Screeching chainsaws and strimmers may annoy some – but to me they herald the glorious sound of summer

They are the signs of hope, the indications after months of rain, that order will be restored, vitamin D levels upped and scarves put in the bottom drawer. Not the bird song, the high-pitch call of the buzzard or the rippled whistle of the robin, nor the spring lambs bleating in the fields nor even the light pouring in through the windows and the late evening sunshine – I’m talking about the sound of mowers being started and strutting their stuff across lawns, the buzz of strimmers attacking weeds and grass, the noise of chainsaws sorting out timber and leaf-blowers gathering fallen leaves.

One of my neighbours has an ancient mowing machine that makes such a din it echoes across the valleys from us to Wiveliscombe; it’s so loud he has to wear ear protectors to stop him going deaf. But would I moan? Absolutely not. It is the music of May, the tune of endeavour, the song of man attempting to place order on nature. It’s the hum that tells me the ground is dry; that the growing season is upon us; that reminds us to sew our seeds for salad leaves and sweet peas; that we should begin edging and that we may be able to walk across fields without getting stuck or disappearing into a slurry of sloppy, sticky mud.

And it’s the joyful reminder to get my own grass-controlling beasts ready. For if my neighbour thinks he’s making a din, just wait ‘til I get my mowers out. My machines make up a veritable orchestra. I’ve collected them over the years and while I don’t quite have the lawns to justify them, nothing will ever force me to part with them.

There’s my simple Cobra 135CC self-propelled mower, the John Deere ride-on (part-exchanged last year when the old one went to the garage in the sky), a Fly-Mo – that homage to the 1980s, as iconic as White’s Lemonade – and the vast three-cylinder Ransome. I’ve also got two old strimmers – inherited from my father some 20 years ago – which I intend to get going, and an ancient petrol-powered rotavator.

Imagine these all up-and-running. Spluttering, then chugging along, brandished at the grass, the weeds, the nettles and the thistles shivering in terror at the prospect of being chopped and cut, mown and mulched into oblivion.

Each year, by Norton Fitzwarren, on the edge of Taunton, there’s a steam rally, as there are up and down the country. It’s an eccentric festival of machinery with the sight of men covered in black soot and where in the days before and after, the roads clog up with ancient machines, symbols of the Industrial Revolution. There are traction engines and then, as an adjunct, always a load of other vehicles, old cars and army trucks, ambulances, fire engines and jeeps. Steam is the very least that they emit. I often wonder quite why the environmentalists aren’t there, glueing themselves to the tarmac on the approach, so terrifying is the sight of the thick black smoke that comes from their chimneys and stacks.

But my mowers are my own private steam rally, as are the engines of so many other – mainly – men who, like me, relish the start of the mowing season.

Some are mowing their suburban gardens, others their stately lawns, some are careering up and down cricket pitches while others are taming the grass in our public parks. So stop for a second and listen for their sweet sound. And then, if you’re a mowing maniac like me, steel yourself for the inevitable anti-mowing zealots, the no-mow May maniacs. And you can tell them you are actually taking a small leaf from their book by allowing the odd section of ground to run riot. Because when you allow one patch of grass to grow, it will provide contrast, will make the neat lawn look even neater and let the bees get a good munch on the buttercups and daisies.

And while the sound of these machines is the veritable chorus of summer, there’s another tune that inevitably rings out. And that’s the spluttering, the chomping, the gnashing and cursing of us mowers as our machines either fail to start, cut-out, hit a large stone or get stuck. And the one sound we don’t want to hear when that happens is the noise of our loved ones, wives and children, aghast at our pathetic male misery and laughing uncontrollably.