Chain of Thought

Dedication

To my partner, Pauline Gascoigne, my son, Thomas and my stepdaughter Maria (Mo) as this an account of our shared experience. To my stepdaughter, Geraldine (Geri) for being herself and helping me to finalise the book.

But to all of my family and friends, especially Steve and Heather who have contributed so much to my life.

Contents Chapter 1. “The bottom Rung”.

Chapter 2. “Moving Up”.

Chapter 3. “Occupational Hazards” Chapter 4. “Pig Sick” Chapter 5. “Fostering Ideas” Chapter 6. ”Down Tut Mill” Chapter 7. “A Dog's Life” Chapter 8. “Carry on Caring?”

Chapter 9. “Out in the wilds” Chapter 10. “A Country Wark” Chapter 11. “A Cunning Plan, Me Lud” Chapter 12. “Building Hope” Chapter 13. “Well! Stone me” Chapter 14. “Hotting Up” Chapter 15. “Up in the World” Chapter 16. “A Night on the tiles” Chapter 17. “A Stormy Affair” Chapter 18. “Stepping Up” Chapter 19. “A Moving experience” Chapter 20. “The After Life” Chapter 21. “Eco-Friendly” Chapter 22. “Haunting Apparitions” Chapter 23. “Home and Away” Chapter 24. “The Top Rung”

1. The Bottom Rung.

Life isn’t about the number of ups and downs that we experience, but how we deal with them.

I’ve had my fair share, but I don’t suppose for a moment that these have amounted to any more, less, better or worse than anyone else’s.

Lady luck can appear to conspire against us to generate pitfalls, although luck tends to be confined to games of chance, those that involve the roll of a dice or the turn of a card. But we all possess the ability and potential to create opportunities that could be described as good luck.

Many of the worlds’ most successful business entrepreneurs have achieved this by recognising and utilising them and even have the ability to identify an unlucky event as a contingency.

Negative events that initiate our downs are usually as a result of ignorance, words, actions or ill informed decisions of our own or others. It does, however, seem unfair if it's not our fault but that of others. But “ that’s not fair”, in this context, is a phrase that I associate with and is often used by children. It’s not one that I would use in any seriousness, sometimes tongue in cheek if the lottery numbers have failed me yet again or if the ref awards an unjustified penalty against my team. In the face of adversity, after initially venting the frustration and annoyance with a few loudy emphasised expletives, moving on with sanguinity is the only way.

It was, indeed, this style of reaction to the consequences of an event that created one of the lowest ebbs in my life that triggered a chain of events and a process that actually led to a positive outcome; a phoenix rising from the ashes, so to speak. The negative event initiated an awful situation for me and my family which appeared at the time to be irretrievable. It was only with the benefit of hindsight and retrospective analysis that I was able to recognise it. It also, incidentally, provided me with the opportunity to reevaluate my life and the priorities that represent the most important values. It stimulated a pragmatic thought process that later led to the inspiration and motivation necessary to develop a concept that transpired into the “Dovecote”.

It has long been an ambition of mine to write a book. It’s only now, having reached a stage in my life with more grey hair and wrinkles than I care to admit, that I have managed to find

enough time to realise it. More recently, while contemplating content, it occurred to me that my experiences of these events and the subsequent process may well make for an interesting and worthy subject. So it is this, therefore, that I will endeavour to highlight in this account; to tell my story and, I hope, may also serve in some small way as inspiration to others who are experiencing similar circumstances.

Pauline (my partner), Mo (our daughter), Thomas (our son and only 5 years old at the time) and myself found ourselves only days from being homeless, initiated by the decisions of others and out of our control. It’s consequences had placed us in both the emotional blackness and financial redness. The pressure and nature of the prevailing circumstances suggested that there was no way out, we were bereft of ideas to find an immediate solution to correct the situation.

Given the passage of time and the effects of inflation the financial situation would have now probably faded into insignificance. However, at the time and in real terms it was meaningful, as were the potential reverberations. We needed to formulate a plan that would have to be effective in terms of providing the means to correct this aspect and would serve as an analogical ladder to climb out of the emotional darkness and restore the equilibrium. But first we needed to extricate ourselves from this predicament, the immediate need was to address our accommodation dilemma. We were eventually destined to re-settle in another location where a long term solution would become easier to find. It wasn't too long after that I was able to declare; and using a phrase coined by Blackadder’s Baldrick, “I have a cunning plan, Me Lud”.

Despite, but often complemented by, the challenges that life throws at us, most things are achievable with an efficacious outlook. I’ve learnt from experience to never underestimate the power of positive thinking, this thought process would eventually lead to a concept that destiny would appear to bestow on us. The idea would later transform into a plan and project that would not only test our resolve and stamina, but also my skills, knowledge and perseverance.

This, ultimately, would also provide the opportunity to climb the ladder and a means to escape the failing capitalist system and the daily grind.

There is very little value in dwelling on and continually revisiting negative historic events, this can only lead to regret, dampen optimism and begs questions that include the words “if'' and “but” which can often serve to stifle critical thinking. To use an analogy, life is much like driving a car. It can’t be done without occasionally glancing in the rear view mirror. In life this enables the ability to analyse and learn from mistakes and failures. But to continually focus on the mirror would only result in losing sight of the road ahead. In the analogy the car would crash and burn. In life, ahead is where our future lies and is the direction in which we will inevitably travel. My life experiences have taught me that this is where my focus should remain.

Yesterday, whether it was good or bad, has gone. We can enjoy today and it’s only by looking forward with optimism and positivity that will enable us to accomplish the same for all of our tomorrow's. But in the interest of establishing a foundation for my story it is necessary to revisit and dwell a little on a negative event and our situation which I have defined as the “bottom rung”.

In 1995 I was living with my family in Earl Shilton, Leics., a small town between Coventry and Liecester in the English midlands. We had lived there since 1989, prior to this in a large Victorian semi-detached house in Nuneaton since 1984 and a modern terraced box in Bedworth since Pauline and I became an item in 1980. Pauline had four children from a previous marriage, Heather, Maria (Mo), Geraldine (Geri), and Steven. Heather and Mo lived with us but Heather had since moved to London, studied at St. Martins’ university of arts and subsequently gained employment as a fashion designer. Mo was still living with us, in 1990 Thomas, our son, blessed us with his company, completing a group of five wonderful children in all. Given the choice, Geri and Steve elected to stay with their dad in a small town near Stockton-on-Tees but did visit and stayed with us for long periods.

Until 1989 I had been working as a Contract Surveyor for Coventry City Council, Building Services Department for larger maintenance contracts on properties owned by the local authority. I had been employed by the council for the previous six years in various roles.

Initially as a foreman at one of their regional depots dealing with day to day responsive maintenance. Later as a Buyer in their contracts department and as a Building Surveyor to identify and diagnose building faults, manage budgets, specify, schedule and plan for the

corrective maintenance work. With the benefit of hindsight I came to realise that it may have been a wiser choice to have stayed there, but I become bored with repetitive routine and tend to get itchy feet when I’ve been doing a job for a long period of time.

The building industry was flourishing in the buoyant economic climate at the time. I saw this as an opportunity to scratch my feet, become semi-independent, increase my earning potential and get rid of my pot belly that had developed while I was pen pushing. I made an equal contribution to make the most of an opportunity to establish and become a trusting part of a new construction business based in Coventry. I served my notice at Coventry City Council and began working in my new role. The city provided the vast majority of the inquiries and work on which the business depended, although on occasions in some of the satellite towns. It would evolve into a diverse and reasonably successful company that focused on loft conversions but included house extensions, occasional one off new builds’ and maintenance contracts. Which provided a constant supply of work and a reasonably good income for the next five years. But this was soon to come to an end, having a devastating impact on me and my family’s future. I had come to depend on a work situation that an alternative agenda, compounded by recessionary economic forces was about to sabotage. Although I had worked tirelessly, and for a long period alone, the business’ income had fallen significantly during the previous year. But I estimated that had I been able to maintain the status quo for a further few months, which I endeavoured to do, then none of the consequential series of events would have occurred.

I believe it would be inappropriate for me to focus on the specifics and examine the whys and wherefore of the business’ demise and even more so to express a personal opinion, and for the purpose of my story the preambles are neither pertinent or relevant anyway. The bottom line was; my source of income had been taken away and, because of the businesses’ management structure, there would be no future work inquiries coming my way. This and the continuing economic downturn dictated that I would be unable to improve my situation, certainly not soon enough for me to work my way out of the complicated predicament.

We desperately searched for alternative ways for us to save the situation but the only realistic and chronic option, contrary to our wishes, dictated the need to sell our home in the attempt to

pay off personal and my share of a business debt. This, indeed, would have been easily achievable but for the boom or bust economic cycle that our flawed economic and monetary system perpetuates. The pressure of the rapidly deteriorating financial situation, as I understood it, presented us with a choice of either jumping now or waiting to be pushed. I was dreading the thought of either, but if we waited for the inevitable we would lose what little control we retained. It was “Hobson’s choice''.

We had lived in our home for the previous six years, which we purchased in 1989 when I worked for Coventry City Council. It was the result of Pauline and my combined efforts during eight years of hard work and commitment. It was a house that we had renovated and significantly extended to become the attractive and substantial home that it now represented.

We loved it and otherwise were looking forward to many more happy years of living there.

Given the dire condition of the housing market I was soon to discover that the ability to pay off the debts wouldn’t be possible despite the hope and intent. We were essentially forced to sell our home at maybe as much as tens of thousands below it’s true market value. This, because of the recession, was a buyers market and true to Adam Smith's economic theory on supply and demand, the lack of potential buyers had a deflationary effect on prices. Buyers were few and far between and certainly outnumbered by sellers by a significant margin. We were over the proverbial barrel with buttocks well and truly exposed and obliged by circumstance to quickly consider any offer that came our way.

We eventually received an offer but the prospective purchaser naturally made the best of the situation in financial terms. During the long and tedious process, the many and various surveyors' tended to look for miniscule faults to justify their existence and extortionate fees. No stone was left unturned to find trivial issues to enable the offer to be reduced further. But we were in no position to call the shots and lose the sale, indeed, as each day passed our financial situation deteriorated further. I had no source of income to facilitate the mortgage repayments, this had been made no longer available to me.

With less pressure and given more time for the housing market to recover we would have been better placed to reconsider and accept a more reasonable offer. But being up the creek without a paddle symbolised that we must persevere with the sale until the end of the conveyancing period. After several months the end of the painful process was almost in sight, but the final twist of the knife was yet to be administered by the buyer. The purchasing entity, being faceless and brutal, kindly afforded us only three days' notice to clear up our belongings and move out.

So, essentially, we were within 72 hours of becoming homeless, not something that could possibly happen to me, or so I thought. We were traumatised by the prospect, what could we do at such short notice? We were in no position to buy another property, acquiring a mortgage with a credit rating which was now off the scale and had sunk to the bottom of the Pacific ocean was less probable than winning the national lottery. Renting a property at that short notice appeared to be a near impossible task, requiring references, one month payment as deposit and one month payment in advance.

We’re independent sorts, have broad shoulders and, therefore, don’t necessarily seek help.

Although, any amount of understanding forthcoming voluntarily would have naturally been much appreciated. Strangely, which begs a question about human nature, why is it when you’re having a party everyone is happy to come along and bring a bottle but there tends to be a certain lack of interest, let alone an understanding or a willingness to help, in circumstances such as these?

I approached my parents in an attempt to explain our circumstances, not for financial or practical help, although a little would have been welcome. Just for acknowledgement and a little understanding, after all they were my parents to whom it would be considered normal to look toward for support. They appeared to listen but chose not to respond, my mother said, quote, “I don’t want to get involved”. It became apparent to me that she had her own personal agenda that prioritised self interest, other people but didn’t include Pauline, Mo, Tom or me.

Although, from my years of witnessing my parents' relationship, I had come to understand that my father, as a caring and loving man and who has sadly since passed away, had a non-confrontational nature. He tended to reluctantly accept ill conceived ideas forced upon him, reflecting those of the conceited half of the relationship.

I found this attitude difficult to comprehend given that it was only relatively recently that I was able to offer my mother considerable emotional support and my dad practical help when they were experiencing difficult circumstances while building a house of their own. I may be considered justified in describing this apparent uncaring attitude but I have no wish to offend. I have tried to forgive, life is too short to harbour resentment but some memories become so deeply embedded they are impossible to erase. It resulted in my relationship with them drifting in the wilderness for the next ten years. It has been often said that it’s only in times of need that you discover who your true family and friends really are, how true this is.

While I stood on the bottom rung of the ladder and glanced below all I could see was an even darker void beckoning, one into which I had a desire to fall. I recognised this as a one way street where the only realistic way to go was up. But I needed some help to take the necessary next step. There was a real and present danger of being without a roof over my family’s head, this had to be done post-haste there was no time to dilly dally.

My sister, Carole, lived and still does in the Scottish Borders, at the time in the town of Galashiels. In our more youthful years we had developed a very close relationship, one that has continued and enabled us to almost understand one another's well being via the ether without need of the conventional senses, we can communicate almost telepathically. Carole, at the time, was experiencing problems of her own and was suffering with a broken arm as a result of a physical attack. We had been able to offer one another emotional support, but limited by geographical location, could do little more. But she was able to arrange contact with a sympathetic rental agency in the nearby town of Kelso. Pauline called them to discuss our situation to which they were understanding and helpful. They waived their standard requirement for references and allowed us to visit them in the first instance to make the rent and deposit payment. Thus removing the threat of us and our belongings being left out on the street and having to rely on the qualifying criteria and generosity of the local authority, social housing department.

Our house was now sold, it went for a song and I imagine the purchaser couldn’t believe their luck, our home for the previous six years was no longer ours. We were now in a void where everything we had strived for had evaporated overnight. The situation had trashed our emotions, I felt distant and punch drunk, my overloaded senses had become numb. We could ill afford the services of a removals company, the best we could do under the circumstances was to hire a box van. Pauline, Mo and myself worked nonstop for the three days we had available to pack boxes and load the van. I felt like a condemned man awaiting execution on death row, our last night was spent sleeping on a mattress laid on the floor. The final day arrived, the mattresses consumed the last available space in the back of the van and I slid down the rear shutter door. I was in the driver's seat of the cab, Pauline on the passenger side and little Tom was sitting between us, blissfully unaware of what was really happening. It created a horrible feeling of emptiness as we drove away from a place that we loved. Mo was now leading a more independent lifestyle and had gone to stay for the interim period at her friends' home in the town.

We were left with what could be described as the good, the bad and the ugly. Debts that we had no means of paying off but on the bright side had an amount of furniture that we’d crammed into the back of the van and an old campervan for which I would have to return. But most important of all we had each other and the love that remained and gelled us together as a family. Applying a positive perspective; we were still alive on a speck of dust floating around in an immeasurably large universe that we can all call home, had reestablished a modicum of control over what was to happen next and had our future in front of us.

