AN APPRENTICE who worked his way up to own the business has marked 50 years in the same year the company is celebrating 150 years.

Jimmy McGhee, proprietor of Pollock Farm Equipment, has written a detailed history of the agricultural implement makers who are based in Lugar.

It records their many years serving the farming community since it was established by Andrew Pollock. who had started as an agricultural engineer at the Cowgatehead Smithy in Mauchline.

He had soon grown beyond simple smithy work, inventing machinery that made life on the farm a bit easier. As the years passed, the company moved to a new purpose-built factory in the village, where they remained until 1998.

The early years of Pollock is one of invention and far-reaching sales. The company made numerous different machines used on the farms, and these are now extremely rare and collectable. Amongst these were balers, rick-lifters, carts of all shapes and sizes, land-rollers, harrows and barrows.

Sales were made across the country, and the firm exhibited at the Highland Show, Royal Show, and many lesser events.

One of Pollock’s famous implements was the tattie-digger, which was able to remove potatoes from the ground with ease, creating little damage to the potatoes and leaving them arranged in tidy rows for lifting. These potato-diggers were manufactured for many years, being a staple product of the company.

In 1998 the Pollock family sold the business to Jimmy McGhee, who had worked for them since 1967, starting as an apprentice and working up in the firm.

At the time, the business was moved to Lugar, where it continues to manufacture more modern farm equipment, such as byre-cleaning machinery, cow-brushes and bale handlers. In addition, the firm has a successful farm-supplies shop.

The new book is produced in hardback, and is richly illustrated with many old engravings of machinery manufactured by Pollock. More recent machinery is illustrated in photograph form, and there are a number of pictures of restored pieces of equipment.

There are two appendices, one copying a variety of early patents registered by the company, the other with a selection of early catalogues.

Any farmer in the district with an interest in old machinery will find the book of much interest, as will those with an interest in Ayrshire’s industrial history. Pollock is one of the few firms to have survived, outlasting other well-known names such as Jack of Maybole and MacCartney of Cumnock.

Pollock: Agricultural Implement Makers 1867-2017 is on sale now, and can be purchased from various local outlets, including Pollock’s Farm Shop.

Visit www.carnpublishing.com for more details on the remarkable story of a local company which survived for a century and a half.