Off track

Old Frank

In the end old frank proved my initial vibe to be right.

My son Neil broke his femur one night while doing ju jitsu. I was there watching and obviously went to the hospital in the ambulance with him. The hospital was 20 mile away, it was an awful journey and one that is etched in my memory for life. The ambulance guys were friends from school, they couldn’t apologise enough for the journey and the fact they couldn’t give him any pain relief, but that was just the way it had to be, it wasn’t pleasant, but I knew them all and knew they were doing their very best for him.

The hospital referred him to the Birmingham children’s hospital and another 30 mile journey some two days later, all the time I never left his side.

In the meantime previous to the accident I was just finishing an extension job that owed me quite a few thousand pounds, luckily it was on a neighbours property just a few yards from my house and there were only two expensive wardrobes left to fit, I rang old frank and asked if he could fit them. They were just self assembly ready to slot in fitted wardrobes, there was one each end of the new bedroom to fit. Old Frank agreed and promised they would be sorted that week., he knew the people so I was content it would be done and I could collect the balance when everything was sorted with Neil.

They operated on Neil’s leg on the Sunday, he had had the accident on Thursday evening, he. Had been shunted from the place it happened to A and E in Worcester twenty miles away, then taken five miles to another hospital for two days, and then finally the Birmingham children’s hospital another 35 mile away on the Saturday. On the Tuesday after the operation to pin it they got him up to do physio and he slipped and broke it again. Poor lad, now he had to go through it all again, and we were there for the duration. I never left his side, even sleeping in a temporary bed at the side of his some nights, it was an awful break and the poor lad was in agony for weeks. God I wince as I write this just remembering it. At some point during those three weeks I had a message through that the wardrobes had been fitted and the job finished, that was a great relief.

The accident had been a very stressful time for us, but Birmingham children’s hospital is something else. That hospital is staffed by angels.

After the journey to A and E we sat patiently for two hours for the X-ray. His femur was indeed broken in a spiral fracture, in essence it was broken in two lengthways as opposed to straight across, this created an issue for the bone specialist who we met four hours later after another ambulance journey across town to the decaying old Victorian Castle road hospital that had no children’s ward as such and Neil was taken to the male ward. With its foreboding high windows and glossed walls it wasn’t very welcoming for a Seven year old who was squirming in agony.

The specialist came to see us and explained the difficulty in setting this break his instinct and training told him traction was the answer. I looked at him in disbelief, I pointed to my son and asked him if he thought a lad in that much pain could actually take any more especially the pain of being put into traction. And to spend another six weeks in this place was unthinkable, they were closing it down in favour of a brand new complex on the city limits, and it showed. I asked him for an alternative.


The alternative was to have it pinned at the BCH, but that involved another horrendous ambulance journey. Neil was heavily sedated over the next couple of days, on the Saturday morning we set off to Brum in a state of resignation, this had to be done, it wasn’t something we could avoid, we gritted our teeth and smiled encouragingly at him.

The journey was awful, there were lots of tears and lots of reassurance from Lou and I, but by the time the ambulance driver said we were there we were all very stressed.

The doors of the ambulance opened and the midday sun shone down onto us, there before us stood a smiling red haired lady in a brightly decorated blue apron. “Hi Neil, I’m Kate” she beamed in her soft Irish brogue “ let’s find you a good bed and get this sorted for you, are you ready?” Her smile and happy chatter cheered us all, Neil spoke to her about his leg, and for the first time in days he smiled.

The whole hospital is painted in bright happy colours, the ceilings have clouds and moons, the nurses all smiled and beamed happiness at every turn. We all had an awful lot going on our heads at that moment, but later when I nipped out for a cigarette and spoke to the other parents with children in other wards I realised how much these lovely ladies and gentlemen had to deal with daily. To maintain those smiles took something I know I have never had. They are Angels!

The three weeks almost dragged by as each day threw up another difficulty to overcome. The hospital found us a parents room for a respite from the pressure because we lived so far away. Again we met other parents that told us of their children and their circumstances, how they coped I don’t know, no doubt the angels in the coloured aprons helped.

