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An old man looks at the machines with admiration. Memories come flooding back from a time when he was young and sturdy. Man and machine endured. When these machines were invented and built, they were for helping people. They brought relief to daily laborious toiling. Old machines were not given a definite lifespan. They were made to last. They did not, however, make anyone redundant. They took over the workplace of wind, water and horse. The priority of the Hard Iron Rally is activity. Folks are busy doing and making things, machines keep running. You see the goings-on, the machines and crowds. You hear the noises of a bygone era, feel the mighty vibrations of the engines, smell the petroleum and burning wood. The central idea of the event is to express old technology and know-how. We have thus named it Hard Iron Rally. Our pride and joy lie in the fact that the machines still work. Among the machines there are many so fine and polished as if they had just been taken out of their factory oil paper wrappings the day before. Often too the machinists are as enthusiastic as if they had just got hold of the latest novelties. Proud and precise. Cotton wads in their pockets and the blue tongues of their blow-torches heating the cylinder ball. Working with hands and old machines is a respectfully passing era. Such abilities are in truth no longer necessarily needed. But who knows, what the status of the small apprentice blowing the fire in the smith’s forge will be in half a century. These abilities may well be needed again, and the smith will have re-gained his well-earned high status. Ten years ago when we began, there were a few machines and a few people who knew how to use them, but there was curiosity and a longing to go back momentarily in time. We wish to offer the same opportunity to you. We revel in the Hard Iron Rally. It is a must to experience the good-humoured and unhurried goings-on year after year. Be sure to reserve at least one day for yourself, and preferably another, that your clothes will smell of smoke, you have the time to become interested in some old machine or other, relish fatty pork, eat buttery fish soup and listen to the sounds of a bygone era. There are so many things in the Hard Iron Rally that nobody can know everything. Nor even imagine everything that there is. But no matter, whoever has a name tag in their chest, just approach them and ask about whatever is puzzling you. Next Hard Iron Rally 28th-29th May 2005 Contact: ramsoo@ramsoo.fi |