VETERAN ploughman Mervyn John has spoken of his honour at being chosen to represent Wales at the recent Six Nations Ploughing Championships.

Mervyn, aged 67, of Middle Farm, Hodgeston, near Pembroke has a lifetime’s interest in ploughing matches and was, in his younger days, the Young Farmers Club’s Champion of Wales. On the sporting field he is also a well qualified cricket umpire.

This year’s Six Nations Classic and Vintage challenge took place as part of the Scottish ploughing championships which held at Pitgaveny Farms, Wester Greens, Lossiemouth in the far north of Scotland – for Mervyn this meant a 590 mile journey each way with the trip to Elgin taking 16 hours.

The tractor Mervyn uses is a 50 year old 30hp 2wd International B250 that was built at the Bradford works that formerly turned out the Jowett cars and vans and also built the Bristol crawlers for a period. His worthy match plough is a Ransomes TS86 two furrow hydraulic lift model of about the same age.

The epic journey to somewhat unknown territory certainly proved worthwhile for the end result gave our popular ploughman the runner-up prize in the highly competitive Classic section of the event.

Mervyn commented: “It was, for me, a tremendous honour to be invited to represent Wales and I was delighted to have obtained a pretty good result.

“My family were very supportive making it possible for me to travel so far and I am immensely grateful to my son, Stephen, who shared the driving. I would also like to express my sincere thanks to my fellow members of the South Pembrokeshire Ploughing Society who generously contributed to my trip, including helping towards the costly fuel bill.”