Eventually after a second operation and two weeks of close care Neil was deemed mended enough to go home, we had been allowed to take him into Brum in his wheelchair to help us all get used to the forthcoming difficulties regarding his mobility and he had enjoyed the attention he received while out in a wheelchair with a obviously pinned leg, but secretly I think he actually looked forward to going back to the security of the ward and those lovely smiling faces.

The day came to drive home and on the way out of the ward the nurses got him to sign the broken bone board that had little smiley faces, a note of the broken bone the patient had been in for and lots of enthusiastic thanks to the staff for the help in their recovery. Neil counted up the broken arms and other breaks before saying “ not many broken femurs Dad” one of the nurses stepped in to save me from my faltering reply by saying “ and not many who have broken them twice, you’re very special Neil” and put a ‘ X 2 ‘ next to his fracture.

At home we had the usual overwhelming help and support from friends and neighbours and soon settle into a sort of routine again. The lane had a peculiar way of healing and de- stressing you, I don’t know whether it was the friendly neighbours, the tranquility or the security of being home, but we soon felt ourselves being lifted spiritually and finding the strength to get on with our lives and helping Neil back to fitness. Our lane always lifted our spirits so much so that each time we turned off the main road into it we usually began to sing or whistle, it was always done without thinking, but that was the subconscious affect the lane had on us.

In the meantime I had made a visit to the customer for sorely needed payment for the extension, ( who just happened to be related to big John of caravan and fence problem ) and I was told in no uncertain terms he wasn’t paying the full amount. Apparently frank had slagged off my building work during his time fitting the wardrobes. Apparently my ceiling was out 18mm over 25ft. The wardrobes were both cut by Frank to suit the lower end and the customer wasn’t happy. Frank promptly blamed me to save his embarrassment and then went on to pick fault all over the build. The customer who was very particular wasn’t pleased, I tried to defend the problem by explaining the tolerances etc, but frank had done a good job on me and the guy insisted he kept £900 for the ruined wardrobe that was fitted in perfectly and being used as we spoke. I simply apologised and took the hit, I’d had too many down days recently to allow myself another. I told him the other extension he had planned would be done in a months time, and made a mental note to charge another £1500 when he got the bill.

Frank in the meantime was owed two days pay for finishing the job, he was in for a shock.

It was about this time that our cat Merry was walking with a limp, but we couldn’t see any physical injury. At the vets we found she had pellets in her leg, somebody had been shooting at her with a pellet gun. The vet was extremely angry about this and asked if I knew anyone with a pellet gun. After the issue with Frank and the loss he had just caused me I got to thinking about him and his motives, Tom’s words about him being an horrible bloke kept coming into my mind, when I suddenly remembered his pellet gun in the corner of his kitchen and his boast of shooting cats. No surely he wouldn’t shoot our cat Merry. Would he?

I voiced my concerns to Lou that evening, she said she always suspected it was him and expressed her dislike of the man, he gave her the creeps apparently. Anyhow before Frank came to collect his pay Lou bumped into mad Addy the the cat lady in the lane. Addy ( who was far from mad and quite a nice lady ) ran the local cat rescue centre and was very much involved with the local vets, had heard of Merry being shot and asked Lou who had a gun, Lou said Frank, Addy’s eyes raised and that said it all.

The RSPCA visited Frank, I saw that and I saw them take his gun away wrapped in a plastic bag, because I was working opposite at the time. Addy told us Frank had been prosecuted, but I never saw anything in the paper about it, and I paid him for the two days work.

It wasn’t like I felt guilty about anything, it was just how I conduct myself. If I paid him I wouldn’t have anything on my conscience, he may have had, but I certainly wouldn’t. I also went to see him face to face when I did I told him what I thought of him and his behaviour. I told him he was no longer regarded as a friend and to keep away from me. It saddened me at the time and it still does now, we had after all had some happy times together, but Tom was right, he really wasn’t a very nice bloke.

 

Ward 5 children’s ward were fantastic to me and my family during our difficult time and we wanted to give something back.

We arranged a charity golf day at Bishops Cleeve golf course at Cheltenham. I cajoled all my golf playing business associates to donate prizes and charged people to play, we had a raffle and a lunch with prize giving speeches. This day raised £900, and I topped it to £1000. I simply sent a cheque and a card with thanks to the ward. The letter I had back brought tears to my eyes, it was the most gracious thank you letter I have ever read. The fact it would buy toys for the children and put a smile on a unhappy face made me contented, the letter they sent back made me shed a tear.

