Sixties Harvest

Harvesting at Green Farm, Waddington, in the mid-1960’s as two Vulcan bombers fly overhead. The farm set on the Lincoln edge, a limestone escarpment running north-south through Lincolnshire commands views over the Trent and Witham valley to the west and the City of Lincoln 5 miles to the north. In the painting Lincoln Cathedral can be seen on the horizon with part of Waddington village on the right. The buildings of Green Farm stand in front of St. Michael’s Church, rebuilt in 1953 after being destroyed by German bombing in the Second World War. The 1964 Massey Ferguson 500 combine with 94bhp Perkins engine and 12ft. cut table is discharging grain into a trailer pulled by a Massey Ferguson 35 tractor. The Canadian farm machinery company Massey Harris bought out Fergusons in 1954 and produced its first red and grey tractor in 1957 when it changed its name to Massey Ferguson. The Air Force base lies to the east of the village and was opened in 1916 as a flying training station. The base was rebuilt in the mid 1930’s and during the Second World War flew Hampden, Manchester and Lancaster bombers. After the war with the advent of the jet age the main runway was rebuilt to accommodate Canberra bombers and in I 957 the Avro Vulcan delta winged heavy bomber. The aircraft was designed to fly at medium/high level and carry a free-fall nuclear bomb, however when a ‘cold war’ started with Eastern Europe in the 1960’s, tactics had to change when the Soviet Union developed a surface-to-air missile. The free-fall bomb was replaced with an air launched nuclear missile - the Blue Steel. The Vulcan bomber would fly at low level to avoid radar, then climb to release a missile when 25 miles from the target. Training for low level flying began in 1963 and the characteristic white paint scheme was changed to dark green and grey camouflage of the low-level bomber. - Eventually Britain’s nuclear deterrent was transferred to nuclear powered submarines. The Vulcan bombers were to be retired in 1982 when it looked as though the aircraft would never be used in war. Then famously, Vulcan bombers flew from RAF Waddington to bomb targets in the Falkland Islands after the military invasion by Argentina. One of the Vulcan bombers used in the war, XM607, stands proudly as gate guardian at RAF Waddington. In its later specification powered by 4 Rolls Royce Olympus engines (20,000 lb thrust) and 111 ft. (33.8m) wingspan the aircraft was an awesome sight (and sound) over the flat Lincolnshire landscape.