Big digger

When you need to shift a lot of spoil fast nothing better than a JCB. Which indeed is the caption on this 1983 photo belonging to Dr Phillpotts. But the Chronicler's evidence must be slightly re-interpreted: JCB is one of those brands which, in the UK at least, has become so well known that the manufacturer's name is used to mean the product itself e.g. Hoover. But just as there are vacuum cleaners other than hoovers, so there are front-hoe loaders that are not made by JCB. This particular effort is a Massey-Ferguson 50HX.

Foz and digger

It looks as though Foz may have put quite some effort into the angle irons supporting his planning frame: even allowing for a bit of foreshortening when Jill Hummerstone snapped him at work: that one on the right must have needed at good belt with a clout-iron to get it into the limestone. In the background, not a JCB, for once, but a Massey Ferguson back hoe loader: a model 50HX which, according to C-H-M's research, seems to have been manufactured in the late 1980s and early 1990s: that would be about right. A used one would set you back between $5,000 and $15,000 according to the Machinery Trader website.

Jane Dineen writes: "I remember having one of these on site, trying it out, and lifting JP in the big bucket. And bringing him down again gently. ('84, I think.)"

Er ... something like this, Jane? I have tried to see whether it's you in the cab in this 1983 shot from Dr Phillpotts (which did appear on the blog in November 2008) but even on high magnification it's hard to see: maybe JP had a taste for riding in the bucket?