A RETIRED farmer has been honoured for a lifetime of competitive ploughing. John Metcalfe, 79, from Newby Wiske, near Northallerton, has been given an award by the Society of Ploughmen for 50 years of consecutive entries in the National Ploughing Match.

He became interested in ploughing before the Second World War when he went to a plough day with a farm worker.

e started ploughing in the 1940s and has never looked back, competing regularly in the World Ploughing Match, including the first ever world-wide competition, in Canada, in the 1950s.