2. Moving up.

We were leaving an environment to which we had become accustomed and trundling up the M69 and M1, not unlike a tortoise with our possessions on our back and at a similar pace wondering what our future would behold. I knew most of the route quite well, it was one I used to travel regularly while dating Pauline when she was living in Thornaby with her good friend, Angie, after her previous relationship had broken down.

We first met while on independant holidays’ at the popular Balearic island resort of Ibiza. It’s highly likely that it was us that initiated the islands’ current reputation for partying, supping Blue Lagoons’ and dancing the night away. I was a part of a group of three great friends, David, Paul and myself. Pauline was with her good friend, Angie, and daughter, Mo. It was not so much of a holiday as a non-stop two week party when we often didn’t get to sleep until after sunrise.

But we were young and resilient and still able to rise before the restaurant closed for breakfast.

We were all considerate to Mo’s wants and needs, she was only eight at the time, and required a constant supply of attention, entertainment, Coca-Cola and ice cream. Most of my holiday money was spent satisfying the demand, but it was well worth it. Mo is amongst the greatest people I have ever had the privilege of sharing my life with. Pauline and I hit it off from the start, the chemistry just happened to be right, we had no control; it was destiny and love at first sight. When the holiday was over we vowed to continue and develop what we had established.

Holiday romances never work out, or so we are told, and here we are in the autumn of our lives, 40 years later. Partying much less and regularly waking before sunrise, how I hate the effects of the aging process.

We were now enroute to a new and alien environment surrounding a small village in the Scottish Borders, one I knew less about than the dark side of the moon. It was to become our sanctuary, a place where we could recoil, recover and contemplate our future. We were thankful for the material remnants of our lives that remained, which weren’t much by any stretch of the

imagination. But enough to get us underway, what more could we possibly need? We were moving in a positive direction, both symbolically and in reality but with our eyes wide shut. We left the motorway to the north of Newcastle and headed north west toward Edinburgh along the A68 to Jeburgh. We then turned right toward Kelso and as we approached the town we were greeted by the incredible view of the famous and fabulous Roxburgh Castle.

We were now 250 miles up the road in a “blink and you’ll miss it '' sleepy village of Stichill, about seven miles to the north of Kelso, Roxborbughshire within a collection of counties known as the Scottish Borders. This region is situated between Newcastle in the northeast of England and Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, to the north. It spans from Longformacus in the north to Newcastleton in the south and from Peebles, in the west to Kelso, in the east. It is essentially a collection of small towns and villages interconnected by farmland, fields and country lanes in an undulating landscape. The main north/south trunk roads lay either side of Kelso, so it was off the beaten track with regard to those travelling to and from the nation’s capital. The area lacks any significant amount of manufacturing industry and the economy relies principally on the farming industry and the businesses that service it. This, indeed, adds to the flavour of a relaxed lifestyle but can represent significant disadvantages in other respects.

The picturesque market town of Kelso (Kelsae in Gaelic), resides at the confluence of the rivers Teviot and Tweed. It proudly hosts the prestigious Roxburgh and Floors castles amongst many other historic features and places of interest. The architecture in the old part of the town is traditionally of dressed sandstone or rendered facades with scotch slate roofs. Although there were areas of more contemporary design that had been developed as the town responded to it’s increasing population, which now stood at approximately 6,000. The central square, the nucleus of the settlement, is cobbled from which the exit roads radiated. This was surrounded by cafe’s,

restaurants, public houses, hotels, shops and most prominently by the town hall with it’s domed clock tower.

We arrived at Ballie Knowe farm in the village of Stichill, where Carole was there to welcome us and lend a helping hand.

The village, farm and cottage were elevated, perched on the side of a hill overlooking the Tweed valley and Kelso.

The cottage sat at the top of an escarpment, facing south and looking down the slope toward England, the river and other low lying villages. We were to occupy the far end of a row of recently refurbished detached cottages. It provided adequate accommodation, two bedrooms, kitchen, bathroom, dining room and living room. No back garden as that area was occupied by a stone track leading from the road to the Baillie Knowe farmhouse, beside which were parking spaces and there was a good sized south facing front garden from where we could enjoy the views in the warmer months. The rooms and windows were orientated to make the best of the views. The main bedroom and bathroom had Velux roof windows and the second bedroom had a dormer window. The master bedroom also had a single glazed window in the gable which used to frost over on the inside in periods of very cold weather. The house was heated by an open fireplace in the living room but also had an electric heater in each room. It was well decorated but Pauline used her creative flair by stenciling floral designs onto the hall walls. There was a wash house at the back next to the parking bays which still had its original stone sink with a small fireplace below to do the laundry in the good old days. It seemed we were stepping back in time.

We began to unpack apprehensively, anticipating the discovery of damage to the more fragile items contained within the boxes as a result of our far less than professional and hasty move.

Much to our surprise we hadn’t done too badly after all, their endurance was evidently far better than ours. Our only mistake was to have lost a valuable pair of gold earrings that were gifted to Pauline by her sadly deceased mother many years ago, Pauline was devastated. We

think they must have been accidentally discarded when we were clearing the drawers of a cabinet while packing. My back was aching from filling the van before we left and now by liberating our boxes and furniture and humping them into the cottage. Given the cottage’s compact dimensions, getting our possessions into something that resembled some sort of order was neither a massive or a difficult task. Although the pieces of our life didn’t look like they had grown where we had planted them, neither did they look inappropriately out of character with their surroundings either. Pauline is an accomplished home maker and with her touch it didn’t take long until the basic farm cottage felt and appeared like a home.

The transformation was complete, from townies to country bumpkins in a matter of days. But we had other issues to address; become familiar with our new environment, make friends, become integrated and accepted into the community. This might take some time to adjust to, I thought, and so it did slowly but surely. But we made friends with some of our neighbours quite quickly, one couple had children the same age as Tom. They minded him for the day when we went back to the midlands to return the removals van and collect our campervan. We got back late evening in our trusty steed and parked it up in it’s new home at the back of the house.

We were now out of the maelstrom, a little giddy and disorientated as a result but back in some sort of control again. We had relocated to a part of the country which is an idyllic, peaceful and quiet area that would provide us with the headspace that our numb and overloaded brains needed. It was time for some recovery, the opportunity to moderate our emotions and do some thinking. But how could we possibly carve out a future for ourselves here? Just surviving and maintaining our strained relationship seemed like a tall order in itself given the situation. We needed to overcome our fear, anxieties and reestablish a positive outlook. There was an emphasis on generating an income to achieve this. We needed to consider work, lifestyle and where we were heading from here to accomplish it.

We were soon able to make the best of the available opportunities to become established within the local community. Tom was accepted into the local school in the nearby village of Ednam and there were children of his age at the farm and in the village. He soon developed new friendships both in the village and at the school. We began to become acquainted with our

other neighbours in the village and by going on country walks were able to become familiar with our surroundings. Our finances limited us to a simple lifestyle that lacked any sort of extravagance, in fact most of our time was spent at home with the occasional visits to Kelso for shopping and social visits to Galashiels to see Carole.

We encounter many variations in our language and dialects wherever we travel around the great nation of ours. Experiencing unfamiliar accents, terms, phrases and local colloquialisms.

Indeed, our language has evolved throughout history, if we were to be taken back several centuries in Doctor Who's tardis, even in our own part of the country, we would probably require the services of a translator. We could travel even further back to discover that our language has Germanic origins and a great proportion of the words in our dictionary are derived from French. Languages are naturally influenced by our neighbours and here, where we live now in south east Bulgaria is close to the Turkish border, the language is occasionally interspersed with Turkish words. Can you imagine the sound of Turkish Bulgarian spoken in an accent made famous by Jasper Carrot? Well, that’s me, but I digress.

We were now not only in a different part of England but in a different nation. Gaelic is spoken throughout Scotland to include the Scottish borders, but English is the most commonly used language, influenced by local and Gaelic terms. We had a need to understand and, therefore, had to learn the meaning of these terms to fully engage in conversations. Many I already knew but some examples of others that I didn’t; “muckle” meant big, “mickle” meant small, “messages” meant groceries or shopping, “rhones” meant rainwater pipes. “Dreich” weather meant wet, dull and gloomy weather, “I ken and dunae ken” meant I know and don’t know and there were many more. The Hawick accent, one of the major Border towns, was the most difficult to understand. Christine, a girl who lived with us for a period of time, was from that town and used words that sounded like “horns” which meant hands, “fud” which meant food and used “how?” when she was really questioning “why?”. All very confusing, comprender? I’ll introduce Christine properly a little later in the story.

We could neither afford to run the old campervan regularly, it only returned 20 miles to the gallon at best and 15 was closer to the norm for our driving environment, or sell it given the

cost of advertising in specialist magazines with no guarantee of a sale. As a DIY conversion it wouldn't have realised much anyway. A futile exercise in any event as the need for motorised transport in this environment was an essential, not a luxury. I’m pleased that we didn’t as it transpired, it was destined to be put to very good use in the not too distant future. I did the conversion myself several years previously to give our lives another dimension and provide inexpensive holidays.

The donor vehicle for the campervan conversion was on an old VW LT van that I’d bought at auction in the midlands. I had identified several candidates, all which had diesel powered engines except for the one that I bought. It had a 2.4 litre, six cylinder petrol engine and with the low ratio gears wasn’t economical on fuel. The diesels’ were going for more than I was prepared to pay but I wished later that I’d pushed the boat out as the extra capital cost would have eventually been recouped in fuel savings. It’s previous life was in London as a delivery vehicle for a furniture company so it was voluminous and had a high top roof that provided sufficient standing height. It needed minor bodywork repairs for little dents and scrapes but these were just cosmetic.

I sourced all of the parts needed either from a builders merchant or, for the specialist equipment, from a caravan and camping store. I fitted two side windows, insulated it for winter use and lined it with plywood. It had an over-cab bulkhead that provided space for a double bed for those vertically challenged, I installed “U” shaped seating at the back for daytime use, which could be converted into a double bed for night time use. There was an electrical system which operated via a “zig unit” and enabled the use of a 12 volt DC auxiliary battery or switched to a 240 volt AC mains supply when available. It had a compartment for a gas bottle as the 3-way fridge that I would install operated from gas, the battery or mains electricity and there were gas powered space and water heaters. It had a plumbing system fed from an underside fresh water tank that supplied a sink, small basin and shower. There was also a septic water tank to store the used water, the toilet was of the independent chemical variety that needed periodical evacuation. The internal compartments and cupboards were built out of faced plywood and a conventional worktop over the side, low level cupboards. Pauline did all of the upholstery work to include the seating, bedding and carpeting. That is her forte and is so good at it that today

she repairs and renovates antique teddy bears as a hobby. The walls, ceiling and floors were finally lined with carpets. Carole had borrowed it on an occasion to take her young family on a camping holiday and, unfamiliar with driving a vehicle of it’s stature, made a valiant effort to demolish a petrol pump at a filling station enroute.

The conversions’ facilities also enabled wild camping and we weren’t, therefore, obliged to use an organised site. More especially it was ideal for our SCUBA diving trips when we still lived in Earl Shilton and now in our new environment to have occasional, inexpensive trips to St. Abbs, which is a famous diving location just to the north of Berwick-on-Tweed. Given that we were qualified and had all of the diving equipment, the only expense was to have our air cylinders filled at the beginning of the dive.

We completed all of our diver training at the Hinckley Sub Aqua Club which was a branch of the British Sub Aqua club (BSAC). This is an ametuer organisation that provides the best training at the least expensive rates. Our diver training and career began in 1991, we progressed through the ranks and eventually became Advanced Divers and Club Instructors at the Hinckley Sub Aqua club where we were joint training officers for a period of time. We had numerous foreign diving holidays in the Med, West Indies and, in the warmer months, had frequent UK based trips with the club to various sites around the country. Our van also had a tow ball which was ideal for taking the club’s trailered inflatable boat. Our kits consisted of mainly pre-used equipment as new were so expensive which included dry suits, essential for the cold waters around the UK, the Northsea water temperatures around St. Abbs only reached 16 degrees, at best, in the summer.

It was very early days in our new home. Our severely limited cash reserves had been used to pay our first months’ rent and deposit. We only had sufficient remaining for the first couple of weeks’ food. This had to be conserved as much as possible given the uncertainty of our immediate future. But Pauline has always had an amazing knack and is adept at creating a meal out of, what appears to me, as an empty food cupboard. I’ve often wondered why she didn’t adapt these skills and go on stage as a magician, she could have given Penn and Teller a good run for their money. This was a valuable skill to have, a bit like the bible story of feeding the five

thousand with fishes and loaves, but in Pauline’s case feeding a family with inexpensive ingredients like potatoes, free mushrooms, wild greens’, like dandelion leaves and wild garlic which were collected on our country walks. Being resourceful, frugal and efficient became a necessary habit, it was about making the most out of what’s available at little cost and without unnecessary wastage. Our regular walks when taking advantage of this free resource often took us to the beautiful but little known waterfall of Stichill linn just to the north of the village.

Having liberated ourselves from the frying pan there was certainly no desire to end up in the fire. There was a real emphasis now on the need to earn, so while we were adjusting and integrating, we turned our focus onto finding gainful employment and our situation suggested that there was no time to pussy foot about. To attain this there were invisible obstacles to negotiate and overcome first. A rural living environment is far more appealing than that of a big city but vice-versa in terms of finding opportunities for work. So this wasn’t going to be as easy as we initially thought. Glancing through the pages of “The Southern Reporter”, which was the Borders local newspaper, seemed like a good place to start, which incidentally soon revealed the scale of life in the Borders. Typical frontpage headline news in the publication usually read something like “Cows wandered onto the Kelso to Jedburgh road” and “The Selkirk Rideout day was dampened by the heavy rain”.

Skimming through the classified ads and the ”situations vacant” columns seemed like a good starting point in our quest. But we evidently lacked the knowledge, skills and experience to satisfy what the local farming industry demanded. If I could operate a hay bailer or knew how to plough a field I’d have been quids in. The ads included job titles like “mole catcher”, “shepherd”, “combine harvester driver” or “ artificial inseminator for pigs”. With no intention of bragging and at the risk of sounding vulgar, my ability to inseminate was naturally quite good, well at least I thought so! My knowledge of pigs, however, was a different matter; vague at the very best or virtually non-existent if the truth was known, but as a townie this fact carried no shame. My knowledge of pigs was severely limited; they provided the main ingredient of my favorite butty, had a rather unpleasant odour, lacked somewhat in personal hygiene and had no social skills whatsoever. But little did I know at the time I was destined to learn a whole lot more, which I’ll expand upon a little later on in the book.

