David Phillip John, OAM, was born in Orange in 1933. His father, Allan John, had a retail background that started with a family store in Hunter St, Newcastle. He had married a Tamworth woman, Hilda Kennedy, from Bithramere. When David was 2 years old, Allan moved the family to Tamworth to take up a position as General Manager of T J Treloar and Co, the Tamworth retailers. David attended Farrer Agricultural High School in Tamworth, and after school along with his younger brother Barry operated two family farms at Loomberah and Dungowan, producing lambs, wheat, corn and lucerne hay. They were also involved in contract harvesting. Both were very interested in farm machinery, and in particular the John Deere brand. When the opportunity came up to act as sub dealers for the NSW state distributor, Waugh & Josephson, they took it.
This Tamworth Show stand may have been the fledgling company’s first, in the mid 1960’s. The John Deere logo pictured was introduced in 1956, and replaced in 1968 by the logo that would remain current until 2000.
Their business, Peel Valley Machinery Service, commenced in 1965, with an announcement in the Northern Daily Leader.
Whilst the John brothers were acquiring premises to operate out of, the business’s first registered address was at a family friend’s address in Armidale Road, Tamworth.
In 1968 Peel Valley was appointed a direct dealer to John Deere Limited, Wynyard House, Sydney as the first direct dealer for the John Deere company in NSW. The John brothers were quick to take up opportunities to demonstrate the new John Deere products, as this somewhat blurred photo shows.
This image is of the Peel Valley Machinery Service staff in the late 1960’s. David and Barry John are on the far left.
One of the individuals in the previous staff image was that of Cecil W Murden. Cecil was a highly skilled master mechanic and bush engineer, and he formed the foundation of the company’s early service team, remaining with the company until his retirement.
For most of its existence, Peel Valley Machinery has had the company’s own transport infrastructure. There are several reasons why, and foremost is to have as much control over timeliness of deliveries, and recovery of broken down machines as possible. The first truck, a grey, petrol engine Dodge tabletop truck was the first of our transport equipment, pictured here in the late 1960’s.
Transport regulations were somewhat more relaxed in the late 1960’s and 1970’s compared to today.
Smartened up signwriting and a better photographer for what was probably a late 1960’s Tamworth Show. Note the combine harvester with no cabin or operator protection from the elements. It’s a lot different now!