Anton Coaker our Sawmill operator from last weeks Cranborne Chase Woodfair has sent us a copy of his article which he has written for his local paper, we thought we should share. Thanks Anton it was a great event.
Not having been off to such an event for a few years, sawyer
Barrie and I packed up the 3 ringed sawmill circus and headed off to a Woodfair
at the weekend. The premise was that we were to give a demonstration of mobile
milling. The reality? Barrie cuts a few logs while I give it my best barrow boy
patter, and sweet talk passing punters out their folding stuff for interesting
fresh sawn boards.
This time, the event
was up on Cranborne Chase, in Hampshire. We’d attended a previous bash, at a
site called the ‘Larmer Tree’ –and no, I don’t know what that means- but this
year it had moved to the grounds of a big house down the road. This was Breamore House, a 17th
century brick built pile – on an ‘E’ shaped footprint, in honour of good Queen
Bess. The owners had kindly –rashly even- allowed us grubby wood urchins to
pitch up in the parkland right next to the house, and a finer spot would be
hard to imagine. Surrounded by woodland,
and meadows running down to the river Avon meandering its way down from
Salisbury, it was idyllic.
For those with an
interest in such things, the reddish soil was fine and squidgy underfoot, with
miles of chalk up over the downs behind. Rainfall isn’t high, and up on the
chalk, water is ever a problem for stock. Dewponds and 200’ deep wells were the
norm. Now most of the chalk is ploughed, that’s less of an issue, although
generally I’d say a lot of it could do with a bit more stock again, to get some
muck back on the ground. Curiously, some wells up over the hill is known to be
on the line of a Roman road now gone, suggesting the legions dug wells as they
went. Or at least had slaves do so.
We travelled up at
stupid O’clock on Saturday morning, although Barrie had towed the mill up the
night before. As the misty dawn lifted, we set up beside another mobile milling
team. They were a personable bunch of local lads, with a more venerable outfit-
a huge circular rackbench, driven by a steam engine. The gurgling and huffing
noises of the steamer were a nice counterpoint to the wicked growling of the
inserted tooth 60” diameter circular. By contracts, we boringly make sawdust to
the sound of a diesel engine.
The punters were
thick on the ground and, I have to say, almost universally of an engaging and
curious nature. It was a pleasure to stand at the safety tape, and explain what
we were doing to the throngs. And if they fancied they could ‘make a nice house
sign/coffee table out of that £5 offcut of red cedar’, then we were all going
home happy weren’t we?
The Saturday night,
our team made for the mobile pizza oven, whose owners had obligingly agreed to
keep the fire lit to feed hungry exhibitors. As we waited for nosh, a flask of
spiritual refreshment appeared, then a couple of gallons of cider, and I didn’t
seem to be able to get up again. As darkness fell and the stars came out very
satisfactorily, someone kindly set up a brazier at my tootsies. A chorus of
owls serenaded us as we passed some very convivial time.
Crikey, but it’s a
hard life.
Sunday morning found
some of us –OK, me- a little slow to stir, but the punters didn’t rock up until
10, so we could emerge at our leisure. I’d kipped under a hide rug in the truck
cab, and comparisons with Barrie indicate we’re both beginning to creak and
groan after nights bivouacked out of doors. Still, we soon managed to don our
beaming welcoming faces, and had a second day as good as the first.
There was a bit of
an equine feeling going on, with that nice old fellow pulling a few logs about
behind a very personable grey dobbin, a pair of smart upstanding Suffolk
Punches tugging cartloads of paying punters round in step, and the delightful
Natasha leading her pair of very fine neddies through the park for their
breakfast – Natasha lives in the big house you see.
Lovely gel I thought.
We finally wearily
packed up for home, Barrie heading for a mobile job into the new week, me back
to the building site. There was a certain amount of difficulty when it
transpired that I needed the wifes car Monday evening to run an errand, with
‘B’ still out in my landrover. Silly stories persist about the ‘joint chair’ of
the parish council then turning up to chair a meeting driving her husbands
loader tractor, but I know you’d never believe such nonsense, so we’ll say no
more about it.
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