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First Ride Cablecar at Beauval

THE ANGLE GRINDER STORY

“THE ANGLE GRINDER”

from It's a Rum Life Book Five

Conversation last night after arriving at the venue for a Concert where neighbour Mike’s wife was singing in a Gospel Group.

She had the car so Mike travelled with us.

Ruth to Mike: “Have you seen Keith’s latest ear decoration?”

Mike: “No I had not noticed anything different, but could not see clearly in the dark while he was driving.

Mike looks at Keith’s ear well plastered in sticky dressings and dried blood.

Mike: “What has he done?”

Ruth: Well, the story I heard was that he was supposed to be on the shed roof cutting away the old sheeting damaged in the recent hurricane.

But the next thing I knew, he was at the door seeking assistance with blood pouring down his shoulder.

I think he was trying to pierce his ear again!”

Mike: How did he do it?”

Ruth: “With an angle grinder!”

 Mike stands back in flabbergasted mode: “What on earth was an angle grinder doing near his ear?”

Ruth: “Evidently he was coming down the ladder to find another tool and he says just as he reached the bottom, the electric cable began snaking down after him, quickly followed by the angle grinder, which bounced off his head, banged into his right shoulder and sliced the ear lobe like a sandwich.

I believe he had switched it off first.”

Mike: “If that was the second go, what did he use the first time?”

Ruth: Of that was a crow bar. Several years ago, he was dismantling some wooden racking and the crowbar evidently bounced off the wood and one of the prongs clouted his ear.

He did a better job the first time; at least he made a proper hole even if it was a bit large!”

Ends

 

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A WEDDING AT WYBERTON

It's a Rum Life Book Four Volume One

“Northcote Diary 1984 to 1994”

WEDDING AT WYBERTON

(about 1986)

This episode from the late 1980’s, will always stick in my memory for the sheer anxiety it caused and huge demands it made on my creatability and repair ability!

Wyberton is a small rural suburb of Boston, Lincolnshire. It has its own mediaeval church and there is still the site of its once important castle overlooking the river and estuary to at one time, the third most important port in the Country.

We had been engaged to deliver a bride and her father to Wyberton Church for her wedding and after the ceremony transport the bride and her new husband to their reception at the village hall some two miles away.

The route had been surveyed thoroughly and we had selected to park our lorry for unloading close to the village hall.

“Hebe”, our “Dales” mare and full name “Ashwood Claire Louisa”, was to power the carriage as the bride had selected our ultra elegant “Bow fronted Brougham”.

CARRIAGES

I should explain that at this time we were using two carriages for weddings.

Jupiter, our extrovert part bred dales, (skewbald coloured) brown and white, always worked with our beautiful “Victoria” carriage.

This had wide, swept back mudguards, elegant varnish bodywork and beautiful springing; it followed the typical design for ladies’ made popular by Queen Victoria herself. This carriage was basically open with a hood for inclement weather.

The second carriage was a “Bow fronted Brougham”. Following on a pattern of elegant town carriage designed by Lord Brougham, this had room for two people and was somewhat smaller with beautifully paint work in dark red and black. Forward facing doors on both sides allowed entry to a green leather fitted interior illuminated by most elegant curved glass windows at the front. Normal pattern carriage drop door windows gave a good view of whoever was riding in splendour.

“Hebe “worked with the Brougham as she was smaller in stature than Jupiter and being a black horse herself, suited the “equipage”.

The journey to Wyberton church was uneventful and the bride had been safely delivered when disaster struck.

DISASTER

We were all relaxing, myself, daughter Helen (the groom) and Hebe; after the first part when butterflies always fill me with trepidation. My thoughts before all these events are on the off chance that something untoward should prevent us actually getting to the venue on time!

This time, the unforeseen struck us quite suddenly as we were resting under trees immediately outside the open church gates.

A noisy, bright yellow fork lift truck burst out of a yard immediately to our front and began to roar down the road towards us.

The road was not wide by any imagination and we had nowhere to go and avoid this “monster” which had immediately caught “Hebe’s” attention and set all our hearts to our mouths.

To our right side, behind and ahead of us we were contained by the churchyard wall which continued in solid stone splendour about four feet high as far as we could see.

On our left were a row of smart houses with large front gardens and boundaried at their front by a long, large and deep dyke.

The fork lift rattled and banged and roared its way forward totally oblivious to the terror it was creating in the mind of the horse never mind the human attendants.

Despite all our efforts to attract his attention, the driver seemed in a world of his own.

Then, in the blink of an eye, it was all over.

