WOE betide any man who makes a quip about women drivers within Debbie Barron’s hearing.

For Debbie (26) has been behind the wheel since she was 13– the wheel of a tractor that is.

The mum of two is one of the few British ploughwomen in the country and a past vintage title winner in the Young Farmers class of the British National Ploughing Championships.

She has been tractor mad since she helped her dad build one out of bits.

“I was very much a daddy’s girl when I was younger and anything he did I wanted to do. I remember when I was between nine and 11 my mum bought a Nuffield Universal for my dad which was all in boxes. His cousin had taken it apart but never got round to putting it back together. Dad and I built it from scratch.”

Dad, Geoff Watson,runs 200 acre Bingfield Farm at Bingfield, where Debbie, her husband Chris and boys, Geoff, six and Anthony, five also live.

Geoff senior loves his machines and as well as the Nuffield he has a rare vintage Fordson Roadless Major and another Fordson Major complete with a fire engine’s engine. Both he and Debbie enjoy showing them off at the popular Pickering Steam Rally in Yorkshire.

Mum, Helen, has got her own Fordson Major as well and that’s what Debbie first used when she started ploughing competitively at the age of 13.

Her grandad, Ulrich Dixon, was so eager to get to her first ploughing match that he left his great grand-daughter’s christening celebration early to see her get her rosette.

“He donated the Young Farmers ploughing cup that you have to qualify for to go to the British championships,” she recalls. “I won it eight times and came first in the nationals in 2009 in Cambridgeshire when I was the only female competitor at the event.”

Debbie ploughs with a Massey Ferguson 35, the first model she bought with some money she’d been left at the age of 18. “It dates back to 1959, which is the cut off to be classed as vintage.

“I love vintage tractors because they’re what I was brought up on and you can fix them yourself, they’re not full of computers.”

As a member of Whitley Chapel Young Farmers Club until her last birthday, she was still entitled to compete at the British Ploughing Championships at York this year as she’d qualified when she was still young enough to be in YFC.

And locally she took part in the annual Northern Counties Ploughing Association weekend at Chipchase in September - something she’s been doing for 13 years.

As the only woman she says she occasionally gets a bit of cheek from the men. “Sometimes they joke on but it’s just out of fun,” she says. “And after 13 years I don’t think they can get rid of us now.”

Ploughing is quite a stressful sport she says. “I ended up with a migraine both days of the Chipchase competition. It’s stressful because you can only do it once and if you mess it up, that’s one of your points gone.”

Competitors are judged not only on the straightness of their furrows but on how effectively they’ve buried all the weeds and stubble and that the furrows are uniform and level.

So what’s the secret of success? “Get it straight,” she laughs. “Which I can’t do if I’ve got my glasses on! I’m very short sighted and if I can see the poles perfectly I can’t really get it straight. I don’t know how that works but it’s true.

“On the first day I was set ploughing between two people that were in the World Championships at York, Colin Hewetson and Alex Irvine - so no pressure! And the second day I was next to Reg (Wilkinson, association secretary) and he’s a good plougher as well!”

Perhaps that explains why she only came 10th out of 12 – that and it being too warm to wear her pink lucky hat, which she had on the back of her plough but not on her head.

“I got it when I was skiing with middle school and my hat fell off on the ski lift. The instructor picked it up and brought it up the mountain to me. So it’s my lucky hat and my little bit of girliness in a not very girly sport!”

Her six-year-old, Geoff, is already eyeing up mum’s tractor. “He’s desperate to have a go. But the two of them have a little plough for the crawler.”

Luckily Debbie’s husband is almost as nutty about tractors as she is. “He’s got four vintage including a six cylinder Fordson Major plus a John Deere that he uses day to day. And I’ve got dad’s old Nuffield 460 that I’m doing up. It’s yellow and red, so I call it my Noddy tractor.”