A HEREFORDSHIRE farming veteran has received a special award for 50 years continuous employment with the same family.
Brian Burford was presented with a silver bar and long service medal for his service through the decades to three generations of the Chinn family.
He left school in 1963 and went straight to work at Cobrey Farms, Walford.
His first tractor, a Fordson Super Major, had no cab and Brian remembers wrapping up well against the winter weather.
Over the years he has had 17 different tractors and he marvels at how technology has moved on to today’s air conditioned cabs with suspension and GPS auto-steering.
He still works full time at the farm carrying out all the ploughing and marking out of potato fields.
He has always been very involved with the potato crop and has seen the harvesting transformed from hand picking into bags to fully automated mechanical harvesters.