“Hebe” made her decision which was to avoid the truck the only way possible.

Like an arrow from a bow, she ripped the reins from my hands and dived sideways through the church gateway. There had been no time to take any preventive measures, it had made no matter to her that the carriage was still attached.

Her only concern was for the yellow monster that had filled her vision and mind with unaccountable terror.

The nightmare then began. The damage was stupefying.

“Hebe” was now stood just inside the gateway with carriage attached as normal.

The church gateway had not been sufficiently wide to allow the carriage through

when we had first arrived! Things had now changed.

CHANGES

The right hand gatepost of solid stone and some four feet square and five feet high, was now lying flat inside the churchyard and its gate still attached, beside it.

It had been pushed over, quite intact by the pressure of the carriage body as it twisted thorough an acute 90 degree angle, propelled by the horse.

The off side, previously beautiful, wooden carriage body was to say the least badly damaged. The door would not open.

But there was even worse to see. All four rubber tyres from each of the wheels were lying on the ground at drunken angles.

By now the horse was calm and happy to be facing away from the road.

Our major problem as I could see was in getting the bride back to her reception two miles away in a damaged carriage with only one working door and no tyres!

I left Helen to speak sweet nothings to Hebe I began my search for something to help me remount the tyres.

Now a little explanation.

Wooden horse drawn carriage wheels have either the older iron rims around the wooden wheel. These are incredibly noisy and vibrate in a foul way as they were designed to cope with unmetalled roads.

More modern sprung carriages had a slotted clincher rim system attached to the outside of the wheel. The specially designed rubber tyre is designed and extruded with a thinner line of rubber of either side of the tyre itself. The whole fits snugly in the grooved rim. But it has to be slid into the groove from one end with plenty of lubricant and gradually slide, in that groove, completely round the wheel.

BACK IN WYBERTON

We had neither lubricant, a jack for the wheels or time on our side. I estimated that now we had about 20 minutes before the bride emerged from the Church for the group photographs and then, a maximum of one hour.

Just down the road I did find a lady cutting her lawn and decided that she was our best hope.

In fact once the situation was explained, she was a marvel. Somehow she had her son’s tool box at hand and I selected a number of screwdrivers and various hammers to aid my endeavours.

We moved Hebe and the carriage back on to the road and faced her in the direction we should take for our return. This put the undamaged side on view and problem one was solved.

The tyres were a complete nightmare on their own.

At no time were they ever designed to be fitted the way I was trying. But bit by bit, by levering and hammering; tugging and pushing, they were almost back.

Almost, but not quite!

The rubber just would not push back exactly is it had been.

To anyone who knew about these things, the wheels looked dreadful, but I thought they would get us the two miles we needed to go.

I returned the tools to the lady with my profound gratitude and returned to the carriage with five minutes to spare.

Some serious explanation had to be made to the vicar about his gatepost and all in all the wedding party were disappointed to have “missed the fun!”

We managed the return journey without problems.

The gatepost cost in the region of £500 and the repairs to the carriage cost over £2500. The complicated wrought iron steering turntable beneath the front of the carriage had been bent out of line too!

Such is life as they say!

           Hebe with the actual carriage, (at a different venue). The telephone No is very old!

STOPPED BY AN OFFICER FROM “VOSA”

  

I'ts a Rum Life Book Four Volume Two

Northcote Diary 1994 to 2008

STOPPED BY AN OFFICER FROM “VOSA” (2004)

I suppose, if asked to explain to an ordinary citizen, (that is someone who is not involved in running or “operating” heavy commercial vehicles), who “VOSA” are, I should say they are the “Gestapo” of the lorry industry!

VOSA, or Vehicle and Operator Services Agency are a government body that “police” everything to do with heavy commercials. They are responsible for the testing stations and spot checks at the roadsides. Everything regarding legislation for commercial vehicles comes under their control. They are very much like the VAT officers in that they have special powers to demand this and that.

Under normal circumstance, the people one avoids like the plague!

THE ACTUAL DAY

Well on this day I am going to tell you about, one of these people was following me after I had collected a load of hay from our supplier Mr Morris Gee at Croft.

The roads in that area around Skegness are bad. Fen roads, built on marshland; they are narrow and have steep cambers with deep dykes on both sides. I had been diverted from my normal route by road-works and on approaching Burgh le Marsh to eventually join the main road and turn for home, I stopped to check my load.

