm, so they built a short branch line into the fields where they set up a camp to rebuild the tanks. They tested them by driving them around the fields, including this one where the boys are ploughing today. All the gaps in the hedges that you can see were made by the tanks. When the tanks were ready to be moved out, they were driven up a concrete loading ramp onto the trains and taken to the docks in Belfast. The only things the yanks left, were the ramp and the holes in the hedges.”

Over forty tractors signed up for the day’s fun, which began with some advice on plough set-up from David Gill, former World Ploughing Champion and mentor of the Northern Ireland Ploughing Academy. David cast his expert eye over many of the ploughs in the field, made adjustments where necessary and judging by the furrows as viewed from the headlands, his advice was being put into practice.

Cameron Nutt took to the field with the only trailed plough in attendance, a Massey Harris pulled behind his 1947 John Deere Model D. Wesley Rea stuck his tongue out of the side of his mouth and headed up the plot, making a decent job of turning in the lea with his Fiskars plough, mounted on his MF 240. As expected, there was a fair showing of Ferguson and MF tractors. Harry Keenan and Derek Rea brought a couple of David Browns; there was a good showing from the blue team, and Joe Taylor made sure that the Leyland name was represented with his 270 and Kverneland 3 furrow plough.

By lunchtime the field had been turned upside down and the tractor men gathered around the chip van for a burger and a yarn. The weather was good, the ploughing conditions were good, and the craic was good. The proceeds from the event, which amounted to £1138 go to FACTS, the Autism support charity.