He would have jumped out just to get the soil off the front.
It was half past eight at night and I got a phone call watching TV and he said erm have you got a son called Ed, I said yeah is he working in Hampshire yeah.
The auger was broke on the combine so they told him to run with it out.
He would have jumped out just to get the soil off the front.
Ed’s dead and that were it. I said your having me on he said well I said ring us back in ten minutes, he rung me back here’s my number and everything else and it was true.
I mean he use to work for us for I think for at least 3 maybe 4 summers he ended up driving the big tractor for us because the guy was away on his year out at Uni and then he came to me at the end of that harvest and said to me Uncle Chris do you mind if I don’t come back next year he said I fancy doing something different next year. I said it’s your life Edward you do what you like.
But as it turned out if he’d been back with us the following Summer the accident probably wouldn’t have happened.
When I was 12 I started driving a tractor that was tiny compared to this thing. But now I mean I’m driving a combine which when the auger goes out it’s 6 metres high it’s enormous.
These machines don’t give you a second chance.
Well it think you know it was an accident but it was an accident, with a little bit more care could have been prevented.
Thinking back to my management days, I always had somebody with a gang of blokes who were doing something who was sort of in charge of them if your like, and I don’t think they ever had. You know there’s lads that get killed all the time with electric.
Sometimes when your on big machine or your on a farm you’ve never been to just take 5 minutes just to have a look and think well there’s a tree or there’s some cables you know it doesn’t take you 5 minutes.
Think about what you are doing you only get one life don’t waste it.