BY WAY OF EXPERIMENT

[FUJI]

Many Many moons ago just after I was demobbed from National Service, I returned to my Carpentery and Joinery training, one of the first jobs given to me (because I was young, fit and daft) was the complete replacement or repair of most of the Pre-War Split-Oak and Pale fencing along the front and side of almost every Council House in the town....that was around eight long streets or avenues..................it took about two years to complete......I did have a succession of labourers to help with the digging and the mauling of heavy oak posts.

The fencing is typical of Old Warwickshire, consisting of naturaly split Oak Pales and Rails all fixed with special large headed cut nails that were bent over if they came through ...this is an old fixing technique hardly known about now.

I had use of a very old contraption, known as a ....Dancing Sal......to drill all the holes for the hand cut mortices......a sit-upon tower drill with a pair of crank handles that operated like bike pedals.......I cut and drilled all joints ....On-Site, working in all weathers..........Most houswives were incredibly kind to us, we never lacked tea, biscuits or a warm or ....if no one was at home we would burn shavings and off-cuts in a brazier and sit outside to eat our sandwiches.......all for around £14 for a sixty five and a half-hour week.....07:30 to 7:00pm and 07:30 to 12-midday on Saturdays.......during winter months, I had to cycle from the fencing job, back to our joinery shop to pick up on joinery work on the bench....If I was first back, I had to warm the freezing cold place by lighting the old Pot- Bellied Tortoise Stove, it would be glowing red hot within half an hour.

Long hours of overtime was the norm back then, we were on full production house building post war.

Walking around town the other day I was pleased to spot that a little of my handiwork stilll exists from 1959...this is one of the hundreds of Mortice and angled Tenons that I cut all that time ago.

Tempus Fugit:

FUJI

[Guest DaveW]

Shows how old we are Fuji!

I was mainly an urban joiner and we did not get that type of post and rail rustic fencing here except out in the country around farmers fields, never did a lot of council work either since they mostly used their own staff. Cut nails had virtually disappeared here when I started in 1956. The hit and miss paling type of fencing was usual around council houses here:-

http://www.frontline...co.uk/page5.htm

There were a lot of wooden widows, doors and gates to make and repair when I started, so I spent a lot of my time making wooden replacement casements, patching rotten window frames, plus also making porch frames, often circular headed, to fill in the open porches they used to leave around the front doors. Alas all that started to disappear around the late 1970's here when non rotting UPVC with its lack of need to keep being painted came in, so most of what I had done was ripped out and bonfired and replaced by plastic. Therefore in later years I had to turn to jobbing building repairs because most exterior woodwork had disappeared in this area. Interesting how different the type of woodwork was in other parts of the country, or how long it lingered on in different areas before different materials replaced it..

I remember one of our timber suppliers being taken over by a northern firm in the 1970's and their new HQ sending them a load of wooden guttering sections, much to the shock of the local depot who queried what it was? When told guttering they informed their new HQ that wooden guttering was not used here, only cast iron and even that being rapidly replaced by plastic! The firms headquarters up north told them they still sold a lot for replacement of existing wooden gutters in their area. Evidently progress had not reached that far north at that time!

http://roofingdoctor.net/wood1.htm

Unlike you I missed the call up, being born in April 1941, since they did not call up those born in the last quarter of 1939 I think it was. What annoyed some of the last ones to be called up was you could postpone your call up if you were doing an apprenticeship until it finished. However when those who should have done the call up at 18 finished their apprenticeship after call up had already ended they did not bother to call them up!

Interesting picture Fuji shows how often the things we do outlast us. We must have destroyed quite a few trees between us!

DaveW

[annie]

real interesting story there to go with your picture fuji. it must be a nice feeling to see these are still there after all those years,

[Denis]

A great story Fuji, Seeing your handiwork still in existance, must strike a chord.

The image is a cracking one too.

[Kobione]

Just love this, Fuji. We also have those sort of fences around.

[FUJI]

Thank you folks.......feedback always appreciated.

FUJI

[Black Pearl]

Fascinating story made all the better by your work to be still standing and doing its job - nice mono shot too.

[fuzzyedges]

Most houswives were incredibly kind to us, we never lacked tea, biscuits or a warm

Nice story fuji

Dont get perks like that these days, you know what I mean nudge nudge wink wink ooer missus

[FUJI]

Nice story fuji

Dont get perks like that these days, you know what I mean nudge nudge wink wink ooer missus

LOL!..............

Very naughty Fuzzy........Tea and biscuits back then, meant exactly that.........oh! And stinking of creosote whilst wearing very flattering Bib-n-Brace overalls, plus a pair of very muddy hobnail boots plus an ex-army greatcoat .....wasn't exactly fetching in any way shape or form..........Everyone thinks that this is a time of Great Austerity..........Nah!........Been there, done that, read the book, watched the film and got the Tee shirt back in the late 1940s and 50s .........It was bleak, very, very, bleak.......ask anyone who had just come through WWII.

Oh! Yes.....back to subject........During my 25 plus years in the building trade did I chance upon just one naughty lady.......she surreptusly placed a packet of three in my toolbag when I wasn't looking.........they took some explaing on discovery.....they went into the workshop stove to help keep us frozen chippie's warm.

FUJI