Birmingham children’s hospital is a special special place, and the staff are very special indeed.

Neil recovered well enough to play sports within the year. I remember while he was in hospital he asked me if he would ever play football again. I told him he would and he would score goals again. Thanks mainly to our physio Juliet and the fact she helped run a team, he played again, scored goals and within that year was regarded as player of the season. He played until he was 15 and that was a good enough result for us.

 

By the end of the century Lou and I had been down the lane for 12 years. We had achieved a lot in that time. The rotting shed we’d bought on a whim was now a reasonably sized part brick built des res. It wasn’t grand by any means, there were always things we could do to improve it and when time and money allowed we did do, yet there were a few shortcomings rearing their heads and beginning to niggle at the back of our minds. One of which was schooling for Neil and any future children we may have. The nearest infant school was three miles away, but the official school was a village school two miles back up river in Arley. The road journey wasn’t straight forward as the lane ended just half a mile past our place at the reservoir which meant we had to travel in the opposite direction to join the main road where there was a coach laid on for the rest of the route, culminating in an eleven mile journey to school for Neil. The mornings were always a bit hectic, but in the winter they took on a whole new level of attention to detail. We had to have a car that would start, no time to faff talking to passers as we charged a battery when there was a coach waiting, no time to forget the lane was blocked by ice or snow or someone had blocked the lane with careless driving, but these things happened almost weekly, and Neil was missing the bus. Lou in turn would have to drive him in and in turn be late for work. It wasn’t a big issue as everyone seemed quite understanding, but coupled with a few other thing, the gloss was certainly dulling slightly.

We persevered as you do, I built up my building company and concentrated less on the lane and more on the town houses. Lou took a part time job in the local garage to get her out of the house a bit and allow me and Neil some time together. The lane was still a very beautiful place to live and when summer came our spirits always lifted. The river still flowed gently by, the birds still woke us with the dawn chorus, the whistle of the train still pierced the stillness of the valley, the cricket match still went on and the fisherman’s tales were still exchanged in the meadows, but since the incident with Frank I’d lost some of my zest for the place.

In 2002 we learned we were to have another child. At first we made plans for the cottage and schooling etc and looked forward to a Christmas baby in the house. I divided the bedroom upstairs to make a nursery and study room, I made plans to divide the downstairs bedroom into two for the children and open up the upstairs once the baby had moved down into it. We talked about schools and work and formed plans around the new person in the family. What an excitement it created, we were going to be four people, four people living in our little cottage down the lane.

One day Bob and I were talking about these plans when Bob said something that would change our lives forever. He simply said a chap up the lane would love to buy our place and would be prepared to pay over the odds to get his hands on it. It was just a irrelevant piece of chat at the time I am sure neither of us gave it a second thought once the subject had moved on, but I met this chap in the lane a few days later and offhandedly mentioning I’d heard he liked my place. Apparently he loved it and hoped I might sell one day, I laughed and said “ only at the right price mate!” He told me to name my price, and added “ cash!”

I never said anything to Lou for a fair while, until one day her car wouldn’t start and Neil missed the school bus, she was late for work and the boss had a moan at her. When Lou got home she had a mini rant at me about not checking the battery on the car and the nuisance of living down the lane, she'd had enough, why can’t we have a normal life. It was only a rant, she was letting off steam and I knew she loved where we lived more than I did, but I took on board what she was saying about the difficulties life down the lane sometimes brought and made a note to myself to mention the offer from Bob’s mate to her at a later date when she was less agitated.

From my point of view, I could see the population of the lane changing. People were moving in from the city, they were selling up their properties in Brum and moving out to the sticks and they’d found our lane. For me it was a bonus as each one had cash on the hip and an old property to repair or replace, it was El Dorado time for me, and had been for a couple of years, yet it brought me no real satisfaction, they seemed to like suburbia and brought it with them in their minds, soon I was building pretty little walls and garden features with ponds, goldfish and gnomes. Some even kept birds and had bonsai trees. God, the irony, all they had to do was look up and take a walk by the river, it was all already here they just had to open their eyes and minds to it, but no, they preferred there own little world in their own little secluded garden, they were never going to get this village life malarkey were they. In fairness they did all buy a shiny new land rover as soon as they had paid for the property and they all bought Hunter Wellies for the winter walks and shopped at the country market in town, so they felt like they fit. I just took their money and smiled.

