Trust Bailey Trailers to put safety first at Rickerby
Rickerby Show 2017
Rickerby combines fun and the future
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ON A VERY BRIGHT AND sunny 9th March morning Ian Wilkinson visited the second day of the 16th Annual Rickerby Spring Show.
The day started with a rare occurrence, a sit down conversation with Rickerby’ s West Area Director, the hardworking Martyn Henderson who is renowned for his high energy, multi-tasking personality. The shows responsibility is Martyn’ s and his counterpart in the East Colin Potts. It is always a significant show with many
manufacturers and exhibitors present and is generally a full year in preparation.
As Martyn said,“ Not only is this a very popular event in many farming calendars it is also the all-important launch event in the Rickerby year. These two days are our platform, farmers come and talk to us, see the equipment, talk to the salespeople and often go away to return anything from a week to nine months later to buy, so that makes these two days very important”.
Visitors come from across the span of the Rickerby‘ empire’ from Edinburgh to Durham and the M62 to Moffat.
Martyn’ s hard working team are, however, totally committed to visiting and talking with their farmers during the year and many do come to the open day to do those all-important deals on the day- tempted by the
many genuine show deals. There is always a competition or quirky gimmick to enhance the buying experience. From a James Bond theme to manufacturers’ special deals / colour schemes. This year’ s novelty was the Wheel of Fortune – for all deals on the day above a certain value the relevant farmer got to spin the wheel and win a prize anything from clothing to parts to a teddy bear!
There was also a display of antique machinery originally manufactured by Rickerby’ s when the business had its own foundry, including a cart from 1902- kindly loaned by Mr Willis Wharton.
Another feature of the Rickerby shows are its commemorative model machines- this year’ s was the CLAAS Jaguar Forager. Martyn sources the actual model and then gets his local contact Peter Hardy to fully personalise them. There are only 100 to buy and are much sought after.
The whole of the Carlisle depot is given over to the show with extra marquee space utilised to keep everything under
cover, but the frontage always has an impressive array of machinery on view.
Martyn said day one was its usual resounding success with some 2500 visitors coming from 12 noon and the final ones leaving with him and his team around 10pm! Gallons of soup, coffee and tea were consumed alongside a bevy of sandwiches and snacks. The second day tends to be a steadier day but by lunchtime everywhere was busy again and around 4500 visitors were expected across the two days.
I asked Martyn about the previous year and Brexit etc.” 2016 has been a good year for us and Brexit hasn’ t adversely
Trust Bailey Trailers to put safety first at Rickerby
The safest trailers in the field and on the road. Having pioneered the use of‘ fit for purpose’ braking systems and brilliant LED lighting, we now offer‘ hi vis’ strips for dark mornings and evenings. Side ladders are now standard on all popular models. Grain and root trailers up to 24 ton capacities.
Whatever the Season
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46 Spring 2017 www. farmers-mart. co. uk