For the uninitiated the initials B.M.B. could mean almost anything, and often do until they discover, often with no little amazement, that they are the first letters of British Motor Boats, a company that was established in London in the 1930s, it seems, to import small motorboat engines from the United States.

Jack Piper’s collection including, (flanked by two BMB Presidents) the
Hoemate, the Cultmate and the Plowmate. Photo: Roger Jordan.

As is often the case within such operations, the company added a sideline to its marine activities by importing Simplicity two-wheeled tractors. In ascending order of size, these were sold under the B.M.B. banner as the Hoemate, the Cultmate and the Plowmate, the name of the last-mentioned dispelling all doubts about their country of origin!

War in 1939 was soon to change many things, and B.M.B. was not immune from the consequences. The company moved out of London, relocating to Banbury, Oxfordshire, where the curtailment and then almost total withdrawal of supplies of the tractors had to be addressed. With the Government encouraging us to ‘Dig for Victory’, acres of land were given over to the cultivation of food, and I remember using little more than a spade to create a vegetable patch for my parents out of part of what had been a dormant area of grassland.

Jack Piper soon became a ‘President’s Man’ after discovering the
‘four wheel’ B.M.B. tractor.

It was back-aching and blister-creating work from which I would dearly loved to have escaped, and I could have done so if we had been given the use of, by way of example, the small Hoemate which Shillans Engineering were making in Banbury for B.M.B. in support of the Government’s exhortations.