Surprisingly when I did mention this blokes offer to Lou she said “ yeah, why not, let’s move!” Well, you could have blown me over with a whistle, Lou loved our house down the lane, she had always been so content, what had changed?

Lou told me she thought the lane had changed, the special way she had felt about it before had changed and she would enjoy living somewhere more accessible again, somewhere there was a bus if she was stuck, a school the kids could walk to and somewhere she could pop into her parents without making plans beforehand, in short I think she wanted practicality over serenity. I couldn’t disagree, I’d been thinking the same myself for a while.

In August 2002 we sold our lovely Bala cottage to Derek and Maisy and moved into a house we owned in Kidderminster. It was on a bus route, there were schools around the corner and a shop down the road, it wasn’t the lane, but it pleased Lou, and it was paid for.

 

If you’ve stayed this long you may wonder why such an abrupt ending, I haven’t worked out the final chapter yet, it needs thinking about. My intention here is to bring this thread to a closure, it’s basically the skeleton of a book, the roughest first draft shared with a few friends on my favourite VW forum, where I know the criticism will be constructive and heartfelt. When I have the final chapter properly worked out in my mind I will share it with you all, in the meantime if you want to comment please feel free to do so, I am more than happy to hear all your thoughts, they will hopefully go towards making the book a better read.

Thanks for staying this long and all your input.

Malc

 

Buy this and enjoy.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Winds-Skilak-Survival-Alaskan-Wilderness/dp/0692414088/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_1?hvadid=80058222352995&hvbmt=be&hvdev=c&hvqmt=e&keywords=winds of skilak&qid=1558122045&s=gateway&sr=8-1-fkmrnull


I'm picking up the thread again while I'm off

 

The annoying VW breadvan's demise.

During the 90's Lou and I had been seduced by the sleek appearance of a black Vw polo estate as a second car. My friend Geoff owned the local Vw backstreet garage and did me a cracking deal on it. Geoff and I began working together airbrush spraying beetles at the side of the road as a schoolboy hobby back in the 70's.

When I went into the workplace proper I moved on to my apprenticeship at a Leyland dedicated garage and Geoff opened a Vw specialised garage some miles away in the next town. We remained friends and when the polo estate came up for sale I was quickly in.

Geoff advised me that he had only recently had it in as a part chop and hadn't really tried it out properly, but it was only three years old and for £600 to me at mates rates I couldn't resist. I soon wished I had.

The car itself was a lovely car, it drove perfectly went quick enough and stopped on a sixpence, but occasionally and usually at the most annoying time it wouldn't start.

Geoff and I were totally baffled by it we checked and changed every part of the ignition system time and time again. She would be fine for weeks and then suddenly she just wouldn't fire. Lou would get most upset as it was her daily. We thought it may be an hot start issue like our bays, but after fitting different relays it still had the same issue. in the end we succumbed to the fact we couldn't pinpoint the issue and had to live with the occasional inconvenience, which usually lead to me being late to price a job, missing a train or simply walking home from town. It was without doubt a typical Vw wasserboxer in my opinion.

However Lou seemed to be content enough to hold onto her until someone came up with the answer, it was after all a very nice bit of kit for what i'd paid for it.

The lane from town to our home was exactly 1.5 miles of hedgerow covered lane. Neil our son called it the tree tunnel in the summer and Santa's sleigh ride in the winter ( that's possibly more to do with Lou's driving in hindsight than the beautiful snow covered trees ) I jest!

The lane for all it's beauty however held a nasty surprise for the unwary driver during the winter months, Snow and water draining off the seven valley railway would lie on top of the surface in abundance, and on occasion the whole one and half miles would freeze solid like an ice rink and was virtually impassable with a standard car and an inexperienced driver. There were always those that ignored the conditions and we usually spent an evening dragging them out of ditches and out of fields with Dave's tractor or my JCB.

