MOST boys are introduced to tractors when they are crawling.

Their toy cupboards are filled with the farm favourite which gives them hours of fun and creativity.

For many, the novelty wears off but for others tractors play an important, and expensive, role in their future lives.

Many grandad farmers in Herefordshire recount how, as tractor-mad boys, they were in the seat on the farm at the age of 10 or 11, taught by their fathers before them.

But in these health and safety days, there is none of that, the rules are very strict. And with tractors getting bigger, more powerful, computer controlled and costing anything from £50,000 to £100,000, tractor driving has scaled greater heights.

At Holme Lacy Campus, part of Herefordshire College of Technology, courses are run to help tractor drivers to reach the required standards.

But the youngsters are not forgotten and, in the Easter break, it ran a two-day course for 13 to 16-year-olds to get a proper taste of driving a tractor and other tractor-related activities.

Under the supervision of course tutor Peter Hewitt, they had a go on college tractors, testing their skill to hitch up trailers and reverse.

And as a tractor is useless without something behind it, they were taught how to attach some of the implements it pulls on the farm.

Mr Hewitt said each year a variety of young people attend the courses, either for fun or as an introduction to tractors before helping on the farm.

And, at other times of the year, the campus organises countryside activity days, also for 13 to 16-year-olds, where they can do more tractor driving as well as other activities, ranging from clay pigeon shooting to target shooting and woodland walks.

For more information on these, call 0800 0321986