Despite the geographical obstacles it wasn’t too long before Pauline managed to get a job in Kelso as a carer at a residential and respite home for those experiencing learning difficulties or physical disabilities. It was a fulltime job but the hours varied to suit the needs of the care home and sometimes included night shifts. With her first weeks’ wage she purchased a second hand push bike, the bus services from the village to Kelso were infrequent, hit and miss and rarely coincided with her work hours. Stichill, being quite elevated, Pauline could free wheel virtually all of the several miles to work with barely a need to turn the pedals. The return journey, however, was a different story, it follows why this mode of transport is aptly called a “push” bike. But over the next few months her stamina and strength progressively increased.

Eventually she could manage the uphill climb without having to get off once and developed thigh and calf muscles that would have enabled her to crack a walnut between her knees.

3. Occupational Hazard I was initially unable to find work locally, as much as I would have preferred. I had yet to get myself into circulation so that my skills and experience could be discovered by my local compatriots. To increase my chances I had to broaden my horizons and extended my search to where the opportunities existed. Edinburgh was only about 60 miles away and just within commutable distance and offered a far greater potential. I registered with an employment agency and managed to get a job as a foreman on a site near the “Gyle” shopping centre on the westerly outskirts of the city. I was to work for a project management company who were based in London but were responsible for the construction of the new headquarters for a corporate insurance company. The site was massive, the construction had three wings consisting of several storey’s and a footprint on a scale that would have dwarfed a football pitch. So large it took me two weeks to become anywhere near familiar with the geography of the building. Some of the lower floors had already progressed to the decoration stage while the upper floors were just shells. The concrete masonry elements were complete but there were many “snagging” issues due to design or construction errors, for example openings in the blockwork for ventilation or heating ducts did not exist or were misplaced. My job was to manage a team of bricklayers to correct these issues. Much of the work was ascertaining the material and labour requirements and coordinating the logistics to get them to where they were required, there was only one lift for which there was a great demand.

A birds eye view of the site would have revealed hundreds or maybe even thousands of workers, each contributing their little bit to the process. Comparable, I suppose, to studying the workers in an ant colony. The travelling entailed daily commutes in the campervan which, because it’s thirsty nature, meant that a disproportionate amount of the wage was spent on shares in Esso.

It was a torturous affair, especially over Sutra hill during the winter, a significant geographical feature enroute, and on the Edinburgh bypass which was in competition with the M25 for the accolade of being the worlds’ biggest carpark in the rush hour (and why it’s called “the rush hour” when everything was very often at a standstill continues to baffle me). The working hours were long at ten to twelve on top of the two of driving. I was worn out before I even got there and totally exhausted upon my return. It was a case of eating, sleeping and working. Pauline

and myself became passing ships in the night, but it paid the bills! We were now heading in a positive direction, but without a long term plan it was yet to be seen whether the direction was the right one or not. But hallelujah! Our income actually exceeded the expenditure and we were financially buoyant at last. These jobs were not to be long lived, but paid jobs they were and we had them.

While Pauline’s work in Kelso continued unabated, mine in Edinburgh was coming to a natural end, but this brought with it no regret. I’d often spend an hour of my day sitting in a traffic jam on the city bypass and there was little or no job satisfaction. There remained suitable and available work for me in the nation’s capital should I have chosen it, but I’d had rather enough of the to-ing and fro-ing in the inclement weather. So for the time being I needed a local, stop gap, job just to get me through to the other side of the festive period and winter, the worst of which was yet to come. To a point that I could witness the harbingers of spring heralding the beginning of better weather. I’d heard through the grapevine that taxi drivers did reasonably well over Christmas and New Year and that a Kelso firm was in the market for another driver.

This seemed to fit the bill reasonably well and a company car to boot. So I contacted the manager and had a successful interview, this was followed by a visit and a further interview at the regional police office in Hawick to obtain the necessary license. For the first time in my life I was to drive people about for a wage, not employment that I would have naturally chosen but it paid, would help me to integrate into the local society, get known, meet people and make contacts.

It was now approaching Christmas of 1995 and Carole had visited to join in with our seasonal celebrations. We hadn't got a Christmas tree, our last artificial tree was dispensed with prior to our move up given that there was only limited space in the back of the removals’ van and it had very little value. It was during our alcohol fuelled banter and conversations that she came up with a glorious but possibly illegal idea to obtain one at no cost. While driving to Stichill she had noticed some evergreen, Christmas tree lookalikes at the roadside. So in the dark hours we drove to the location with a spade to dig it up, roots and all, and stuffed it into the back of the campervan. Having potted it, it stood proudly decorated for the duration in the corner of our living room, to be later transplanted in the front garden.

I had no real expectations of the benefits or otherwise of driving a taxi, other than the earning potential during the festive period and, indeed, there were very few so I wasn’t disappointed in that respect. Christmas and New Year did provide quite a bit of work, income and a reasonable amount of tips. But this would have been better if only the taxi firm had a more considerate and effective manager and not one that was regularly inebriated in the evenings while responding to calls and coordinating the fares. The fare meter in my taxi was faulty, it didn’t work on the highest tariff period, which was after midnight and on bank holidays, a fact that impacted on my earnings. Politics also existed and influenced work allocation, the more lucrative runs were given to friends or because of who they were.

It was now January of 1996. Kelso during the week was very quiet, most folks had their own transport or lived close enough to the town centre to use Shanks’s pony. It was a small town so trips having destinations within paid very little, the outlying areas, however, covered an extensive area and fares going to the more remote locations paid reasonably well. Friday and Saturday nights were always busy, these being the most popular pub nights in the town, as is the case for most areas of the U.K, and presented a greater opportunity for work. Rainy days, unlike working on a building site, offered more potential as people were reluctant to get wet on their way to a night out or on shopping trips. The Borders weather actually added to this benefit as there seemed to be considerably more rainy days than fine ones in the winter. The rest of the week, during the day, was pretty much a waste of time and by mid January I realised that this job would be short lived. Most of these days were spent sitting in the car and reading a newspaper or listening to the radio. There was little compensation but the taxi company did have contracts for ferrying children to and from school in the morning and late afternoons.

One of my school runs included transfers to and from Ednam primary school where my son, Tom, was attending. On the first occasion, when he saw me in the driver's seat, I couldn’t tell whether he was shocked, proud or embarrassed. Whichever, it provided a talking point for him and his mates in the taxi.

A couple of the firm's taxis were converted mini buses, the conversion was necessary to reduce the seat number to seven which incidentally provided space for luggage and baggage. Above

this number the law recognised them as an entirely different entity to which taxi laws don’t apply. But their size and number of seats attracted extra business on occasions, if the trip involved larger groups or to the airport as there was ample space for luggage. Kelso had occasional days when trade was much brisker. On big rugby events at Murrayfield, when Scotland were playing England, large groups of England fans would descend on the Kelso hotels to take advantage of the lower prices and better availability compared to those in Edinburgh.

The fans would then travel up to Edinburgh on the day of the match in the minibus taxis.

Kelso also had a point to point horse racing course on the outskirts of the town, the calendar included periodic events at certain times of the year. On these days the town became flooded with punters and those directly involved with the event. It was on one of these occasions I picked up a fare in the town square in the late afternoon, after the racing had finished. A single gentleman who was rather Brahms and Liszt, such that he was incapable of walking a straight line and his speech was barely audible. When he eventually fell into the taxi I had to carefully focus on a slurred Geordie accent to discover what he was trying to say. Cutting through the whiskey fumes I managed to decipher that he wanted me to take him to his hotel. But he couldn’t remember it’s name, his vague and unintelligible description only limited it to every hotel in the town. So I decided that driving him around the town so that he was able to identify it visually was the way to go. The route passed through virtually every street and even passed the racecourse from whence he’d come. After a fifteen minute tour he finally managed to identify it with glazed eyes and wavering fingers. But this was only 100 m and a one minute walk from where I’d picked him up.

It was on one of the many quiet days that I was sitting in my taxi waiting for the ever illusive customer and listening to the local radio station, Radio Borders. It was on the hour and the news came on which gave a sketchy account of a horrific massacre of school children in the Scottish Borders. The shootings had only just occurred and comprehensive details were yet to emerge. I listened in disbelief as tears were welling in my eyes, my imagination and emotions began to run riot. It is human nature to assume the worst at times like these, I was no different.

I was eager to get a more detailed account and the following few minutes seemed like an eternity. I asked other people in the square if they knew any more but they were none the wiser.

When the full account of the event emerged, which wasn’t too much longer, it came with a mix of personal emotions. Of relief that it wasn’t in the Kelso area and my son was not a victim and of horror that something of this nature had happened at all. My heart went out to those poor children and families in Dunblane who had suffered at the hands of a lunatic gunman.

It was on another one of the nondescript midweek days that I noticed a man walking across the square toward my parked taxi. “Is he or isn’t he?” I pondered, just like in the famous Harmony hairspray advert from the late 70’s. “He was”, it transpired, as the door opened and he climbed inside. A jovial man who wore a big smile and was full of chat which, to me, speaks volumes about someone’s personality. We introduced ourselves, he did in a Kelso accent as Wally, a man whom I was to get to know much, much better. This fare would prove to be a significant event and a turning point for me in my quest to formulate a long term plan for our family’s future.

Wally had just dropped off his farm jeep for a service at the Daihatsu dealership in Kelso, he was now temporarily without transport and not accustomed to using a bus. He was quite a way from home and needed the services of a taxi to get him there. “Where to?” I asked as I turned on the meter. “Stichill,” he said, “that’s where I live”, I replied. This set us up for a long and interesting conversation as I drove out of the town and up the hill toward the village and his destination.

The chat continued as I explained who and what I was, my background and what circumstances had brought me to Kelso. He was the Wally that owned and ran the pig farm in Stichill and he had a keen interest in my building skills. His farm, indeed, was visible from our cottage at Ballieknowe and was only a mile away, at most. “As it happens”, he declared “I'm looking for someone to install a concrete block base for a fuel storage tank at the farmhouse for its central heating system, it’s not a big job, if you’re willing”, he continued, “you can come during the day between your school taxi runs and do the work”. So it was agreed that on the next convenient day I would throw my tool kit into the back of the campervan and oblige him. I dropped him off at his farm, he paid the fare and I returned to Kelso. As we get older and wiser we develop the ability to unconsciously judge a personality within a few moments of meeting them; by what they say, how they say it and their body language. I had done precisely this when Wally boarded

the taxi. There was no doubt in my mind that he was a kindly, honest and genuine man. This would, indeed, be confirmed while I worked for him at the farm.

4. Pig Sick I could sense the smell of the farm, even at a distance, and the closer I got the stronger it’s pungency got as it percolated through the vans’ air vents. As I arrived at the farm it became quite overpowering, nauseating even. I could see that the slurry pits were overflowing onto the road. “Slurry” being a mix of pigs excrement, urine, water and whatever else that happened to be on the floor of the pig stalls when they were washed out. It was this that was contributing the most to the stench. It was so strong that it became embedded in my nostril linings and I could smell it even when I was a long distance from the farm. It made me heave, but even the contents of a baby’s nappy and cleaning up dog’s do can have that effect on me, what a wussie I am! I have since learnt that we can become accustomed to smells over time as they become normalised. I think this would have been easier had I been brought up in a rural environment, but it wasn’t so, I was a townie.

There was debris, machine parts, remnants of old and defunct vehicles and sundry items scattered all over the place. Randomly occurring and in no meaningful order, well not meaningful to me anyway. There were pallets of what I recognised as pig food and other materials laying where the delivery truck had dropped them off and not resembling anything that could be conceived as orderly. Most of the buildings, barns and sheds, although not totally dilapidated, were in various states of disrepair. Gates were hanging off their hinges, broken windows and missing slates that were letting in the rain. There were gunshot holes in some of the asbestos roof sheeting where somebody had been careless or inept with their aiming and crumbling masonry on external walling. With the utmost respect to Wally, as he was a wonderful man, it represented, at best, organised chaos.

After he’d explained the financial situation surrounding the industry, the price he got for pigs at market and the cost of rearing them I got a better understanding of why he had to run the farm on a shoestring and chose not to spend unnecessarily on building maintenance if he could possibly get away with it. With the advent of corporate farming entities he couldn’t and was never likely to be competitive, by his account and my reckoning the business, even with the EU subsidies, was barely break-even. But this was a small, third generation farm, it was his life as it

was for his father and grandfather. He wasn’t inclined to change and had decided, I thought, that treading water was better than the alternatives at this point in his life. I fully appreciated the fact which resonated with me. I, indeed, empathised with his situation.

To access the farm I had to drive off the main road and through an adjacent farm via a private road. It was comparatively small to others that I’d encountered in the locale and consisted of various sections; its nucleus was a collection of the principal buildings, each having a purpose that contributed to the process and served the farms’ primary function of breeding and nurturing the animals to sell. These were surrounded by a number of fields which only amounted to a few hectares, the boundaries of which were defined by a mix of hedges, fences and gates and were, in part, used to grow cereals. Those not currently in production were fallow and resting. Wally may well have been applying crop rotation but they only appeared to me to have no use other than for spreading the slurry, when Wally finally managed to find the time, as there was no other place to put it. The limited extent of the arable land was of little consequence as the crops were only incidental to the farm’s main purpose and not for selling on the open market. Although it may have been a different case during the farm's long history when a variety of grain and vegetables would have been grown to sustain the many farm hands that were working there. Cereals like barley were used to supplement the processed pig food that was delivered by lorry and stored with the grain in large open-sided industrialised buildings. There was no Wally junior to perpetuate the family business and, although he never said so, I suspected that the estates’ value was to be his pension scheme when he could no longer work or if the farm became unviable, when it could be sold off to a property developer or a larger farming entity.

The geography of the farm had evolved over the generations. There were a few steel framed additions that had infilled the spaces that separated the original, traditional buildings.

Prompted, I imagined, by the revolution in farming that witnessed the advent of mechanisation in the form of tractors and combine harvesters, machinery that replaced man and horse power.

Hence, I assumed, the abundance of farm cottages available to rent, no longer required for farm workers. In my mindseye I could see the original plan of the farm as it was conceived and built, possibly more than 100 years previously. The old farmhouse was at the rear of the site

which had the impressive southerly views from its front aspect, those that we enjoyed from our cottage. To its back there was the central cobbled yard which was impossible to appreciate given that it was covered in debris in one form another. To the east of the yard there were low level stone walled, slate topped buildings accommodating the sows’ stalls some of which projected into the yard, these continued along the north side of the yard but stopped short of the west side which provided an entranceway to the yard. Projecting into the yard from the east at the far end there was a bothy which was now used as a mess hall for the workers. All along the west side was a substantial and continuous two storey barn of the same construction that was originally used as a feed and straw bale store.

