Celebrating Steven
The Grey Fergie
On Sep. 30, 2011, Catriona said:
Yeah – I know you think the photo is of me, not Steven, but really the photo is of THE Grey Fergie, which he NEVER forgave me for selling to a neighbour to be restored - this is the Fergie after it was restored. If you haven't a clue what I am on about ...
On Oct. 1, 2011, Rosalind said:
Okay Catriona - I don't have a clue but I'm all agog!
On Oct. 1, 2011, Brigitte said:
And the reason of my 2005 Xmas present in 2005 on the movie :-), even if it wasn't grey
On Oct. 1, 2011, Catriona said:
Steven was very fond of tractors, particularly the Ferguson tractor. At the beginning of July 1973, my father had a massive heart-attack. This was a serious problem, as it was the start of the hay season. I'd known Steven for two or three years by then through school drama club and choir and we were in the same 'crowd'. When he found out about my father, he came along and drove the tractor to turn the hay while I sat, slung between the mudguards of the Fergie, and we talked and talked all day.
My father was not the most mechanically-minded of men, and it offended Steven that the Fergie was in a state. He took it upon himself to strip it down and clean it with Gunk.
He was very attached to that Fergie – many years later he was very annoyed with me when I sold it to a good home to be restored, having been unable to work out the logistics of restoring it myself. He told me some time later that the reason he hadn't come to see me in Perthshire since (as opposed to Edinburgh) was because I no longer had the Fergie.
He frequently sent me links to Fergies for sale on eBay and we would discuss them later on the phone. At one time, he found and followed a website with a webcam of a tractor restoration - the man had set up the camera in the garage in which he was restoring a Fergie.
The last email Steven sent me was a link to a Fergie he had been admiring on eBay – painted, he had told me earlier on Skype, all the wrong colours, but perfect if you wanted it actually to work rather than just to take it round the shows and rallies.