Lou wasn't an experienced driver, but she was savvy enough to know when the lane was in this condition and would invite other mothers from down the lane to join her in the polo on the school run so as they could help each other if they had difficulties.

Almost exactly halfway down the lane was an old disused branch line that forked off previously across the Severn and on into the forest and Tenbury wells. It was built later than the original line so the road beneath the new bridge was sunken to allow higher vehicles further access to the lane. this meant there was a slope down to it and up out of it by way of long sweeping bend from both directions. When the lane was iced over this was the real tricky section, you had to get it just right, enough revs to maintain traction and enough traction without slipping on the way up out of the bend to carry on Lou was good at this bit, and on the way to the the school bus judged it perfectly, unfortunately on the way home she misjudged it a little and careered into the bridge at about 40 mph. oddly she simply got sidetracked by her chatty passenger and hit the bend a tad too hard, the polo simply gathered speed on the ice and came to grinding crunch on the bridge wall. Not content with that she then further tried to break the bridge more by hitting her face hard on the steering wheel. Her friend was sent forward in her chair but was saved from serious injury by her seatbelt which most locals including Lou never bothered with down the lane as the seatbelt law was all quite new then. However they had that day buckled themselves in, sadly Lou hadn't thought to tighten hers

I was working on a cottage extension some five miles away and stuck axle deep in mud when I finally got the phone call on my brick-like BT mobile, and by the time I had extricated myself from the Shropshire mud and made my over the river bridge back into the sanity of Worcestershire they were all home and sorted. No one was seriously injured, Lou's friend had bashed her shin and Lou had no more than a bruised nose. Phew!

I had passed the written off breadvan on my race to get home to Lou. My friends had shunted her unceremoniously into a farmers gateway. She was definitely a write off and an insurance claim would allow a new purchase.

I'm sorry to say that once I'd established everyone was fine I let out a yippee. Geoff did the same and I've never considered another polo since!

 

Never discovered the bad start issue though

 

The flying bushman.


As I have said before some of the buildings down the lane were made from all manner of recycled things, old train carriages, brake vans, Caravans from the 30's and all manner of other materials. It has to be said they were definitely built to a good standard by craftsman and although on the face of it may not seem possible, but they were made to such a standard they blended in perfectly over the years. Most though were made from standard building materials by skilled craftsmen.. The ones that appealed to me were the bespoke ones made with imagination and art.

On occasion Tom and I would work together on a job, sometimes we would work for weeks together if the job was big enough. One of the jobs we worked on on and off one summer was the tart up of a place next to the railway line that was made up of the back end of two old 1920's buses. We had to paint the whole thing inside and out, replace all the fencing and generally tidy the beautiful little place up. We treated it like an hospital job and only cracked on with it when things were slow elsewhere.

This little place backed onto the lane and had a lovely backdrop of the SVR line literally just forty foot over the lane and twenty feet above it and there were occasions when a steam train would pass this quaintly lit little chalet nestled in it's little hollow guarded at the back and sides by a well kept six foot privot in the evening dark it took on a magical appearance. If you happened to be there when this occurred the memory would stay for ever, it really was a special little place this one. I think that is why Tom and I always shared it and treated it like an hospital job.

This year the SVR had employed a chap we got to know while working on the hospital job to clear the embankment of excess bushes and trim back overgrown trees.

He had wandered down to us and introduced himself when we were ripping out some of the old fencing on the property. Although he was being employed by the SVR to do a job on their embankment he seemed intent on getting in as many foreigners as he could. His name was Rubin and as a tree feller or fence layer it was more than apparent he hadn't got a clue. However he had brass neck a chainsaw and a ladder, other people employed him readily, and to be frank we quite liked him and he often came over for a cuppa and a ciggy break with us, so we would recommend him for easy jobs. He also had a Morris minor pick up as his work vehicle.

One morning as Tom and set up to start work painting the windows of the coach house ( as we called it ) Rubin wandered across the field carrying a long set of ladders to the bungalow opposite by the river that was surrounded by huge 60 ft tall conifers. we watched as he pushed his ladder up to the highest point he could get to on one of them, he was still 30 feet short of the top. Anyhow we made the motion to him of a cuppa later and turned to our own task for a minute or two.