The entrance to the yard and a part of the yard had an open sided, high roofed, modern steel framed building that provided a dry shelter for the grain and limited parking. There were two newer independent buildings, one was compartmentalised for the pigs once they had been weaned and left their mothers in the sow’s stalls, this was to the west of the old farm buildings.

As they were growing they were processed through the various compartments until they had matured and were ready for market, at about nine months old. The last of the buildings was massive and enclosed on three sides, a steel framed, modern building which was adjacent the gated entrance to the farm on the north side. This was a multi-purpose structure which stored hay bales and garaged Wally’s tractor, trailers and combine harvester. The harvester could have been described as an antique or a rusty wreck depending on your point of view, but it still functioned as designed.

Finally there was a pair of semi-detached cottages opposite the sow stalls, one of which was occupied by Wally and his reclusive partner and the other was vacant. I was initially surprised that Wally was living there and not at the old farmhouse but was soon to learn the reason. The second cottage was vacant as nobody in their right minds would have voluntarily chosen to rent it considering the environment. The farmhouse had an abundance of character and was built in the traditional style of dressed sandstone and slate. It lacked in some respects and given its current condition Wally considered it undesirable to live in. But he described his plans, the first of which was to install the fuel tank for the central heating. And included other alterations, refurbishments and improvements, so that he could move back in at a later date. I surveyed the

old house and quickly assessed that this could be done at not an earth shattering cost. I had no idea at the time of Wally’s budget but thought maybe this would be a source of work for me sometime in the future.

I addressed and completed the task in hand, which was the base for the diesel tank, comfortably within the two allocated days with time to spare and to the best of my ability. I even helped to install the tank and make the pipework connections. Wally must have been pleased with the result as the moment it was done came the phrases that I had become used to over the years when working for people. “By the way”, “can you do this, can you do that and can you do the other?”. “Of course I can”, I explained. If there are only a few things my career in the industry has taught me it was to be versatile, the best at what I do and to make myself both indispensable and irreplaceable. Wally highlighted the multitude of jobs that he’d lined up for me which represented more than sufficient for me to make a full time commitment.

The result meant that I could return the keys of my taxi, say goodbye to the taxi firm's manager, who I wouldn’t have employed to pluck pubic hairs off a bar of soap, I wished to waste no more time reading the newspaper in Kelso’s town square. I would now put my time to better use by doing something more productive and rewarding. It was originally for two days but was increasing almost exponentially. The arrangement we were developing between us was mutually beneficial. Wally didn’t have to employ an expensive contractor that he could ill afford, with their inflated labour rates, on-costs and overheads which suited his budget and I got a significant and continuous amount of work at a reasonable hourly rate, well at least by Borders standards anyway. Work which was on my doorstep, incurred no travelling costs and posed no financial risks that are associated with contractual work. It turned out to be a match made in heaven and an arrangement that would persist for at least the foreseeable future. Once again I would be able to flex my knowledge and skills in building and earn real money. Oh! Happy days, it was early spring, the weather was improving, I'd found work at a spitting distance from home and I could do what I enjoy doing and put a smile on faces to boot. What was there not to like? I felt now I was getting somewhere and with a little serendipitous help a plan for our long term future was developing all by itself, all I needed to do was to jog alongside and tweak it along the way.

On occasions Tom would accompany me to work as he was intrigued by the farm, the pigs and activity. This sort of environment was alien to him as it had been for me. Tom had a healthy, inquisitive mind and he obviously wanted to learn and make the most of this experience. Tom was a fabulous lad, was sociable and interacted well with everyone young or old, he and Wally got on like a house on fire. Wally described Toms’ mind as sponge-like, continuously absorbing information. Tom liked to venture into and explore the different parts of the farm and even go into the animals’ accommodation to study the sows and watch the suckling pigs. Which once led to a humourous event at his school. The class was asked to answer the question “from which animal do we get milk”, given that he’d witnessed the piglets drinking from their mother he naturally answered….pigs. Which, of course, was true but not the answer that the teacher was looking for.

I was gradually acclimatising to the awful smell, at least on the outside where there was air movement which provided a rare gulp of fresh air. On windy days, especially on the roofs, it brought longer periods of temporary relief. But unfortunately, and depending on the wind direction, this merely replaced the smell of pig excrement with that of cows emanating from the adjacent farm, neither were pleasant but the latter was the lesser of two evils. On the inside of the animals' accommodation, though, it was a different matter entirely.

The animal pens didn’t benefit from effective ventilation, there were old, inefficient mechanical extractor fans but no windows, pigs don’t need to have pleasant views it seems. I struggled to resist the overwhelming and involuntary urge to heave that the awful smell induced. It was so bad that my memory can still resurrect it even today, over 25 years later. Triggered by the most obscure reasons, much like listening to retro pop music that can resurrect an emotion or a memory of an event. I did, however, come up with an idea that did help through the transitory period. I had a dust mask that I could use for purpose but it also lent itself to an adaptation given it’s porosity. Pauline had an old bottle of perfume that she no longer wanted and when I smelt it I understood why. Which was worse, I thought, lily of the valley, pigs or the cocktailed combination? But at least when I sprayed it onto the mask it disguised that of the animals sufficiently to quell the persistent nauseating feeling. Although I was now attracting quizzical

and undesirable looks from the other guys working at the farm, my new eau de cologne meant I smelled less like a pig and more like a tarts’ handbag.

Working with and amongst animals was a new experience for me. It provoked the need for a more abstract thought process while having to work around them. I couldn’t leave a tool lying on the floor for more than a moment otherwise it would be chewed into an unrecognisable condition or even eaten. I did, through interest, find myself studying their actions. I have had dogs as pets, and still do, and came to learn a little about their psychology by default. But that of pigs seemed to defy comprehension in this unnatural environment. However, I’m sure there’s someone, somewhere making a healthy living out of it.

But I did learn that we, as human’s, share many commonalities with these fascinating animals.

Some of us have similar eating habits, some teenager’s bedrooms ressemble their homes and if we were to delve deeply enough into history we would discover a common ancestor. Their physiology is so similar that their organs have been used in human transplants. Their fat and hair distribution is similar and we attract the attention of insects in the same way. They are intelligent, more so than dogs and even some primates. Less tolerant to heat as they don’t have sweat glands to help keep them cool. They are sociable and form bonds with each other, can communicate by using their grunts and have an acute sense of smell, 2,000 times more sensitive than that of humans. But in this industrialised environment they can be very destructive for no other reason, that I could identify, than just because they could. One of the jobs that I had was to refurbish gates dividing the outside enclosures. They could destroy these virtually at will by chewing through the thin metal cladding to expose the timber framework, at which point the gates could offer up little or no resistance. I had to think in a different way to which my brain had been conditioned enabling the repairs to be as pig proof as possible.

Wally never kept the boars for reproduction purposes, they were all sold with most of the sows periodically at the livestock sales. The artificial insemination of the sows was done by the farm hand. The semen was delivered to the farm in plastic bottles and administered by the farm hand while sitting on their backs. The accommodation for the sows was divided into several units, each having six stalls. They were very warm inside, even in the winter, the pigs

themselves generate a lot of heat and for the benefit of the newborns there were electric heat lamps. If you were at ease with the odour then this was a good place to be when it was bitterly cold outside. The stalls were enclosed with a metal framework to prevent the heavy mothers from rolling over in their sleep and crushing the suckling pigs. The piglets stayed with their mothers for several weeks before they were weaned and moved to the rearing pens. There were numerous sheltered enclosures large enough to house several pigs which had partitioned, fenced and gated outside exercise areas.

Pigs proved to be obstinate animals, if they were reluctant to do something or go in a particular direction it took more than a little encouragement to change their minds. To be honest I wouldn’t have been keen to be at the front of the queue to get on the truck that was going to the abattoir either. This was industrialised farming where the welfare of the animals wasn’t the top priority, this I could understand from a business perspective. Afterall, Wally wasn’t doing this work for the love of it or to benefit his health. He, like everyone else, was trying to make a living and the margins were very tight, economic forces invoked him to make savings wherever he could. However, my experiences on the farm did allow me to question the validity of such farming methods and realise the value of free range farming where the animals are able to conduct their lives in much the same way as nature intended. The cost of the final product would, of course, increase and in a capitalist system where the bottom line invariably takes precedence this is unlikely to happen on a large scale.

The jobs that I planned were organised and structured but these were often influenced by the ad hoc distractions that a working farm presents. On occasions I was interrupted and had to respond to an event or rapidly changing circumstances. It wasn’t that unusual for me to drop what I was doing and attend to more urgent, emergency repairs or to help out Wally with the pigs if his farm hand was not available for whatever reason. This could include washing out the sow’s stalls when they became vacant, shepherding pigs from one location to another or on to a truck for transportation to market. It often turned into a situation of crisis management, then things just happened and could change on a daily basis. Much like the Tories with Brexit, Bozzo and Peppa Pig would've felt right at home on Wally’s pig farm where greed and ignorance are the common denominator.

Pigs are notorious chewers and anything within reach of their powerful jaws is vulnerable to attack. They even have cannibalistic tendencies and are partial to a bit of bacon if one of their compatriots dies and falls in their midst. Well! They’re partial to anything if it remains stationary long enough. They were evidently quite fond of live electricity cables too, on one occasion they, shockingly, chewed their way right through one and the place fell into darkness.

The farm couldn’t function with a broken cable, interrupting the continuous supply of electricity which was vital for the various bits and pieces of equipment. In this instance reestablishing the supply would become the top priority of the day. I’m not qualified but a reasonably competent electrician so the privilege befell me. At the time certification wasn’t a legal requirement to carry out work on electrical installations. In fact, if you chose, there was no law to stop you from wiring your home with wet string.

The old slate roofs were in poor condition and in many locations letting in rainwater. They were old and suffering from a lack of maintenance. The professional diagnosis was “nail sick” which is a result of the nails holding the slates corroding, failing and allowing the slates to slip down the roof. This is a terminal disease if left unchecked and would eventually result in the total failure of the roof. The only permanent solution was to renew the entire roof. But in this case it was not possible because of the budget that I was obliged to work with, I was limited to the temporary sticking plaster option. Under the circumstances the only viable solution was to use a crawler ladder and gradually work around the roofs nailing lead straps to the timber beneath each slipped slate which could then be used as a hook to hold the slate back in place. I prioritised the work by focusing on the inhabited buildings first, the farmhouse and semi-detached cottages. Then over the animals accommodation and food storage areas and finally the lowest priority barns. Some of the timber bearers had rotted as well, here I had to strip larger areas of slate, replace the timbers and later refix the slates. There were many hundreds of square meters to do, this was going to provide me many weeks or even months of work and the income that accompanied it.

I had worked continuously on Wally’s roofs for many weeks and was making good progress. Not that their appearance was looking any better necessarily, they still appeared like a massive expanse of grey stone. Rarely do people look up at a roof as they walk by any way, even new

ones. These are scrintised for a short while, after which they barely get a second glance. To an untrained eye a missing slate is hard to detect from the ground. They are, therefore, not conspicuous by the visual absence but by the fact that nobody likes to get a shower while eating their Sunday lunch. Keeping rainwater out is second only to structural integrity in the order of importance when considering the longevity of a building. Without either the subject would soon become a ruinous liability. From Wally’s perspective this was becoming a positive advancement. The farm buildings would now last for at least as long as his requirements for them existed and there was no longer a danger that the farm houses would suffer any further internal deterioration.

Wally was full of fascinating stories that he was eager to tell, emanating from his childhood memories of how the farm functioned in his father’s and grandfather’s day. He described how it worked prior to mechanisation, when it was carried out by man and animal power. Principally by migrant workers from Ireland. In vivid detail Wally described how they arrived in Stranraer off the ferry from Belfast and yomped the 150 miles on foot to his farm in Kelso. They used to stay in the “bothy”, which was a small building on the farm and used as a dormitory. Their remuneration came in parts; accommodation, such that it was, food that was produced at the farm, cash and beer. As a youngster one of Wally’s jobs was to fetch the beer on foot from the brewery in Sprouston, a village 5 miles distant. This was carried in two buckets balanced on a yoke over his shoulders. The farm hands worked five days a week but liked a bevvy or two or three or more, on a Friday evening would walk to Kelso, not by road but as the crow flies, a direct route straight across the fields regardless of the weather conditions and mud. There they would stay, drinking and socialising until they had dispensed all of their cash on the Sunday evening, they would then return for work again on a Monday morning.

Another memorable story he told me began on the day before he was due to go on a foreign holiday. The opened topped slurry pits within the pens were below floor level, concrete tanks with overflow pipes that not only functioned as intended but also allowed them to be evacuated into a mobile tanker that was pulled by a tractor to be later spread on the fields as fertiliser. On top of the slurry pits there were metal gratings that allowed the effluent to filter through, these were supported by timber cross members. While he was walking over the gratings some of the

rotten supports failed and Wally was treated to a bath in the slurry. The smell of this is so strong that no combination of words exist that could effectively describe it. “I got some slurry in my mouth,” Wally said, “did it make you sick?” I inquired, “no it just tasted salty” he replied with a grin on his face. He described how the smell became ingrained in his skin and despite numerous desperate attempts to wash it out with soap and water it remained embedded. He also described the shock and horror on the faces of the cabin crew as he walked past them while boarding and he was led to an isolated seat at the back of the plane.

5. Fostering an Idea Pauline was becoming frustrated with the stagnancy and lack of career potential in her role at the care home in Kelso. As is the case in most working environments, politics fueled by ambition and favouritism prevailed which was contributing significantly to her discomfort.

This was compounded by travelling issues during inclement weather. She was, understandably, looking to make a change so we began to consider and explore the alternatives. The local rag didn’t provide any potentialities but what did occur to us was that Pauline and I had significant experience in parenting and caring for children. In our past we had been foster carers for Warwickshire County Council when we lived in Nuneaton, so this was well worth a consideration. Fostering children meant for a full on lifestyle and a 24/7 commitment, it encroached on our personal space, our life was always under scrutiny, and officials, like Social Workers, were at liberty to visit at virtually any time of the day. But to compensate it had many positive and rewarding elements that outweighed these; it could obviously be carried out from the comfort of home, we were helping children in need of a stable, safe and secure family environment, contributing to and witnessing the positive effects on their well-being, attitude, demeanour and potential for a brighter future. It also offered an income with a reward element which was considered by the authorities as exempt from income tax.

Resurrecting our fostering career seemed like a viable plan to enable Pauline to make a positive change to her career and enable us both to work together from home, well at least in part for me given my other employment commitments. In the interest of establishing the demand, requirements and our eligibility we discussed our ideas with the local authority, in our case the Scottish Borders Council, Social Services Department. They responded positively and we soon met up with a Social Worker who began the necessary assessment process to confirm our eligibility. We were aware that this wasn’t something that was going to happen overnight, we had endured the same process in Nuneaton several years previously. We understood it as one that was controlled by law, administered by the placing agency, followed a logical and time consuming path and could take several weeks or months to complete. So in the meantime we would continue our lives and work as we were.

