Arrivals For Ploughing

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31363, 8 May 1967, Page 3

Arrivals For Ploughing

New Zealand ploughing enthusiasts on Saturday morning greeted one of the main contingents of competitors, team managers and officials of the governing board of the World Ploughing Organisation to arrive from overseas for this week’s world ploughing contest at Prebble-ton-Broadfield.

The first to alight from the special aircraft which had flown from Auckland was J. P. Kristensen, a competitor from Denmark.

The president of the World Ploughing Organisation, Mr W. Feuerlein, of Germany, and the general secretary of the Organisation, Mr A. Hall, were greeted by the president of the New Zealand Ploughing Association, Mr E. A. E. Fairhill. Mr G. Middlewood, a chairman of one of the subcommittees organising this week’s contest, called for cheers for the visitors. Among the competitors were T. J. and J. A. Barr, from Northern Ireland, who are brothers of the famous Hugh Barr,’ who was three times world champion. Mr J. A Barr, a 44-year-old farmer in County Derry, has been fourth twice in world contests in Northern Ireland

in 1959 and in Canada in 1963. He recalled that persistence had rewarded his efforts in ploughing. He had ploughed competitively for four years before winning a prize and seven years before winning a cup.

Aged 58, Mr T. J. Barr is one of the oldest ploughmen in the world contest. He served in the Royal Ulster Constabulary for 33 years before retiring as a sergeant and he is now chauffeur to Sir Robert Kinahan, a former Lord Mayor of Belfast. Mr Barr says he took up competitive ploughing as a result of a joke. When his brother Hugh left to take part in the world contest in Killarney in 1954, he said that if he won, which he did, he would not plough again in local competitions and he suggested that Mr T. J. Barr should take his place. Mr T. J. Barr has ploughed once before in a world contest—in Canada in 1963 —when Mr J. A. Barr also took part. One of the oldest competitors to arrive was R. H. Poos, of Ohio, who was 59 years old last month. He is farming property that his grandfather took over shortly after arriving in America from Luxembourg. He has been ploughing competitively since 1949 with a tractor, but he farmed earlier with horses. He won the United States national title last year. The other American entrant

in the contest, E. Muir, of Odell, Illinois, will not be coming. A younger brother, who was to have looked, after his farm while he was away, was killed in a motor accident.

One of the youngest ploughmen in the match will be Gunnar Hersleth, from near Oslo, Norway, where his father has a 90-acre farm.

The young ploughman had his 21st birthday on May 2, the day he left for New Zea-

land. He has been match ploughing for about five years and first started to drive a tractor when he was seven.

Although no competitor is coming -to the match from Czechoslovakia, Mr Dusan Hutla, an engineer in the agricultural machinery institute in Prague, who is a member of the governing board of the World Ploughing Organisation, has arrived. Mr Hutla said that he was very sad that the ploughman and team manager who had been coming from his country were not with him. Since January costs had risen so steeply because of a change in the exchange rate that they were unable to meet them.

Mr Hall could give no reason for the East Germans being unable to come. He said it was something beyond their control and he knew that they would be bitterly disappointed. The ploughmen and team

managers and officials are staying at Lincoln College and on Saturday evening they were welcomed at a social function by the principal, Dr. M-. M. Burns.