Lister Engine

If you are not interested in vintage engines - look away now!

You'd be surprised how much noise this machine could make, but my first memories of it are when we used it to power a saw to cut firewood for the Winter. I called it the Biff-Bang, and when you were cutting sticks with the exhaust pointing towards you, you'd know why. The engine was supplied by a firm in Annan in 1913, and powered a threshing mill, which I only remember seeing work once. The mill stood gathering dust for a few years, until it was dismantled, (i.e. smashed up) to make way for more space to keep pigs. Putting the concrete stalls in place for the pig pens in the barn was a lesson in itself. Dad had enlisted the help of two of his brothers, Bob and Mick. Unfortunately, they all had a different idea on how best to transport and position the concrete slabs which had been prepared earlier. It was certainly a case of how many brothers does it take to make a pig pen.

After the engine was no longer used to power the saw (we used the PTO shaft from the tractor to turn a pulley). It was the Lister engines turn to gather dust in its original place from 1913 until 1985, when it had to be moved to make way for a new general purpose, hay, cattle and implement shed. With the help of my mother's brother this time (Davie McCreadie), we managed to manoeuvre it down three steps inside the old barn to protect it from the elements (though not bird poop). This time, I let diplomacy rule, and bowed to Davie's superior knowledge in these matters, and found we got the job done a lot quicker. Davie knew someone who restored old engines and wondered if I was interested in selling, but I decided to hang on to it as I had the idea of making it a 90% project.

Guess what. The engine lay in the barn untouched from 1985 to 2009 (untouched by human hand , but touched by plenty of bird poop). In 2009 I was having draining work carried out (see previous blogs) and Donald, the company owner, was very keen on vintage engines and machinery (in fact, whenever I tried to contact him for an update on how drainage work was progressing, he seemed to be at a Vintage machinery rally) and had already restored a fine engine, probably a step up from the Biff Bang and a newer model called the Biff Biff Bang. He wondered if I wanted to part with the old Lister. I gave it some thought and realised no matter how much I tried to convince myself otherwise, it would never even be a 1% project let alone a 90% project, and the best I could do would be brushing off the bird poop and painting it, which wouldn't have done it justice, so we came to an agreement. In 2009.

In Spring 2010, I made a note to contact Donald again to find out when he would progress the 90% jobs that just needed little bits of work done, e.g. cement in a metal grille over a drain, and if he had managed to work out a way to transport the concrete drainage pipes up from England at reasonable cost. These pipes would replace the plastic ones which were washed downstream. In the end I didn't have to contact him, because I came home from work one day to find he had asked to park his low loader trailer in the yard, as he was making a water feature for our neighbour.

I reminded him about the old Lister engine, and we arranged a night for collection. Next instalment will be transferring the engine onto their trailer