The process for us to be accepted as registered foster carers had continued for many weeks. It had involved numerous interviews, which felt very intrusive, to investigate us, our backgrounds and motives to confirm eligibility. Police checks had been made for any undesirable convictions and inquiries made with the other authority for whom we had served. At the end of the procedure I felt that the social services department knew more about me than I knew about myself, but this was now drawing to a successful conclusion. We had begun to develop a good working relationship with the family placement team as they were highlighting and discussing some of the potential placements that they were considering. I think at first they wanted to test the water by making time limited respite placements to assess our performance. To be studied, scrutinised and analysed, I thought. In hindsight I have no doubt that was just my irrational perception of new routine procedures that the placement agencies were obliged to implement and carry out by law.

To tell a comprehensive story, I have the need to describe the nature of our caring work and some of the characters involved. But in the interest of maintaining confidentiality I can only broadly outline these to highlight our experiences and cannot be specific in terms of details and circumstances surrounding particular child placements. I will begin here to explain some of the aspects of the work and the children that our foster caring involved. But I will continue to expand and develop a little more later in the story.

Our first placement was caring for a boy of about Toms’ age on a weekend basis as respite for his biological parents. He was suffering from a degenerative brain disease, this condition meant he had developed irrational fixations on inanimate objects. At the time it was electric light bulbs that were preoccupying his thoughts, it wasn’t unusual for him to take a swipe at an illuminated bulb in the house and for it to come crashing to the floor. He would also continually point out the street lighting at the roadside as we passed by in the car. His condition, from which his younger brother also suffered, was a genetic inheritance. He displayed normal behaviour much of the time but these outbursts would prove to be quite disconcerting and we were acutely aware of the need to protect Tom from their negative effects. He and Thomas interacted well during these visits and, given they were non school days, had plenty of

opportunities to play games. Tom had a snooker table which we had bought for him as a Christmas present two years previously and this was put to good use. This respite care went on for some time and became more frequent before it came to a natural end.

As the family placement teams’ workload increased so did their need for carers in suitable home environments. Our services were becoming used more frequently and for longer terms.

But our home only possessed two bedrooms and although we adapted the ground floor dining room, that wasn’t used as such, to create an extra bedroom, this ultimately proved to be insufficient. But the increasing demand on our services and the resulting income enabled Pauline to quit her post at the Kelso care home and focus on working from home in her new role as a Local Authority foster carer.

We recognised the developments in our income as a potential foundation upon which we could build a long term plan. One which could possibly lead to us being able to own our home again.

We had no desire to be chained to a mortgage for the next 25 years, our credit rating was still lodged in the murky depths of the Pacific ocean which wouldn’t permit it anyway. But we had a slight surplus in our balance of payments which, if we managed to increase, could result in setting aside some money as savings to commence the process of achieving our goal. I calculated that if I could maintain my income, which now seemed highly likely, and we further develop the foster caring services that we were providing then this could become a reality. I further concluded that if we had a more substantial home with a greater number of bedrooms then we could service the increasing demands of the family placement team and at the same time benefit from a greater rate of savings.

Pauline opened a savings account at an estate agent that had a building society franchise in the Kelso town square. In the days before computerised and internet banking this was done using a savings book. Our earnings were paid irregularly by cheque on an ad hoc basis, these Pauline deposited into the account on her shopping visits to the town. The staff were friendly and as the balance increased so did their interest and they became curious and inquired about its purpose.

When Pauline explained that we were saving for a building plot they naturally became more

helpful. The increasing balance also served to increase our motivation, especially when the figure got progressively closer to that of plot values.

A frugal living style was an absolute necessity when we first arrived, we had no choice. But in the interest of efficiency and in order to maximise our savings rate we learned this had to be maintained. We developed a waste not, want not attitude that has remained with us ever since, it became a habit of a lifetime. I think this is why Pauline has sometimes described me as an old skinflint. We never visited the hairdressers salon or barbers' shop, Pauline used to cut my hair and maintained her own and she never wasted money on overpriced cosmetics. We never had nights out down the pub or at restaurants. We questioned the need for any purchase, if we could possibly do without that’s exactly what we did. Any clothing requirements were serviced by second hand and charity shops. We also made the most of the annual sales events for the children’s clothes, even if there was sufficient for current use we would store them for them for the future. Paulines’ food recipes were based on discounted lines, and where possible included the most economical ingredients. We never purchased convenience meals, Pauline would make them from scratch using the base ingredients. She made conserves and preserves from in season fruit, salad and vegetables and I brewed homemade beer.

6. Down Tut Mill In the interest of maximising our fostering potential we were now on the hunt for a house to rent that had at least four bedrooms, one that served to satisfy our long term plan. A search of this nature today has been made so easy by using the internet and a web browser. But we were living in an era prior to it’s advent, there were estate agencies in Kelso that we could have visited but it was easier to consult the classifieds’ in the aforementioned “Southern Reporter”.

In farm cottage terms, there were few with more than three bedrooms. However, over a period of time, we discovered numerous that warranted further investigation. Touring the rural areas surrounding Kelso to see more closely the candidates and their immediate surroundings to establish more accurately their suitability. Not only did this achieve the intent it also significantly improved our geographical knowledge and we discovered places that had only previously existed on a map. After several inconclusive weeks of searching we finally arrived at one that appeared to suit our requirements right down to the ground.

Morebattle is a settlement to the south of Kelso, whose name means “Dwelling place by the lake” referring to the water of “Old Linton Loch” and not from the site of an historic battle as the name may suggest. The house was on Caverton Mill farm, not in, but about a mile or so to the west of Morebattle and about eight miles to the south of Kelso. The prominent Cheviot mountains lay to the south and their views were visible from the farm. It was owned by the Duke of Roxburghe, but managed, to include the cottages, by the tenant farmers. At the time it was both arable and livestock to include sheep and cattle. It is now a mixed arable and is farmed, as it was then, by the same family and is famous for the high quality of its combinable crops such as broccoli and brassicas. The farm is located in a valley and, therefore, the views were not as good as those we had become accustomed to. But that was a secondary consideration, we were more concerned about it’s functionality and whether it was fit for purpose.

The Scottish Borders, it’s towns and villages are steeped in fascinating family and architectural history going back centuries. Caverton Mill, although nowadays a farm, at one time in history was known simply as Caverton and a village in its own right. It had a Chapel that was first

mentioned in historical records dating back to the year 1116, and was in the care and controlled by the pastoral regime based at Glasgow Cathedral. The chapel included a graveyard which was last used in about 1860. The village was founded by Walter Kerr of Cessford, (Cessford being a nearby village), and was confirmed by charter under the “grand seal'' in the year 1500.

Unfortunately the village, chapel and graveyard had since become ruinous and, as a result of ploughing, no signs of them remain today.

The title “Baron of Caverton” anciently belonged to a lord, Lord Soulis. But he was relieved of his property, title and position as a consequence of his involvement in a conspiracy against Robert the Bruce towards the beginning of the 14th century. At the time, the most powerful families in the area were the Kerr’s, Scott’s and Douglas’s. The title role to administer the law and justice in the district was known as the “Warden of the Middle Marches”; this was awarded to a member of one of these families. But they could be little trusted to dispense justice effectively as they were either raiding the English settlements south of the border or squabbling amongst themselves.

The cottages associated with the farm were a terraced row of nine, all of which were rented out, except one which was occupied by a farm employee and his family. The end two, no. 1 and 2, closest to the farm, had now become unoccupied, were available to rent and in which we were interested. They had been united at the request of a previous tenant and each originally had three bedrooms, a kitchen, living room with an open fireplace and a bathroom which stood out on a limb. The unification resulted in a single cottage, not with six bedrooms as the arithmetic would suggest but five as one of them had been repurposed to an upstairs bathroom which facilitated the inclusion of a utility room on the ground floor.

The cottage, as it stood now, had five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a boiler room, two living rooms with open fireplaces, a kitchen and a utility room. Most peculiarly, it still retained the two original staircases which, for those who get disorientated easily which includes me, would result in confusion and walking around in circles much of the day. A little disconcerting but, nevertheless, did make for good exercise without the need to leave the house. There was a small front garden, between it and the house there was a graveled area which provided a parking area

and at the rear was a large back garden which was lawned and had a fuel shed in which to store the coal. It also had an L.P.G. central heating system, the storage tank for which was located at the end of the back garden and within easy reach of a side road where the delivery truck could comfortably dispense it’s load.

We disclosed our interest and were subsequently interviewed by our soon to be new landlord, Tod. He was the father, head of the family and their farming business. His partner, Laurna, with whom I rarely interacted as she was reclusive and tended to stay at the farmhouse more often than not. The eldest son, Noel, who I would hazard to guess is the boss now since his father’s sad demise and his younger brother, Kevin, who was a keen rugby player for the Kelso town team. They were accomplished farmers and an amiable family, approachable, sociable, communicative and helpful. I would get to know them a lot better as we lived and I sometimes worked on the farm. The image below identifies the terraced row of cottages at Caverton Mill; we were to occupy the two at the left end of the row.

It was now September 1996 and approximately a year on from our sad departure from Earl Shilton but we were at least a step or two up from the bottom rung. We had become established and accepted to a large degree within and around Kelso. So much that we were starting to be recognised and acknowledged by many when we were out and about. Not only had we moved house a year previous, as gluttons for punishment and were about to do it again. This time for equally good purposes but for more positive reasons. This time it could be done at a more leisurely pace as we were benefitting from a month’s notice. We hired a van and phased the move gradually over a period of days. Our personal and the more fragile items were able to travel more safely in our campervan. Wally was an understanding man, I was able to put his work on hold for the week or so it took to move and settle into our new home.

Preposterously we mislaid a cast iron cannonball ball on this move. While on a SCUBA diving holiday at Fort Bovisand, Plymouth two years previously. Pauline was part of group diving off Drakes’ Island in Plymouth Sound. Sir Francis Drake used the island as target practice for his placements on Plymouth Hoe, or at least his minions did while he was sipping wine, playing bowls or womanising. Consequently there are copious amounts of the shot lying on the seabed around the island. Not as easy to identify as what might first be thought, after centuries of accumulating crud they appear as a small rocky mound. But with a keen, experienced eye they can be recognised as such. With a diving knife she managed to prise and dislodge from its roots and with an air filled lifting bag brought it to the boat on the surface. It was kept in a bucket of sea water until we got it back home to Earl Shilton. Cast iron is porous metal and was, consequently, saturated with salty seawater. If it had been allowed to dry immediately the salt would have expanded while crystallising and the cannon ball would have fragmented into shrapnel. It took six months to liberate the salt from the shot by osmosis, storing it in tap water and refreshing it weekly until all of the salt had migrated. It was a wonderful memento and made for a great door stop. How we managed to lose a 7”, 42 lb cannon shot defies belief, it probably ended up in the odd sock drawer never to see the light of day again.

We were now resident in our double barreled farm cottage. Tom was attending the primary school in Morebattle and developing new friendships there and at the farm where there were children of his age. The bus collected him at the end of the road, Pauline would accompany him along with the other children and parents which provided the opportunity for her to become acquainted and develop new friendships.

The terraced row of cottages were set back from the public country road that dissected the farm. There was a retaining stone wall adjacent to the road that levelled the regular sized front gardens which were lawned and separated by simple wooden fences. Tod insisted that these were mown regularly in the growing season in the interest of maintaining the farms’ appearance. There was a continuous graveled path from one end of the terrace to the other that gave access to the cottages’ front doors. We were to live there permanently for the next five years, the other cottages seemed to change hands more regularly as people came and went,

except for the two at the opposite end of the terrace. The furthest of the nine cottages was occupied by a tractor driver employee of the farm, his wife and two children.

Politics exists in all walks of life where the desire for popularity amongst peers and the hierarchy tends to promote an exaggerated perception of self importance. Here was no exception and the families of those who were employed to plough the fields had developed the notion that they were somehow considered more important than the other mere mortals who rented the other cottages. There was a child of a farm worker who thought it great fun to throw cow excrement at the windows and property of those who appeared to be more popular and might threaten their assumed status.

The penultimate cottage was occupied by a family with whom we would become great and everlasting friends. Rachel who was English, Alan, her Scottish partner, but prefered the name and was better known as “Bing” or “Bingy” and their daughters Hannah and Abigail. Rachel was a homemaker and child minder, Bing worked as a driver for the road maintenance department of the Scottish Borders Council which was based in Jedburgh, about ten miles away. Hannah was a similar age to Tom and Abigail was a similar age to some of the children that were in care with us. We had a lot in common, shared a mutual level of intolerance to one of our neighbours, had similar outlooks on life, families and overlapping interests. We regularly spent evenings together in one another's homes to socialise, chat and enjoy recreational sustenance. It was during one of our social evenings that I first met their friend, Al, who would become a good mutual friend.

Pauline and Rachel had much in common, they were both vegetarians and used to share recipes. Pauline became herbivorous many years ago, soon after we got married and for good reason. She advocates animal welfare but principally because she didn’t appreciate the texture and taste of meat. She had contemplated the transition for some time but while holidaying in Tunisia, where cordon bleu couldn’t have been used to describe the food or restaurant, served up nondescript, big slabs of meat. We had a sneaky suspicion that these were actually horse meat and this was the final straw for her to take the step. She was still happy to use recipes to accommodate individual preferences that included it, but has never partaken herself since.

Both Rachel and Pauline were adept at producing the most convincing and tasty meat free dishes. They both had bikes and used to cycle together on trips in the locale, especially into Morebattle on shopping visits. On one of their trips they were chastised by our GP for not wearing cycling helmets, a little OTT and beyond his terms of reference in my humble opinion.

Rachel was also a registered childminder which she used to do for Pauline on occasions, we were fostering a baby and to provide Pauline with a little respite and enable her to do the domestic chores uninterrupted, Rachel used to care for him for periods during the day.

Bingy was a keen and experienced mountain biker and proud to be the owner of an expensive, top of the range machine, with which I was suitably impressed. His bike had all the associated bells and whistles and was built using materials so light in weight it could be lifted with one finger. I had been a road cyclist in my younger days, inspired by my dad who was a member of the Coventry Road Club. But this was mountain biking and although there were many similarities like two wheels, a chain and pedals, this is where the similarity ends. Off road biking was a whole different ball game, an off road mile is far more difficult and energy sapping than the road equivalent. The bikes were significantly different in many respects and the mountain version had features that it’s road cousin lacked. Typically, ultra efficient brakes necessary for when stopping quickly at the edge of a vertical mountain precipice took precedence over maintaining forward momentum.