While Tom and I set up Rubin we presumed was doing the same and lashing his ladder and himself to the tree he was about to trim. Actually he wasn't doing anything of the kind. We heard the chainsaw start up and turned to see Rubin at the top of the ladder about to cut through the conifer at about 20 or 30 feet short of the top but forty feet up a ladder that definitely wasn't lashed to the tree or he to the ladder. Tom and I dropped everything and ran across the field shouting for Rubin to stop, but it was too late he's cut more than halfway through the trunk and we watched in slow motion as the tree top snapped at that point bent forward and took the remaining bottom half of the tree and ladder with Rubin on it down towards the ground, then without warning the top half snapped cleanly off and the tree sprang back with such force it catapulted Rubin from the ladder back over our heads and into the field behind us. The thud was sickening. Rubin hit the ground at such a force it broke his back and smashed the back of his skull in, but he was alive.

The ambulance took twenty minutes to get to us, we comforted him the best we could, but really we had no idea how to handle this at all. there was no one at hand who could help that had any practical experience of this type of injury. When the ambulance guys saw the state he was in the injected him with morphine and told us they’d do their best but he'd probably die before they got him back down the lane.

Fortunately Rubin didn't die en route, he actually made a full recovery within a year. I don't think he went back on the chainsaw again, although it did taint the view from our little pleasant job afterwards. I suppose the guy should have been assessed properly before being allowed to take that sort of work on

 

A few pictures from a trip down the lane last year

wild garlic

old shack needing work



Our old place from the lane in need of work now




Field view river to the right would flood this whole field up to 6ft deep


The JCB still going strong



More wild garlic

 

Tommy the Aga’s place




How I liked them


Barbara and Trev’s place

The cattle drink looking upstream

 

The brothel owner.

Terry ( not his real name ) came to see me in the meadow one day. He was a very thin disheveled man who was about 55 years old. He pulled up in his beaten up Toyota pick up with a reefer on the go and beamed at me through his huge spectacles " are you Malc?" he asked. I told him I was indeed me and asked what he needed. It transpired he wanted me to come up and price up the ground works for his new cabin that he wanted built on the site of an old one he had just purchased over the railway line and nicely hidden on the side of a small valley overlooking a stream and a wood. I agreed go have a look at some time in the future, I knew the one he had bought and had put the water on for the previous owner. Terry thanked me and staggered off back to his pick up like a Gerry Anderson puppet looking for all the world like a tramp full of cheap wine who owned a pick up. I liked him right away.

A day or so later I had a drive up over the railway and went to see Terry. Terry and his drop dead gorgeous 20 something year old girlfriend were sat outside of their dilapidated old cabin at a small round cast iron table and chair drinking a classic Bourdeaux and eating strawberries and cream. I offered an handshake and asked where the champagne was, Terry simply said " we drink enough of that in our job a nice red makes a change" and smiled back at me and shook my hand warmly. His girlfriend and business associate was introduced ( I'll call her Amanda, but again that wasn't her name ) and we chatted while Terry went inside for the plans. She was very welcoming and friendly and made me feel at ease right away. I liked Terry and his girlfriend from the off.

When Terry returned with the drawings he came armed with two great big spliffs ready to go and offered me one with a smile saying it was the best skunk he could get, I declined and said I preferred a glass of wine. He looked at me as if I was a bit odd, but filled a glass and unrolled the drawings.

The drawings showed the reason he wanted me in on the job, the base of the building was to be cut back into the sandstone slope next to the existing building and were some ten foot deep by forty feet long and twenty four feet into the rock. In essence it was cellar basement cut into the rock with intricate footings and tanking to keep out the mositure. He also wanted a huge Twelve foot by ten foot hole dug for a vertical septic tank up by the fence, and this is why he wanted me in, I had the JCB and was local, he had his own team of cabin builders, but I had to get the project going by digging through the bedrock with my machine. I thought about it for a while and decided I didn't want the job and told him it was two to three weeks work and fuel with the possibility of tooth and bucket damage to the machine so it would be upwards of five thousand to take it on which was the bottom price and any machine damage was at his expense. He then asked how soon I could start. Devil it, I could have put another thousand on and he would have taken it, still £5k for just over a fortnight's work how could I refuse it. I said I'd start on Monday.

