It’s a bit of a shock to see your knee cap through a hole in your leg ; though the view was soon obstructed by copious blood . I was always a hyper active child ; climbing to top of the tree to retrieve those apples way out of reach of adults , jumping down virtually the full height of the staircase, and dashing everywhere…. Mmm ..where did all that energy go to ? So while dashing, I slipped on a garden path and gashed my knee on an edging stone .
Fortunately there was a cottage hospital at the end of the road . This was doubly so as I returned six weeks later having gashed again that knee. Clearly at aged 7 I hadn’t learnt to slow down . I do remember distinctly the second visit . The ‘operating theatre ‘ was a black bench now covered with a rubber sheet to protect it from my blood ; and the second set of six stitches in that knee hurt despite whatever pain relief had been administered . I could watch them sowing me up …Yuck . To this day I won’t watch televised sewing ..of people.
The fateful garden was in my grandfather’s house in Weymouth . A idyllic sea side town in which to grow up , if you ignore the occasional pain . At the time the house seemed enormous , well to a small boy , it would . On the wall in the hall was a full sized oar , a memento from my uncle’s rowing days in pre-war Cambridge . After graduation and war he became a civil engineer in Rhodesia ( as it was then ) . He succumbed to a hole in his head ,created by falling scaffolding . Despite that I too became a Civil Engineer . It seems I have difficulty learning lessons!
My grandfather was a tax collector , initially in the East End of London . Whitehall mandarins decided he needed a fundamental change and posted him to Tregaron , one of the remotest towns in very welsh Wales . To function he first had to learn welsh . However he ingratiated himself into the community by marrying the publican’s daughter. Presumably “ London “ had decided he had gone native ; he was transferred from green Wales to Bilston , in the centre of what was then “the Black Country” ; the heart of industrial England . Tregaron was his true love , as he followed his wife to be buried ( in a Hole ) in the family plot. He was followed by my parent’s ashes , interred to the refrain “ we will keep a Welcome “…a real tear jerker , especially when sung by a male voice choir.
On a lighter note , Tregaron in the location a much bigger hole ; or so the story goes. In 1843 a travelling circus was visiting one of the many pubs when its star performer..an Indian elephant died , presumable of the wet and cold . Now it takes a very big hole, dug by hand, by beer fuelled clients , to bury this carcass . No doubt the story has been elaborated upon over many a pint . So 150 years later numerous hole were dug over the pub garden in search of the pachyderm’s skeleton . Nothing found . Still , the story ‘gained legs’ and was turned into a film , shot on location of course. I can’t help feeling that this landlord will be this tale’s biggest promoter !
Ah, now back to Bilston , and another hole, or holes. The area was heavily mined for coal in years past. Redundant mine shafts were cheaply closed off by capping with railway sleepers , buried , then largely forgotten ; until the timber rots! This then new and enthusiastic Engineer set on his career in that Black Country , building sewage works . I must have still had oodles of optimism to voluntarily choose both career and location . I was responsible for a new tank on this purification works , or ‘poo factory ‘ as more colourfully described by my nephew. The problem was that inaccurate mine records said there was was potential for a old shaft somewhere on site . Amazingly , to me, it was a ‘water diviner’ who rediscovered this lost hole .
Sewage, although fascinating to some , is not a riveting conversation topic , especially at social gatherings around the dinner table . So I moved into water supply ; and that brings me to another hole , this time a borehole in Bottesford . This village is as far away from anywhere , except Belvoir Castle ( pronounced Beaver ) ; the home of the Duke of Rutland . Somehow the Coal Board had overcome the objections of his Dukeship, and drilled for coal. The Board never obtained planning for the mine , but did transfer one of the drilled hole to the Water Board . It became an important adjunct to water supply in this remote village , and incidentally in the production of Stilton Cheese.
Back in the early eighties pumps , at the bottom of borehole , were connected to the surface with numerous lengths of steel pipe . It takes along time to change a pump , and when that pump is a crucial part of supply, it leaves a lot of ‘dry’ unhappy customers. So when Bottesford’s pump need changing , I switched to using flexible, especially strong ‘Wellmaster’ hose pipe ; needing only minutes to lower the pump. All was perfect until the pump started . It ran for a few second , then stopped . The connection from hose to pump had come undone . Although the pump was only suspended 100 feet down, this borehole was 1000 feet deep. Good bye pump. Fortunately we had another .
Retirement takes me to rural France , and my very own borehole; this one 400 feet deep . The pump needed changing and lowering to match falling water levels . The depth was beyond the strength of normal plastic pipe ; ah so just the situation for ‘Wellmaster “ hose . However there were no local contractors with the requisite experience , and I couldn’t afford to block the borehole with falling pumps . So screwed high stretch plastic was used. It still works, and this hole at least remains open!
We’ll keep a Welcome in the Hillside
‘Far away a voice is calling
Bells of memory chime
Come home again, come home again
They call through the oceans of time
We'll keep a welcome in the hillsides,
We'll keep a welcome in the Vales.
This land you knew will still be singing,
When you come home again to Wales.
This land of song will keep a welcome,
And with a love that never fails.
We'll kiss away each hour of hiraeth,
When you come home again to Wales.
We'll keep a welcome in the hillsides,
We'll keep a welcome in the Vales.
This land you knew will still be singing,
When you come home again to Wales.
This land of song will keep a welcome,
And with a love that never fails.
We'll kiss away each hour of hiraeth,
When you come home again to Wales.
We'll kiss away each hour of hiraeth
When you come home again to Wales
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