Bingy invited to join him on his excursions and was more than keen to oblige but I had no bike and was in no position to afford the price he’d paid for his. As it happened, while browsing the collectables and bric a brac at the Kelso Sunday market, which we visited regularly but only on a Sunday, my attention was drawn to a stall that had a second hand bike for sale. Although it had a bent pedal arm it looked the “business” to me and thought it represented a real bargain. I was immediately overcome by impulse and paid the modest asking price bearing in mind the obvious but insignificant fault. What a stroke of luck, I thought, Bing will be so impressed. But it was only after ten minutes of rolling about on the floor laughing that he was able to kindly point out how the bike would benefit from certain upgrades, like replacing every part except for the bell on the handlebar and the air in the tyres. I came to really appreciate Bings’ incredible sense of humour. But despite this and his compassionate ridicule I remained undeterred and

proceeded to straighten the bent pedal with my Birmingham screwdriver, it’s amazing what can be achieved using a 2 kg mash hammer.

We ventured out on many occasions, usually through Morebattle onto the Cheviot hills where there was a plethora of tracks and places to explore. Although I was generally fit from my building work, which involved heavy lifting and going up and down ladders, I lacked the stamina and the fitness that Bing demonstrated and this sport demanded. On the earlier of our expeditions I struggled somewhat to keep up with his pace, he was very fit and was often ahead of me. But as the number of our outings increased so did the distance we traveled, my fitness, ability to keep up and my level of enjoyment. Ascending grassy slopes and muddy tracks on the outward bound leg of the journey was very demanding due to traction issues and the inclination, gravity can be a bitch sometimes. But once we reached the summit we were able to make the most of the flatter terrain, scenery and it was a shed load easier physically. The return leg was much more fun, the speeds and exhilaration of the downwards slopes made the pain of going up well worthwhile. Although, on one descent, Bing had stopped suddenly while encountering a dangerous boulder in our path with his ultra efficient braking system. Given that I didn’t take his advice on the bike upgrades my brakes were far less effective and as I slowed my bike ended up vertically in the air, balancing on its front wheel before I gradually toppled head first over the handlebars.

This fun was unfortunately brought to an abrupt end when I developed a hernia requiring surgery to repair at the Borders General Hospital near Galashiels, this was followed by a lengthy recuperation period when I was unable to lift heavy weights for several weeks. I’ve recently developed another on my other side. I think it’s come out rather belatedly in sympathy 25 years too late. But the current COVID virus has put the surgery temporarily on hold as the national health service has postponed all non-emergency operations until the nation experiences a drop in the infection rate. But it was regrettable and a great shame that we were to never again venture out on our biking trips.

Our plan would eventually mean that we would move on to greener pastures, as did Rachel, Bing and family. They are now living in a house of their own in an isolated village on the hills

above Jedburgh. It’s commonplace for friends to drift apart, brought about by changes in circumstance. But we have remained in contact with them even after 25 years and over 2,000 miles apart. Rachel and Bing have even visited us here in Bulgaria while holidaying at the famous Bulgarian resort of Nesebar.

7. A Dog's Life It's often said that a house does not become a home without a dog. We had dogs in the past when we lived in Earl Shilton but were forced into rehoming them when we left as they weren’t permitted at our previous residence in Stichill. Incidentally, we now have six, all of which are rescue dogs that otherwise would no longer have a life, but that’s another story. On the farm in Morebattle they were welcome which provided us with the opportunity to get another. Tom was keen to have a dog as a pet so we decided on and bought a female golden Labrador puppy and he assumed the right to christen her. He, as a child, was a big fan of Thomas the Tank Engine, a children's television programme and was intent on giving her the name of one of the characters. His initial idea was to call her the “Fat Controller” until we managed to convince him that this wasn’t a real name, inappropriate for a dog and was a male character's name anyway. But after a rethink he was happy to compromise and settled on the name of Daisy in honour of the female engine, so Daisy it was.

Daisy was a great, child friendly dog and as strong as an ox. She used to regularly play with the children. On snowy winter days she used to pull the children's snow sled up the hill at the back of the house with a rope in her mouth and then would chase it back down the hill as they were descending, then would again drag it back up the hill for the next run. She loved going on our country walks and thought it a great sport to chase the hares but was never fast enough to catch one. She also used to enjoy bathing in the farm animals’ watering troughs. She emigrated with us to Bulgaria 16 years ago, one of the few dogs that can claim they've traveled in the cargo hold of an airline jet. Pauline and Carole described the perplexed look on her face as she trundled along on the conveyor belt at Sofia airport's baggage reclaim hall. She remained in our life until she reached the ripe old age of 16 years, which is no mean feat for a Lab, when she sadly died of natural causes. We buried her here in our back garden and is remembered every time we visit the bottom of the garden, a wonderful dog and sadly missed.

Incidentally, and by chance, we again share our life with a Labrador. His name, which was given by his previous owners, is Angus. Dog owners have a tendency to abbreviate their names to one syllable, it’s easier for the dog to recognise and the keeper to shout out while out walking.

We did the same and shortened Angus’s name to Guss. That was until we realised that this word also had a meaning in Bulgarian, being a slang term for the anal orifice. You don’t need a vivid imagination to envisage our embarrassment given that we'd been walking around the village for a couple of years while loudly shouting his name.

Wally would now refocus his and my attention on the old farmhouse. Additionally there were many and various other minor repairs around the ranch to do. But given the far greater distance that I now had to travel from our new home at Caverton Mill to Wally’s farm in Stichill I had discovered a need to consider my expenses, the fuel consumption of the campervan and the alternatives. We had generated a small surplus of cash, not a massive amount, but sufficient to invest in a cheap runaround car with lower fuel consumption rate and reduced fuel costs, hopefully to pay for itself within a year or so. “The Southern Reporter” classified ads would become useful for a third time in the search. Our budget limited us to something that could only be found in the bargain basement. There weren’t many but several that were worth a look.

I know very little about cars or the workings of the internal combustion engine. My knowledge is confined to how to drive them, where the fuel, oil and coolant goes in and how to change a wheel in the event of a puncture. Had I been making a larger investment I would have used the services of a motor engineer to check it out. But in this case I would have to take a chance and rely on my instinct.

The limited availability resulted in me choosing a standard beige British Leyand, Austin Maestro. There! I told you I knew very little about cars, but it did have red “go faster” stripes on the side which clinched the deal for me. It only cost £350 and my theory was that if it lasted for a year and attracted no initial repair costs it would more than pay for itself in the same period of time, any more would be a bonus. So the campervan was given a holiday and parked up at our house in Morebattle where it would remain for the next two years, gathering dust and cobwebs. I was now able to travel to and from Wally’s farm quickly and cheaply but with no street cred whatsoever.

It was now the late autumn of 1996. There was still mileage left in the work at the pig farm, there remained the numerous minor and trivial repairs that, individually, don’t warrant a

mention and the refurbishment of the farmhouse which would occupy me till the end of the year and possibly into 1997. The farmhouse lacked a ground floor toilet and shower room that Wally desired. But there was a store room at the end of the kitchen that wasn’t used as such and presently was only accessible via an external door from the outside yard. It’s dimensions lent itself quite well to be converted into a shower room with a toilet and wash basin. There was a dividing wall adjacent to the kitchen where there were fresh water supply pipes and the geography of the existing sewerage system conveniently provided the opportunity to make a connection just outside the store in the yard, only a few meters away. The job was reasonably straightforward; it required an internal access door in the dividing wall to the kitchen, the external door opening partially infilling and a window installed into the upper section, finishes to the walls and floor and the installation of the sanitaryware. Time consuming but, nevertheless, not that expensive in terms of material requirement. This, once completed, would be the penultimate of the large jobs leaving only the refurbishment of the kitchen and a few other minor internal repairs.

8. Carryon Caring There are often national shortages and recruitment campaigns for foster carers to address society’s demands. The services that we were providing helped, in a small way, to fill the gap and satisfy the need. At the same time we could contribute to society by doing rewarding work that was valued and which we enjoyed.

We had a great working relationship with our Link Worker, Linda, who had remained with us since we commenced our work at Baillie Knowe farm in Stchill. It had now developed into a meaningful and mutually beneficial arrangement. It had evolved into one of trust and understanding that we could provide an adequate service that she could rely on and she could give us the support that we needed. We also achieved a similar relationship with each Social Worker responsible for a specific child or sibling group. There were initial and periodical meetings to ascertain specific and fluctuating individual requirements. We had a need to know the situation surrounding the child’s circumstances so that we could respond appropriately and according to their needs.

Children go into local authority care for wide ranging reasons and rarely, we learnt, was it any fault of their own. The approach and methods that we employed were developed and adapted as a result of our years of experience and training. These broadly mirrored those advocated by the law and child placement agencies. But as individuals our personal characteristics and idiosyncrasies inevitably influence the way we function in our roles, as they would in any profession. This, we recognised as our prerogative, thus enabling us to implement a regime that would best suit our style and at the same time meet the needs and well-being of the child.

We provided a home environment where the child could feel comfortable but, above all, safe.

Our caring was proposed to provide for their emotional and physical needs on a temporary basis. “Temporary” could range from a day to several months or even years. The physical aspect was straightforward enough and was generally confined to providing clothing and nourishment. The emotional or psychological aspect, however, would often be considerably more difficult given the effects of the child’s previous negative experiences. Those children who

had been victims of abuse or neglect often suffered with emotional issues that could take months or years to solve, or, indeed, sometimes never did, remaining with them for the rest of their lives. This could often be resolved over time with our input but on occasions required the intervention of a professional counselor. Pauline worked closely with the child psychologist based in Selkirk so that she could help to implement plans to improve the child’s emotional stability.

We had a typical family structure of traditional format with mother and father figures. To make this work effectively we had to work together as a team, to include the child once they had adjusted and integrated into the family. To be successful we had learned that there was a need to quickly assess a child that came into our care to find out what made them “tick”. Our standard approach was sound and effective but sometimes needed tweaking to account for individual circumstances, what would work for one child wouldn’t necessarily do so for another. We had an interest in efficiency so that we could provide a tailored service that would address their needs and improve their situation in the shortest possible period of time. There was a need to provide an adaptable service, not just to benefit our ability to manage but to satisfy the well-being of the child.

As individuals we possess different characteristics and personalities which develop as we grow, especially in childhood. These are influenced by environmental issues and people involved in our lives, the children that came into our care were no different. We learned that, almost invariably, children experiencing emotional issues or were demonstrating challenging behaviour did so because of negative experiences that had been imposed by the actions and attitudes of others and not necessarily through any fault of their own. We were regularly confronted by challenging situations initiated by bad behaviour which we had to confront and address. It was a slow and difficult process to initiate changes; it would commonly take two or three months within our stable and structured home environment to overcome these negative traits and restore them to what were deemed more socially acceptable. If the placement was not to be for the most temporary of periods we could encourage and work toward establishing more acceptable behaviours relatively quickly. However, this would often become compromised or

hampered by fluctuations in circumstances involving shared care and “home” visits.

Appropriately described by the analogy; two steps forward and one step back.

It was imperative to establish boundaries in the first instance and maintain them throughout their stay with us, without deviation or succumbing to pressure. These parameters were clearly defined in the house rules which were formulated and amended, if necessary, during fully inclusive family meetings. In fact the children were proactive in the discussions and decision making and it was them, indeed, that introduced or amended some of the rules. These were described as the house and not our rules which tended to enable them to be more willingly accepted. I have no idea why, it just worked, maybe it was because our personalities didn't apply and it was an inanimate object that was responsible with whom they could not negotiate.

There were consequences and reverberations if these boundaries were ever breached. But first there was a need for us to consider any extenuating circumstances during discussions with the child. These conversations assisted us to enable the child to consider what they had done wrong and why they had acted or reacted in the way they did. Talking about their recognition of how their behaviour would have been perceived by the other children and if they thought they could have managed the situation differently. If the situation demanded a reprimand then it would invariably be implemented, we never made idle threats as this would have only rendered them ineffective or reduced their potency in future events. We were limited in what we were able to use as retribution, often represented by the removal privileges, in depth discussions or, extraordinarily, time out in their bedrooms for short periods of time to reflect.

We applied a structured lifestyle and routines, the environments that many of the children had been accustomed to seldom had structure, routine or boundaries. We came to realise children were happier and more comfortable with them once they had been acknowledged and accepted. It made for an environment that promoted positive attitudes and enabled more rapid progress. But children are naturally adept at pushing boundaries to satisfy their wants and those which were in place were to be tested frequently. Pauline and myself had to work together as a team and made sure that we were always singing from the same hymn sheet. Playing us

one off against the other was a popular and often used ploy. “Well Russell said, or Pauline said that I could”.

Effective communications are important in all work environments, foster caring was no exception. It was necessary to develop good relationships in this respect with the numerous entities involved in the child’s life. Pauline would often have telephone conversations with members of their biological family to improve their perception of us, in no way did we want to be considered as the “enemy” regardless of how they interpreted the intervention of the social services department. Indeed, it was beneficial for the child’s well-being if we had a coordinated approach. It was also important to have links with the schools’ head teacher when confronting behavioural issues and monitoring progress. Additionally, there were occasions that demanded meetings and interaction with the police if they became involved as a result of the child’s actions. We were also asked to provide formal written reports for the child’s social worker to include well-being, progress, developments in the placement, school and any significant events.

Our training and level of performance was maintained and updated on a continual basis. We were strongly encouraged to attend courses organised and presented by the placing authority in order to expand our knowledge base and improve our skills. These would include lectures pertaining to many of the various aspects of our work including “going to court”, “sexual abuse”, “separation and loss”, “safeguarding”, “dealing with self harm”, “life work” and “safer caring”, to mention a few. These would typically assist us to identify and deal with serious issues such as self harm and sexual abuse. Self abuse was becoming more common and if we were caring for a child experiencing it Pauline would work toward reducing self blame and increasing a sense of self worth. We learnt to identify the signs of sexual abuse, for example, if the child was demonstrating inappropriate sexualised behaviour.

Pauline, on occasions and when the need arose, was called upon to attend and give evidence at the Selkirk Sheriff's court to assist the judge in making legal decisions on a childs’ future care plans. This was a daunting experience but the specific training module helped her understand the procedure and how best to present her evidence. Pauline, as the principal carer, was a

valued contributory member of the fostering and adoption panel. This included the evaluation of reports and applications for fostering and adoption, annual reviews and assessments.