The job went very well indeed Terry was an absolute gent to work for, as soon as the job was done he paid me in cash and gave me a very expensive vintage claret as a thank you.

While I had been quietly working away on the digging out I seldom saw much of them after about three in the afternoon. They seemed to have a routine and disappeared off out in Amanda's BMW and no more would be seen of them that day. Each morning they would return about 10 am or emerge from the old chalet looking disheveled and hung over, before having a late breakfast at the wrought iron table and coming to life. They did seem a very happy couple despite the obvious age gap. They made me smile.

After I'd left the job a good few weeks went by and Terry came down to see me, he asked if I wouldn't mind dropping the new fibreglass bottle septic tank in the hole I had dug using my machine. Of course this was no problem at all and a day was set. I went up and met his guys that day for the first time and saw the lovely no expense spared job they had made of his new place. The cellar I had cut out was a wine cellar par excellence. The whole forty foot of back wall was shelved with wine racks filled to the top with the very finest wines, champagnes and cognacs. the front had authentic looking arched woodwork that made the place look like wine vaults and there were tasting tables and cheese wheels on the side shelves.. It was without doubt fantastic. There was over half a million pounds of wines and cognacs in the cellar. This little disheveled man was indeed a wealthy chap and he liked his wines. The building above was a very simple looking well built tongue and grooved log cabin it was very unpretentious and simple, but it hid a very nice little secret. I liked his style.

I dropped the septic tank into the hole using the back acter and a chain. Terry's guys guided it in and asked me how they finished the job as they hadn't installed a septic tank before. I told them how the piping run ran, how to back fill with gravel around the sides, top with a concrete collar around the neck and an how to fit the inspection lid. They thanked me and I left. A few days later I was back getting them out of the mire.

Somehow the foreman had the idea that the whole surround of the septic tank had to be back filled with concrete and had ordered a pour ignoring the advice of his lads who had spoken to me. The concrete pour proved too much and the sloping face of the surrounding soil had collapsed. To make matters worse he had decided to fill the septic tank with water to stabilise it during the pour. When the wall had collapsed the tank fell over and ended up at the bottom of the little wooded valley looking very forlorn and unloved. Terry was a bit miffed.

Somehow between the lads and myself and a landrover winch we got the tank back up the hillside and into position again. The lads then had to build a retainer wall where the front of the rock face was to hold back the tank and finish the job as it should have been in the first place, anyhow Terry was really grateful for my help and asked me in to pay me me. He handed over a roll of notes that came to £600 for a days work and said he couldn't thank me enough and then offered me and Lou a free night at his club with everything i wanted thrown in. I asked him where his club was. He said he owned three, two in Brum city centre and one in Handsworth. I asked him what type of club and if there was a dress code and he began to laugh. It was obvious I was the only one within a hundred yards of us that didn't know he owned three brothels. When he said I had to pretend not to be shocked and make my excuses. He went on asking me what my preferences were, what Lou liked and if we had been to one before, would I like Amanda in with us as we got on so well. I knew what Lou's face would be like if I came back telling her we were booked into a brothel for the night all expenses paid no holds barred and by the way Amanda from up the hill would be joining us...
D . I .V . O . R . C . E...

My god how could I escape this and remain on good terms.

In the end I simply told him I wasn't into that sort of lifestyle, I explained I was a simple country lad with simple needs and smiled. He looked at me like I was turning down the offer of lifetime and shook his head. I took the opportunity to shake his hand and take my leave of him clutching my wad of notes tightly in the the other hand.

Terry and I remained friendly and on occasion I would give him a lift up the lane. He'd always light up a smoke of skunk that blew my head off before he got out at his place, and he always asked me to do his groundwork or try a glass of his latest purchase, but I never took up the offer of visiting one of his clubs as curious as I was. I did see Amanda in town a few years ago. Poor girl hasn't aged well.



Terry and Amanda wasn't their real names and they have both been inside for running brothels so I won't divulge their real names. I always liked them as customers, but they were just one couple out of a lots of diverse people down the lane. They may well have broken the law, but they were very generous and would rather do people a favour than a bad deed. The world probably needs more people like Terry and Amanda IMO.

 

The elusive water leak.