There were 14 round bales of hay on the flat bed of the lorry and another 12 on the twin axle low loader trailer. The whole “ensemble” had been thrown this way and that crossing these dreadful “fen” roads and it was wise to ensure all the securing straps were still holding everything properly before joining the busy “A” road. A car pulled up behind me and I thought the driver was under the impression that I had stopped for some obstruction or other, despite the fact that I had indicated that I was stopping. The driver introduced himself as a VOSA officer and said he had been following me for some little while and become interested in my vehicle and load. Thus began the “interrogation”!

Where had I come from? Who’s vehicle was it? Where was I going? How much did the load weigh? The last question was difficult to answer as hay is a variable. Every bale is different but in “round” figures they can weigh about five hundredweights each. This gave me about three and a half tons on the lorry which was well within its limit and another three tons on the trailer which was registered at three and a half tons “gross”; that is trailer and load!

“JUST COME THIS WAY SIR”!

The officer certainly knew his “onions” and quite soon told me he wanted my lorry to follow him to the nearest commercial weighbridge.

Fortunately this was not too far away, some three miles in the direction of Skegness, in the opposite direction to one I wanted to go. Here he found that as the trailer was “close coupled” he could not get a reading of the exact weight of the trailer and its load. The trailer axles are quite close together, so part of the load is carried by the lorry, via the tow bar of the trailer and it is not a sensible idea to detach the trailer while loaded. The total weight of trailer and its load on the weighbridge was just inside the three and half tons. To prosecute me, he had to show that I had overloaded the trailer on one of its axles, but because of the way the trailer was constructed, he could not prove it!

He was not going to give in though as the vehicle I was driving had no road fund licence displayed in the lorry window. I had explained that it had been “off the road” for several months as it was only basically used for collecting the hay and straw we used. I was genuinely certain that a tax disc was on my desk in the office and I had just forgotten to display it! He declared that he would follow me to the Horse Centre and check my vehicle records. (Here, I should explain that a “responsible” vehicle operator keeps good records of regular safety checks on vehicles and servicing.)

Back on my desk, the tax disc was for the second lorry, the horse box. I had forgotten to tax the hay and straw lorry! Black mark there, but he said that provided I did tax it that day he would not prosecute! He asked endless questions about the operation of the Horse Centre and after about an hour declared that we should have an “operator’s licence”. I did know all about these things from my days at ECYB Transport and was also confident that as we did not sell anything the Lorries carried, than we were not required to have this kind of licence which was expensive and demanded far stricter controls. It also meant that someone in the operation of the centre needed to have a Transport Manager’s Licence. Fortunately, I do have one of these, and argued my case vociferously!

ADAMANT

The Officer was however adamant and insisted we applied for the statutory “operator’s licence”. This involved newspaper advertisements declaring our “intentions” so that neighbours and “uncle tom cobbley and all” could protest to the proposal of the Horse Centre becoming an “Operating Centre” for commercial vehicles, if they felt inclined. (To digress a little here, it had only been a couple of years or so before, when we had been collecting second hand pallets, donated to us, to raise funds; we could have genuinely been caught out for not having one of these licences, as at that time we were actually selling the pallets.)

We also had to prove to the Traffic Commissioners that we had sufficient finance available to operate the vehicles properly. We were lucky with this requirement, as we had been left a legacy and there was still some money in the bank. This is not normally the case!

If we could not conform to everything required of us, or indeed if there had been any objections locally, then the Lorries would have to go; that would have been a disaster!

The licence was eventually granted and we had to pay a further “hundreds” of pounds for the actual licence itself. But, now, the sanctuary for horses was officially an operating centre for two commercial vehicles and could theoretically apply for more. The status of the premises had been changed forever and in the future, this could be to our advantage!

I did also get the road fund licence that day, and I never did see that officer ever again.

Five years later when the licence came up for renewal, the Centre had become an official registered Charity so we did not renew the licence as the status of the whole operation had changed.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

THE WINDMILL EXPRESS

It's a Rum Life Book Five

Northcote Diary 1994 to 2008

THE WINDMILL EXPRESS

(short version)

The Windmill Express with William and May providing the power.

The actual “Windmill Express” as it arrived after being built new by Andy from Croxdale, County Durham (picture front and to the left) and his friend Steve from Hetton. Andy and Steve donated the dray to the centre after building it from all new materials and land Rover running gear and hydraulics. Also helping is John, see story (front right) from Grimsby.

You will more than likely have just read the Straw Bale Story and this is the sequel......