The age range of the children in our care at the time couldn’t have possibly been any wider. We had a sibling group of three, the youngest was a baby and the other two were primary school age. We were also catering for two teenagers, the eldest was approaching sixteen. Above this age they were deemed in law as young adults and were no longer the responsibility of the caring authority, but they did assist with the transitory period. Caring for this number of children often led to transport problems on group outings. Our car was only a five seater, there were eight of us in all, multiple journeys were sometimes needed for one event. Little consideration was given to our plight when the placements were made. We inquired with our link worker about the provision of a large people carrier to help, but the most that they were able to do was to arrange the use of the Morebattle school bus when it became available.

We had to use different methods with older children and those approaching adulthood, this proved to be a different ball game altogether. Given their age there was less available time to work with the child to effect changes and they were done and dusted with their more receptive, formative years. The systems we had in place and were successful in making positive changes for the younger children but didn't necessarily work in these cases. We were, after all, helping people that were soon to be adults, behaviours were more difficult and sometimes even impossible to change. In extreme situations the best we could do was to try to understand, empathise, influence and encourage while jogging alongside as friends rather than parental figures. Although we were able to focus on life skills education to include domestic subjects, money management and budgeting.

We shared our life with a girl called Christine for two years, I mentioned her earlier in the story.

She had been living with her mother and her mothers’ partner in Hawick but the relationship had broken down for various reasons. Christine was a cheerful and amiable 15 year old and was communicative but I struggled to understand her strong accent on occasions. We had group meetings with Christine and her social worker. We collectively realised that the best way forward for her was for us to work together toward independent living. We introduced Christine

to a structured, safe, friendly and family focused environment. Together with emotional coaching from Pauline she gradually progressed and the result was a revamped Christine who had new and elevated values of self worth, respect for boundaries and who appeared to be enjoying life.

Pauline worked with her on “life skills” to include the many aspects of domestic engineering with considerable success. Christine initially was in the habit of mixing coloured items with the whites when doing the clothes washing, which resulted in all of her clothing becoming various shades of pink. This became a standing joke with Christine which we all still laugh about today.

I particularly remember one event when Christine wanted to impress Pauline by fully preparing and presenting a meal. In Pauline’s absence she looked to me for help and advice, this’ll be a case of the blind leading the blind, I thought. My culinary skills are sadly scarce, not because of the lack of will, merely down to the lack of need. The meal turned out to be wonderful, down more to luck than judgement if the truth was known. It was enjoyed by all but the kitchen looked like a scene of carnage once we had finished. Christine eventually moved on and has since carved out a successful life of her own. We are still good friends on social media and she is soon to become a grandmother for the first time, how time flies! We have even received messages from her mother thanking us for our input. This is the most rewarding part of fostering.

We were to care for another young adult who, for the need of anonymity, I will call Dean. Dean had appeared in court in Edinburgh on police charges. He had allegedly been involved with a group of young people and events fuelled by alcohol that had warranted police intervention.

For his part was arrested which subsequently led to a court appearance in order for him to face the charges. During the process the court had deemed it necessary for him to be placed on remand. The usual procedure for youths of this age was to accommodate them in a detention centre. But the new current line of thinking was to place him via the family placement team into a family home to reduce the pressure on the overloaded system. So for this term he was to stay with us at Caverton Mill. As a condition he was subject to a strict curfew between the hours of 19.00 and 07.00.

Given the circumstances we were naturally apprehensive while anticipating his arrival. But we soon learnt that Dean was an amiable character, contrary to what we were expecting. He integrated into our home well, posed no threat and got on well with all the other children, especially our son Tom. He became like Tom’s older brother and seemed to enjoy their social interaction even given the age difference. I used to take him regularly on daytime visits to see his friends in Kelso and would collect him later prior to his curfew hours. We were to discover that he had developed a drinking habit and would partake during these visits. We noticed mild changes in his demeanor as a result but this never made him aggressive in the slightest. This pattern continued for several weeks but he never got totally drunk and was always there when I went to collect him so as not to contravene his remand conditions.

It was on one of these occasions that I had gone to collect him from a prearranged location on a social housing scheme in Kelso. It was winter and was already dark as I arrived at what appeared to be a scene of group violence. Dean was being chased and threatened by a gang and was running through the front gardens of houses trying to escape them. He saw me waiting, jumped a garden wall and into the passenger seat of the car. Given that discretion is the better part of valour I beat a hasty retreat, as we were leaving the estate police cars were arriving with their blues and twos. Dean was patently in an inebriated condition, beyond a level that I had witnessed previously. The best place for him now was his bedroom so that he could sleep it off, I thought. We arrived home, consulted with Pauline and he went straight to his bedroom. But it was only about an hour later that the police were knocking at the door to arrest him. Despite our request for them to wait until we had removed the rest of the children they entered and in full view of all arrested, handcuffed, and took him away with them to the police cells in Kelso.

This was an unnecessary, dispassionate action and quite shocking for the impressionable young children to witness. Pauline pertinently complained to the social services in an attempt to moderate police procedure. Dean was a wonderful young man, he just couldn’t resist drinking with it’s adverse effects. The police didn’t see or realise his good side, the sober and good guy that he could be, the part of him that everyone else appreciated. But that was the last time that I saw him, what a great shame and I have no idea what happened to him since.

At the same time as caring for the teenagers Christine and Dean we were also caring for a sibling group of three younger children. There were five children in all but the family placement team had decided to place the other two with another foster carer who lived in Jedburgh. Once a month a social worker would bring over the other two children from Jedburgh for an afternoon family get together in our home at Caverton Mill. This placed a lot more demands on Pauline while trying to look after them all and catering for their every need, while the social worker quite happily sat rooted in a chair drinking tea. It was only after a few choice words of encouragement from Pauline that he contributed some assistance by entertaining the children.

They were a mixed race family from Edinburgh and their father had recently died as a result of a drugs overdose. Their mother was no longer able to cope effectively, the children were suffering from neglect and had not been eating properly, when the social services intervened they discovered that there was no food in the cupboards, only items of confectionery. They were also suffering with emotional issues as a result. The eldest of the three was a girl about twelve years old, the second was a girl of about eight and the youngest was a baby boy of less than a year. The duration of their stay was yet to be defined as they were the subjects of a complicated legal process regarding their custody that would end up taking years to resolve. It started out as a temporary but progressed to become more permanent as the process laboured on. They ultimately ended up staying with us for three years until the court decided that they would go into the permanent care of their grandfather and move overseas to an island in the Indian Ocean that is synonymous with exotic foreign holidays.

9. In the Wilderness I was now working on the installation of Wally’s new kitchen. Not bespoke, which I prefer as I can make them at least equal in quality to prefabricated kitchens while efficiently utilising every available space. But Wally had decided upon and had bought the very popular pre-manufactured units that were delivered flat packed. These were good quality and certainly not the bottom of the range. Wally’s kitchen was large and in typical farmhouse style from the era with an enameled cast iron range type cooker. It had a concrete floor which was to be tiled in ceramics, a door and window combination that gave external egress, a window overlooking the yard, an internal doorway that led to the hall and the new one that I had installed which led into the modern ground floor shower room and toilet. The old kitchen units, that would have been fashionable and all the rage in the 60’s, were looking tatty and well past their sell by date.

The decorations were very tired and in an outdated mode, but these were destined to be refreshed as part of the project. It was late autumn, going on winter which can arrive early here. So I had my work cut out to complete before it’s onset and the festive period. I had no wish to be driving through thick snow.

The Maestro was turning out to be an ill informed choice, which came as no real surprise. I blamed my ignorance and the “go faster” red stripes which had sucked me in. It didn’t react well to rain and the wet roads, it’s not that the roof or windows leaked, just driving through puddles splashed water onto the electrics which shorted the circuits and brought it to an abrupt halt. I could slalom around the puddles to an extent but with torrential rain this really wasn’t an option. I was also conscious of my street cred which had already taken a dent by the purchase in the first place, I didn’t want to lose any more by what would appear to be poor driving abilities. Had it been a convertible and only used on dry days in the summer it would have been ideal. I have no wish to knock British Leyland, in fact I am full of admiration and respect for the finest engineering that our great nation can produce. But from this experience I had come to the conclusion that the BL management couldn’t have arranged a heavy drinking session in an establishment that produces beer. Having said that, the car had virtually paid for itself in fuel savings over the period that I’d been using it and still had a residual value as a trade-in. So, in

essence, I was in profit. But I did need something more reliable in the interest of going to and from work without disruption.

I knew of an independent motor engineer who had previously maintained the Maestro and campervan who worked from a small workshop just outside Morebattle. A trustworthy guy with whom I had since developed a friendship. He had obliged by servicing the Maestro and campervan to a good standard at a reasonable rate so I sought his opinion. But he was unable to come up with an effective repair without spending a disproportionately large sum of money. He was, nevertheless, helpful in offering an alternative solution. He was prepared to discount the scrap value of the Maestro as part exchange for another car that he was trying to sell, with this came a personal guarantee that the car was good and I trusted him implicitly given our relationship. So for only a little more money than I parted with for the Maestro we were to be the proud new owners of a black Volvo 300 series and by chance it was a sports version. A reliable car with more prestige, not a lot more but a bit and that was good enough for me. This turned out to be a good investment as it was used daily for four years with nothing more than the usual maintenance costs.

I had now completed all the work on Wallys pig farm and my stay there had sadly come to end, like all good things tend to. He was one of the nicest people that I had the pleasure to have met in my life. Always had a smile and a joke, always polite and respectful. He was unpretentious, kind and helpful, the salt of the earth. I had the utmost respect for him and was thankful for the work that he had provided for me. Contact tends to dwindle as life tugs us in different directions and the distance between us widens and so my friendship with him diminished gradually. But my memory of Wally lives on, even today he is indelibly etched on my harddrive.

Christmas of 1996 was approaching and would be our first at Caverton Mill. I had no more building work to do in the immediate future. But this was an opportunity to take time out for the seasonal celebrations and rest, it would be a welcome break. We had a house full of children, six in all, and Christmas is the highlight of their year. We had presents to buy and some time to relax which would be the first in a long time. I had already made contact with an

architect in Hawick who had intimated that he would have work for me to do in the new year so I had something to look forward to.

It was now January 1997. I met Al for the first time at Rachel’s and Bing’s house while he was making a social visit and we immediately struck up a conversation and from there our friendship developed and flourished. Although he lived quite a distance away he was regularly in the Morebattle area when he would drop in for social visits.

He was Scottish, born and bred, had strong nationalist views and opinions with which I concurred. He was an intelligent guy, possibly in his late thirties, with a lot of life experience.

We had a shared love of smoking and drinking tea which we did, when it was appropriate to do so, during our conversations and games of chess. We had a lot in common; his political outlook mirrored mine and we were both at odds with a system that favoured the rich and penalised the poor. We enjoyed the game of chess and played whenever the opportunity arose. We were at a similar level which made for competitive games and we each lost as many as we won. A game of chess has been compared to having an in depth conversation with someone without speaking a word and so it is. It’s an engrossing game and also serves as a diversion from the day to day problems that tend to preoccupy the mind. It also exercises the brain muscle and promotes the ability to problem solve.

It was our games that rekindled my interest in playing the game competitively. I was never particularly good at it, my ELO rating places me at just a tad above the world average. Although I’ve played innumerably more games since this rating value has not significantly increased. I started to play correspondence games where the moves were recorded on a card and exchanged via the snail mail but this resulted in games that could last for months. When we used to live in Nuneaton I had played for the town team which I enjoyed so I decided to join a local team. My nearest town, Kelso, didn’t have one at the time so joined the Hawick club and played for them. Later, once it had been established, I defected to the Kelso club. Not that I was missed for my playing skills, I was pretty mediocre by the club’s standards, but we enjoyed each other's company and the associated banter. With both teams I traveled around the Borders to

various venues to play the other league teams once a week. It served as a good distraction and enabled me to make new friends.

Al lived remotely in a farm cottage at the edge of a field on the other side of Hawick. I visited his home on many occasions which he shared with his sister, Viv. From his account I learned that he had previously conducted a more high profile lifestyle and was a restaurateur at one point in his life. But now he liked to live his life closer to the ground and remain under the radar. This resonated with me, I understood and respected his current lifestyle choice. Our friendship dwindled as a result of my work and a later house move. In retrospect I feel that I neglected it and allowed us to drift apart. I have tried to find him on social media many times since but without success.

I did work with him on a few occasions, together with a mutual friend, Jack, and did small plastering jobs for him at his house. Jack was based in Jedburgh, was a roof slater by trade and still did work of this nature when the opportunity presented itself. On numerous occasions we worked together as a team on larger roofing projects. It was, indeed, Jack from whom I learned my roof salting skills and knowledge that would prove valuable in the not too distant future.

One of our larger jobs was to replace a roof for my landlord, Tod, at one of his more remotely located barns on the road out of Morebattle to Kelso.

The Duke of Roxburghe owned the Caverton Mill farm estate, among many others, his estate management team were responsible for it’s planned maintenance schedule. Although this was arranged, implemented and supervised by Tod. The schedule would include periodical painting of all of the external joinery on the farm’s buildings. But before this could be done all of the damaged or decaying timber had to first be rectified. In estate management terms this is described as “repairs prior to painting”. I had completed small maintenance jobs for Tod which he appreciated and enabled him to recognise my capabilities. So he invited me to survey all of the farms’ items of external joinery, of which there were many, in order to identify and quantify the repairs. He then asked me to carry out the necessary repairs and replacements. This would mean the replacement of doors, frames and windows beyond economic repair and splicing in new sections of timber to those that were. This amounted to several weeks' work which he paid

for either in periods of rent free accommodation or cash. Although a proportion of my time I bartered in exchange for the use of his tractors and trailers at a later date.

This was supplemented by other ad hoc repairs and improvements to many of the farms’ buildings. Some of which were to re-slate the deteriorating older roofs, there was a terraced row of what had originally had been farm cottages but had since been repurposed for vehicle and equipment storage. I was to work my way along the nail sick roofs of the terrace removing the slates, repairing the boarding below and re-fixing the slates with nails. There was also to be significant improvements and alterations to the secondary farmhouse which was occupied by his eldest son, Noel.

I had made contact with an architect in Hawick prior to finishing at wally’s pig farm as part of a wider search to find further work in the area. He invited me to a meeting at his office in Hawick as he had a specific project in mind for me. This was the refurbishment of a remote cottage which had been started but had only progressed to an extent. Because of its location he was experiencing difficulties in sourcing willing contractors to complete the project. We discussed the clients requirements and came to an arrangement that would satisfy and provide work for me that had the potential to continue for a considerable period of time.