In the winter of 1990 the water pressure in our cabins went very low and was hardly forceful enough to power a shower. Tom and I searched the fields and empty cabins for weeks to find a leak which it was obvious there was. But it was to no avail we just couldn't pinpoint it.

The weeks went by and no matter what the pressure wouldn't improve Dave even turned the main stopcock up at the top field to improve it. but it simply wasted more water. Somewhere someone hadn't turned off their water supply in an holiday cabin and there was a burst somewhere.

My friend that owned the cabin opposite me was called Bill, a really genial oldish guy from the black country. Bill never overwintered at his place, but always left me a key to his gate and his cabin so as I could fish in his garden and keep an eye on his riverside cabin. Bill was a good guy who I often went into town with on an evening to have a drink in the Angel. Bill and I would stagger home through the park along the river and up the lane, sometimes it took longer to get home than the time we had spent in the pub. It was a laugh and we sang old songs at the top of our voices. People said we were a blooming nuisance on Friday nights sometimes, but I liked a night out with Bill, he was a director of one of the black country football teams and made me laugh.

The thing about Bill though was, he was very laid back and could be forgetful.

During the period of the leak we searched high and low for it, and every night when I walked the dogs I took a torch and had my ears cocked for the sound of running water. One evening as I passed Bill's cabin I heard the sound of dripping water. I turned on my torch and made way quickly to the back of Bill's cabin. Luckily I had the torch on as I turned the corner to his back garden, because it wasn't there, just a twelve foot drop down into the river. His whole back garden directly behind his cabin had disappeared. There was water dripping out of the bottom of his cabin that was built on small brick piers and it was dripping all along the bottom edge of the walls. The whole garden immediately behind it including a forty foot oak tree had simply gone. I went to his stopcock and turned the water off. It was after the horse had bolted, but at least the pressure for everyone else suddenly returned. Bill had forgotten to turn his water off for the winter.

I went home and phoned him to tell him the news. I dreaded the reaction, but all he said was oh well. I phoned David the farmer and Tom to tell them what had happened and that the leak was found, They were shocked and upset for Bill, but he wasn't in the least bit upset by the news.

The dawn brought the full extent of the damage home. Tom and I met at Bill's which was directly opposite my place across the field. What had happened was, the leak all along the edge of Bill's cabin had been dripping for weeks in a dead straight line the whole length of Bill's cabin and had eroded a line in the garden behind his cabin which was roughly twenty feet from the riverbank, the river had then risen slightly and further eroded into the bank that was now weakened in a forty foot line from above. When the river went down to it's regular level the garden simply slid whole down the bank into the river. The oak tree had formed an island at the bottom that could be clearly made out in the daylight. Bill turned up as we inspected the damage and simply shrugged his shoulders saying he had a haulage mate who would tip stone down and shore up the bank, he seemed to like his new island and said he would use sand bags to keep it in place. I estimated that about 400 ton of embankment had gone, Bill just shrugged and said it happens. Dave said he may get a big water bill.

Over the next few weeks Bill had about 20 lorry loads of stone dropped down the bank to shore it up, he also filled hundreds of sandbags with sand and cement to form a simple wall around his newly formed island. It worked a treat and we had a great fishing peg and swimming platform from then on. Bill also dug out some rudimentary steps down to the island through the rocks he'd had tipped. he dug them into the clay bank and pegged them back with short planks to form the risers. While he was doing that he uncovered a coal seam in the bank which he followed along the bank before digging some out to try on his fire. It burned well and Bill had own supply of coal for years after. When the river level was low in the summer he would dig into the bank further into the coal seam and under his garden again. I waited years for that part to collapse next, but it never did, I think he went about 20ft back into embankment by the time he died.

His daughter Kim and husband Andy moved into the cabin a year or so later and became our good friends. Eventually I rebuilt the place with a huge new log cabin and we had fantastic riverside parties there over the years. Bill never gave up his free coal supply though and continued his part time mining for years after. I don't think he needed to do it as he was obviously very well off, but with people like Bill something like that for free was irresistible.

I often smile thinking about Bill and I staggering up the lane after a night in town, but one night we took his new son in law Andy with us and discovered Andy could drink me and Bill and most anyone under the table without getting drunk himself. I stopped going into town with them after that, for health reasons!