IT HAPPENED IN ALFORD

Now we jump several years to about 2002. Alford, a small market town just north of Spilsby had asked us to implement a horse drawn ‘free taxi’ type service in their town to coincide with their regular craft markets during the summer months. Being still constantly short of funds and always looking for different avenues to earn some money, we agreed.

The first obstacle was a ‘taxi’ licence. (Still resolved to stay within the law). Our local District Council began by throwing all sorts of obstacles in our way and it was only due to Alford Town Council giving their whole support that we succeed. Alford town even paid the substantial charge demanded by East Lindsey District Council for the licence fee. The 20 seat heavy horse dray even had a ‘taxi plate’!

The first day of our new venture dawned and one of our helpers, John, who had a four wheel drive vehicle had agreed to tow our horse trailer complete with ‘Cracker’ to the site. I was to go a different way by a longer, quieter route with the actual dray, towed behind my Subaru pickup truck.

I had fixed an ‘A’ frame to connect the dray to the tow bar and arranged proper lights. The only thing missing was brakes on the dray which were normally operated from its driving seat and worked on its back wheels. There was no way I could incorporate these into the towing arrangement.

By taking the journey carefully, I could not see any real problem despite the dray being quite large, but no one would travel with me!

PLANS SCUPPERED

Everything went to plan until entering Alford and I stopped on a junction just opposite the church in the town centre. It was a bank holiday and the traffic nose to tail on this main route to the coastal resorts.

I waited my turn and manoeuvred slowly into the traffic flow but unbeknown to me the ‘A’ frame had become dislodged from one end of the turntable at the front of the dray behind me. A small cotter pin had twisted on its shaft and managed to spring out of place. The shaft had moved sideways and only one end remained located on the dray drawbar. As I moved forwards and to the left the dray followed to begin with, I could sense nothing untoward, but as I then turned to the right on the next bend, the dray continued straight on and even though it was only travelling very very slowly, it managed to mount and travel across the pavement and lodge itself in the front window of the local art gallery, pushing the adjacent brickwork back by several inches!

By this time the ‘A’ frame was shaped like a ‘U’ and the whole scene was covered in shattered ‘georgian’ bow window frame and what seemed like all the glass from every window in the area.

The bank holiday traffic began piling up behind me and the first thing I managed was to trip over the remains of the ‘A’ frame and fill my palms with broken glass. Eventually I pulled the dray out of the shop window and resecured it to the pickup truck. Borrowed a brush from a kind shop owner three doors away, left a brief note of explanation on the broken shop window and prepared to move off. I only had about three hundred yards to travel to the site where we were to begin our day.

During all these comings and goings and dodging of impatient traffic winding their way past me, I had noticed a gormless looking chap in the doorway of a rundown looking premises opposite; he stared at the situation and rather than offer any assistance took out his mobile phone and began to dial. I think I knew who he was dialling too!

John was already on site and wondering where I had got to. After enlightening him as to the hazards in the streets of Alford I despatched him to the local windmill to try and locate a mobile welding technician. (ever hopeful at 8.30am on a Bank Holiday Saturday)

The drawbar of the dray was sufficiently damaged so that it could not function for the initial turnout of the ‘Windmill Express’ ride service, a name created for special publicity for these events.

I began to dismantle my cobbled up and broken ‘A’ frame watched over by Cracker the horse when a large white saloon car arrived with red strip down the side and ‘Police’ in bold letters all over.

The constable was not unduly perturbed and invited me to sit in his passenger seat while he ascertained the facts of the morning’s incident. After a few moments he wished he hadn’t as I began to drip copious amounts of blood all over his carpets.

IT’S A SMALL WORLD

He raised his eyebrows at the mention of ‘Windmill Express’ and I had to explain that it was only a name and what it was all about! I explained what had happened and where I had come from. At the mention of Heavy Horse Centre his ears pricked up and his eyes concentrated firmly on my face.

“Haven’t we met before,” he asked. “I seem to remember something about a land rover and trailer of straw,” he continued.

I quickly explained that from that day I had been particular to stay within the law and everything today was legal and roadworthy.

He had a look at everything including the horse and could see where the cotter pin had broken on the drawbar of the dray resulting in the accident. He knew I had left a note for the shop and told him I would be around to see them when they opened their premises. He asked me to produce the relevant vehicle papers for the truck at our local Police station and that was the last I heard of the incident.

Oh, it cost our insurance company over £2000 to repair the shop window and damaged brickwork and I must admit it never looked so good afterwards.

John did actually manage to find the local mobile welder and with the draw-bar fixed the ‘Windmill Express’ did turn out to work in the town for the day.

ends