Tractors resting in Peace or Pieces Part 2

[Brian]

[oehrick]

Thanks Brian, couple of very interesting sets of pics and I know just how you feel about the hoarders - do you remember Cecil Dawson's yard in Hellesdon Low Road ? always thought that should have been preserved, I bet the folks in the houses they built will be digging up strange stuff for years yet

[Brian]

I do not remember him, Rick, but we had a lorry driver at Wrights called Cecil Pawley who had a scrap yard. When we sold a new tractor, the trade-in was brought back and, if an older tractor, was sent straight to his yard for around £25.00. We used it as a spares depot if we had broken axles, gearbox housings etc.

He had Case LA's stacked on top of one another along with every type of tractor you can imagine, Fowler FD3's, Cats, Olivers etc. We used to love spending time down there. Cecil made a lot of money when the vintage tractor movement started in th USA in the early 1970's by sending all the US tractors back home.

His yard was on Scarning Fen, not too far from me but by 1980 it was all cleared and Cecil was dead.

Cecil was always getting into scrapes. He lost an E27N off the back of his lorry on Prince of Wales Road in Norwich, that was before the bypasses were thought of and all the traffic went through the middle of the city. Cecil just stopped, got the ramps out, cranked her up and drove back on.

He also was loading off the ramp in our yard, drove a new 5000 up onto the lorry but had not put the handbrake on. As the front wheels hit the lorry it shot off and the 5000 landed on its sump on the edge of the ramp. So that was another rush job to get a new sump fitted.

[Dandy Dave]

Cecil sounds like a quite a character... Dandy Dave!

[oehrick]

Cecil Dawson bought lots of government surplus, my brother wanted some binoculars, Cecil showed us to a row of decaying Bedford CA vans and as we looked through them they were each FULL of the same item, by the hundred, Marching compasses in one, sextants or artillery aiming devices in another, Radio sets, tank periscopes, tank binoculars then finally Navy binoculars, having hunted for the least verdigreed ones we could find and a leather case not damp spoiled I think he asked John 7/6 or ten bob for them - dear dead days.

Was the Scarning yard the one just past the church (coming from nch) which the bypass cut in half, or another one Brian ?

There was one stacked with tractors and a couple of traction engines (which have now been rebuilt) on the outskirts of North Walsham, just the Cromer side of Cranes factory, I'd known about the tractions since the 1970's but they never would consider selling and they were finally bought by Michael List-Brain (Preston Services) - last scrapyard survivors I'm aware of and probably last few yards to have so many old tractors stacked too.

Someone once said to me 'you can't preserve everything', after a few moments thinking about it I answered with 'OK so if there's not enough red oxide primer in the world we'll have to find something else to use', for some reason I still can't fathom he walked away without another word, shaking his head, must have been the thought of all that primer

[Brian]

No,the one beside the main road about 1/4 mile from me was Geof Haller and Sons, like your man they bought up a lot of ex-millitary stuff. I once bought 10 WW2 army helmets from them for a play we were doing at the time. He had an Auster Spotter Plane in there ex-Army and a Westland Whirlwind ex Air-Sea rescue.

Cecil's yard was down on Scarning Fen, if you turn down Coach Lane, opposite Hallers Yard and wend your way down the back road you will eventually come to the place were the yard was. It is only just in Scarning, just over the boarder from Toftwood.