Farmer Writes: they say you should never meet your heroes

They say you should never meet your heroes, presumably because you could be disappointed. Hmm, not so sure about that. Though I have met one or two RTÉ TV personalities who I thought were sound fellows and they turned out to be awful.

Anyhow, as all my heroes are long dead there’ll be little chance of meeting any of them. I’m thinking of great men like engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (died 1859), explorer Ernest Shackleton (died 1922) and the writer LTC Rolt (died 1974). (I did meet Rolt’s widow about 20 years ago. She was lovely but said he was difficult.)

There was a time when I could have done Mastermind on any one of them but no longer.

In more recent lives I, as a young man, idolised the English farmer and columnist Peter Hepworth (died 2000). Writing to his widow after his premature death, I said I never had the good fortune to meet Peter. But in this case, it may have been just as well as I might have been given short shrift. Hepworth was a brusque, straight-talking Yorkshireman who didn’t tolerate fools gladly – not that I’d be very different myself.

And for gender balance, in heroes or at least people I greatly admired, I must add my paternal grandmother (née Tong) who was a great lady (died 1990). But my grandfather died in 1960, a month before I was born and would be up there as well.

However, in 1995 I met someone who I knew to be my type of person. Tommy Tiernan might have found the going heavy but I was in my element. ‘Hero’ perhaps mightn’t be appropriate but I admired him.

Late last year, Richard Bateman died and I must say a few words.

Let’s go back a few years as this column is wont to do. For 40 years, I’ve had this thing about self-propelled sprayers, many of which are built in the UK. In the 1980s, I’d have loved a Chaviot which, by today’s standards, was a basic 2WD unit with a Volkswagen Golf engine and gearbox. But it offered high crop clearance for spraying flowering oilseed rape and low ground pressure for autumn work.

There was a handful here at that time with progressive farmers like the Co Dublin/Meath trio of Donegans, Wilkinsons and Michael McBennett, all of whom had one.

At around this time, a pioneering Devon farmer-turned-engineer built a vastly superior model encompassing 4WD and four-wheel steer and a proper Deutz engine with hydrostatic transmission.

Mechanical genius

The Bateman Hi-Lo was born and other manufacturers followed in his wake.

Richard Bateman was a self-taught engineer who left school at 14 to join his father on their cereal farm with wet heavy land.

Seeing the need for a sprayer to work in these conditions, he developed a lightweight six-wheel buggy which could travel anywhere.

But the spray tank was tiny and his more practical Hi-Lo became its worthy successor. Production was scaled up and with continuous development, sprayer manufacture continues to this day.

To describe Bateman as a mechanical genius is not an exaggeration. His machines are brilliantly designed and beautifully hand built in the Devon factory with around 100 employees.

In his later years, he and his wife retired to New Zealand and left the company in his son Jason’s capable hands.

I met Bateman in 1995 and he certainly didn’t disappoint. An unassuming man, he was an inspiration to talk to and the pleasure was mine. It would be another 10 years before I bought my Bateman in 2005. Richard Bateman (b.1941) died last November.

If God in his heaven needs any engineering tweaks to automate the pearly gates, Richard Bateman’s the man. RIP, Sir.