It was a pleasant but long drive to get to the job in question. I had to first travel from Morebattle to Hawick and then along the A7 toward Carlisle and take a turning off at North House into the hills toward the settlement of Priesthaugh, about 35 miles in all. The site wasn’t in the village itself but a short distance prior and in an isolated location next to a small brook. The route from North House to Preisthaugh wasn't a road but a stone track that had been carved into the hillside and continued for about two miles to the site. The terrain was hilly and I soon lost sight of all signs of civilisation after leaving the main road. There were dangerous drop offs at the side of the track, which was unfenced, many tens of meters into the valley below. Parts of the track had been eroded by the weather where it narrowed to a width that made safe passing a little tricky. To finally get to the site I had to turn onto a side track and through the small river over a ford.

The plot was difficult to define given the lack of fences but it was occupied centrally by the subject of the work, a substantial stone cottage that had already been extended, had a new roof, new concrete floors and the windows and doors installed. My work entailed making some internal alterations, repair and install flue liners to the main chimney stack. I commuted daily from Morebattle, it was now April 1997 and while driving I listened to Terry Wogan’s Radio 2 breakfast show when he was referencing the visit of the comet, Hale Bopp, and commenting on the harbingers of spring. I set about my task and over a period of time completed the internal alterations, the next job was the chimney stack repairs.

As I was driving to the job the next day it started to rain, no problem, I thought, the work was inside and the inclement weather wouldn’t interrupt my progress. I passed along the stone track, through the birne and parked up next to the cottage. I then began to busy myself with the work on the internal chimney stack. I become totally engrossed in my work and my focus remains on the job in hand despite any ambient distractions, another example of my many idiosyncrasies. I paid no further attention to the weather until my lunch break when I noticed through the window that it was raining heavier and the river level had risen considerably. I went out to investigate and realised that it was now so deep that it would be impossible to get through in the car at the end of the day. “A boat, a boat, my kingdom for a boat”, he cried, but there was a certain scarcity of this resource in the mountains. No matter, I thought, being the eternal optimist, the rain may stop in the afternoon and, given that it was a small tributary, the river level would drop quickly. So I continued with my work, there was nothing else I could do anyway. The precipitation didn’t ease off but it continued unabated and by “knocking off” time the babbling brook had become a torrent.

Oops! What could I do now? I asked myself as I contemplated my situation and the options to alleviate the problem and enable my extrication. But these were severely limited to sitting tight and listening to the pitter patter of rain on slate or wading through the river and walking two miles in torrential rain to the nearest house to get help. I had no mobile phone and even if I did, the remote location suggested that I wouldn’t be in range of a signal anyway. It was now getting late and it had become dark. I had no food and I was getting a little peckish, the effects of my lunchtime peanut butter sandwiches had long since worn off. So I decided to try the option of

walking and wading through the river, which was now waist height. The water was cold and as it reached crotch level I sensed that awful shrinking feeling that only the male fraternity can understand. Having not reached the point of no return, I felt the intense power of the flowing water tugging at my feet and I was stumbling on the rocky river bed. I again decided that discretion is the better part of valour and in the interest of self preservation and a happier life I returned, dripping wet and shivering with the cold, to the sanctuary of the cottage, such that it was, to reconsider.

Mains electricity had not yet been installed but there was a petrol generator in the house for artificial lighting which I had been using during my work, a full-ish jerry can of petrol and a pack of candles. The generator had been running much of the day and the tank now needed a refill so I switched it off and the house filled with an eerie darkness. And, much like the Little Match Girl in Hans Christian Anderson’s famous story, I used a candle to provide a little solace and illuminate the process. With cold, shivering hands I placed the candle on the window ledge above the generator and proceeded to remove the lid of the petrol tank, while thinking to myself what a ridiculous predicament. But this is as bad as it gets, things can’t possibly get any worse. As I started to fill the tank Murphy struck again and the candle toppled over, fell onto the generator and ignited the fuel, I was definitely having a bad hair day. But I had no reason to grumble, I’d been blessed with a stroke of luck, only the generator was on fire and not the jerry can. Being grateful for the small mercies that life can sometimes bestow, I took off my wet jacket and used it to successfully smother the flames but I was now back in darkness yet again.

So with singed eyebrows I set about reigniting the candle. Once bitten, twice shy so this time I placed the candle on the floor at a safe distance and refilled the tank. I’m not religious in any way, shape or form but I found myself grasping at straws, praying that I hadn’t damaged the machine, it would start again and that the last remaining light bulb wouldn’t give up the ghost.

To my great relief the engine started on the first pull and the room lit up again, maybe someone or something was listening and heeded my prayers.

Water dissipates body heat 20 times faster than air and although it wasn’t winter time with very cold temperatures, I was sodden and trembling with the cold. So I sat in the car and ran the engine until the inside was like an oven which warmed me to the bones. And I had another

stroke of good fortune, there were packs of expanded polystyrene boards for the house insulation so using these I rigged up a box that spookily resembled a white coffin and slipped inside in the hope that I wasn’t tempting fate. While lying there and contemplating an overnight stay in this makeshift hotel I smoked my last cigarette.

The point had long since passed when Pauline had become concerned about my whereabouts, I’m not renowned for stopping off at the pub on the way home. She had telephoned the Hawick police station and explained the situation. They suggested that she, with the assistance of our neighbours, drive to Hawick and guide them to the location. Pauline had been there but couldn’t remember it’s name or describe the route over the telephone. She accompanied them to the location and just as I’d given up all hope of being rescued, from my coffin I witnessed the car headlights filtering through the windows, it was a sight for sore eyes.

I ran out leaping and bounding in the hope that they weren’t just passing by and to welcome them. I would have offered them a cup of tea but I was clean out of teabags. The concerned officers told me to hold tight and wait a while until they went to the nearest farm for help, but they were preaching to the converted, I had no wish to do anything but. They returned 20 minutes later with a farmer who had brought with him a tractor with an extendable boom, on the front forks were a wooden pallet and a coiled rope. The boom extended over the river, so I boarded the pallet and tied myself on with the rope, the boom was retracted and I alighted on the other side of the river. What a relief, it was the early hours of the morning but the police had helped me to escape from prison, now that must be a first! I was now in the back of a warm police car with Pauline, a new experience for me, not being with Pauline but being in the back of a police car, and we were on our way back to Hawick. But this little episode didn’t end there, there was a bit more to follow and I would have to return to recover the car on another day.

Our neighbours who had ferried Pauline over from Caverton Mill in their car had only a little fuel in the tank at the start of the journey, there were no petrol stations enroute given the hour of the night, the cars’ engine was now running on the vapours. The only option was to return to Caverton Mill via a long detour to Galashiels where there was a petrol station open 24/7. But we first visited Christine’s mother who lived in Hawick, we thought her local knowledge might

include a petrol station in the area open at that hour. But alas there were none, it transpired, but she did have a petrol container that she was prepared to loan us in case we developed a need.

Having got to Galashiels on a wing and a prayer we replenished the cars’ petrol tank, completed the detour and eventually arrived back home at about four o’clock in the morning. While counting my blessings I snuggled into a warm and dry bed. It was a bizarre and surreal experience that would’ve defied the imagination of most. One that I have absolutely no wish to repeat but will never, ever forget.

It was now the summer of 1997. Tod and his family had bought a small farm sometime previously which was located off the B6436 road from Morebattle to Kelso; it was extensive having many acres of arable land and a few old barns, one of which Al, Jack and myself had reroofed the year before. It had been operated remotely over the years and, therefore, didn’t benefit from the existence of a farmhouse. On Tod's retirement, the elder brother, Noel would move into the main farmhouse at Caverton Mill as the farm manager and Tod would move into the smaller, secondary farmhouse. The younger brother, Kevin, would then have no house of his own in which to live. A farm is permitted to have a farmhouse despite any other planning restrictions that apply. So they decided to build one for him at their new farm. They had employed the services of an architect to produce the scheme for the necessary approvals and the working drawings for the project.

Tod approached me again to inquire whether I was interested in doing much of the building work and I, of course, replied in the affirmative. He wanted me to carry out all of the work for the structural elements to include the foundations, floor slabs, walls, roof, internal partitions, plasterboarding and later to install the kitchen. For which he would pay by installments as the work progressed. He was to arrange for others to do the internal finishes, windows and doors, the electrical and plumbing installations. But this still represented several months of work which would take me from the summer of 1997 well into 1998 and it was only a ten minute drive from home.

The isolated farmhouse intended for Kevin would have a detached garage and consist of an entrance vestibule, a large open plan hall/reception room with a grand staircase leading to a

balconied landing. A large lounge with a feature open fireplace, large kitchen, separate dining room, utility room and downstairs cloakroom. Upstairs there were three bedrooms and a large family bathroom. Kevin naturally had a keen interest in the project and used to visit the site on a daily basis to witness the progress and get involved in the process.

He was an amiable young man and very easy to get on with. The main sport in the Borders was rugby and Kevin used to play for the Kelso town team. In one of their more successful seasons they had progressed to a final tie with their arch rivals, Galashiels, which was staged at the national stadium, Murrayfield, in Edinburgh. I’m not the keenest of rugby fans but do like to watch the big tournament games. I’m more of a football fan and, like most of our family, follow Coventry City, Sky Blues. Steven, my eldest son, and I even went to their one and only FA cup final at the old Wembley stadium in 1987, which they won by beating Spurs 3-2 after extra time, with the spectacular Keith Houchen flying header and Gary Mabutt’s welcomed own goal. But Kevin had bought us tickets for the rugby final at Murrayfield which we gratefully accepted, it made for a great day out, even though Kelso lost on the day.

I completed the aspects of the work for which I was responsible and left the job in the spring and waited for the completion of the other trades. It was now the summer of 1998 and I returned to fit the kitchen. Tom was on his school summer holiday and liked to come with me while I did the work. He used to help some and I hoped to inspire him to learn a little about the building trade. He enjoyed working with wood so I set my work bench up in the kitchen and gave him some wood, hammer and nails so that he could make something and exercise his creative skills. While he busied himself I was finishing off the kitchen installation. I got to a natural break by which time Tom had become conspicuous by his absence, where has he disappeared to, I thought, as I noticed drips of blood on the floor. I followed the trail which led to the car and I saw Tom sitting in the passenger seat nursing an injury. “What have you done?”

I inquired, “I’ve cut my hand,'' he replied. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I continued, “I thought you’d get angry,'' he said. I looked at his hand, it had a nasty knife cut that was bleeding quite a bit. By my assessment, a cut that wouldn’t heal without the assistance of professional intervention, although no way it was life threatening. “How did you do it?”. “I used your craft knife”, contrary to my advice, “and it slipped and I cut my hand”.

I rushed him to the health centre in Kelso where a nurse treated the wound by installing butterfly ties and dressed the injury. But he learnt from his mistake and with young people these sorts of injuries heal very quickly. I finished the work at Kevins’ farmhouse and it was now time to move on.

10. A Wark in the Country It was now August of 1998. Our savings had reached a level that would enable us to start looking for a building plot at the lower end of the price range. The staff at the building society associated with the estate agency where they had been accumulating were keen to help us in our quest. We were quite excited about the prospect, after all it was the culmination of two years of saving. They highlighted several potentialities which enabled us to commence the hunt. After numerous unproductive weeks of extensive searching covering the length and breadth of the Border counties we discovered a plot in an ideal position that suited our limited budget. Small but sufficiently large to accommodate a well proportioned detached house.

This was in the village of Wark-on-Tweed, Northumberland. Which is located just south of the river Tweed and the border with Scotland, the second village in England one would encounter while travelling east from Kelso to Cornhill-on-Tweed. Cornhill was only a mile or two distant to the east and lay on the main A697 road that links Newcastle, to the south and Edinburgh, to the north. The county town, Berwick-on-Tweed, is coastal and about 35 miles further east. A town we were destined to become a lot more familiar with in the not too distant future as it was the home of the local authority planning and building control departments.

It was small with a population not big enough to support the economic demands of a shop or public house and would possibly have been classified as a hamlet if not for the existence of the church which had since been demolished. There were no more than 70 or so houses, some of which were sited either side of the Carham to Cornhill road as it passed through. However, the bulk of the village lay to the north and was out of sight of the main road because of the terrain.

This area was only accessible via either of the two small access roads which lead off the main road; they immediately went over a small hill and met to form a continuous route through the village.

There were no road or street names in the village so the houses, for identification purposes, had given names. There was a village hall, which wasn’t as traditional as it’s description may suggest. It appeared more like an industrial building, clad in painted corrugated asbestos type

sheeting. Amongst the other mundane items that it contained and much to my delight, it had a full sized snooker table which we were to put to good use in the future. I’m no Ronnie O’Sullivan or Stephen Hendry but I could pot a ball or two. All of the village houses were built in a style sympathetic to the environment and were rendered with a white painted finish, of reconstituted stone in a contemporary fashion, of natural stone in traditional style or a combination of all three. There was a single row of terraced houses, which were originally owned by the municipality for social housing purposes, but had since been purchased by private entities.

Depending upon location there were views to the north of the river Tweed, the border with Scotland, or to the south of the undulating landscape of north Northumberland. The Tweed flowed west to east and eventually into the North Sea, bounded the village to the north and was famous for its salmon fishing. People wanting fishing holidays would pay considerable sums of money for the privilege. “Who Wants to be a Millionaire’s” Chris Tarrant, amongst other celebs, was a regular visitor. In the centre of the village there was an open, undeveloped area, bounded by the access road servicing the village; this was grassed and contained bushes and trees.

Wark is a village of significant historical interest as it once hosted the famous castle. The castle no longer exists but it’s ruins are defined by a mound which can be identified by the compressed contours in the centre of the map and the photographic image below.

Plan to show the position of the castle’s site.

The castle mound.

The castle was originally built in 1136 but was destroyed during a siege by the Scots in 1138. It was subsequently rebuilt in 1161. An octagonal keep, towers and gatehouse were added in the early 13 c. It was here that “The Order of the Garter” was founded in 1349. It was refurbished in approximately 1515 and the numerous subsequent attempts to besiege it by the Scottish and French armies were successfully repelled by the occupying English forces. It witnessed many

bloody battles but was eventually demolished at the order of King James upon the “Union of the Crowns” circa 1600.

This was a defensive work and occupies part of an elongated glacial mound, a mini-escarpment rising abruptly from the south and extending east and west for some 300 meters each side of the motte. The greater part of the castle and modern village are located on the north side of the mound. Wark Castle was, with Norham and Berwick, one of three English castles on the banks of the Tweed and, with Norham, one of the two to be taken by James IV in September 1513.

Unlike Norham, however, there is no known documentary information available on James IV’s conquest of Wark Castle, leaving archeological methods as the only means by which to approach questions about the layout of the English defences at the time.

plan of Wark Castle, c.1561

The landscape of Wark on Tweed site is dominated by the earthwork castle mound, raised on the centre of the kaim, with the Middle and Outer Wards positioned to the north on gently undulating ground between the kaim and river cliff. Much of the inner bailey was then overgrown and waste ground, while the Outer Ward contains modern buildings and open spaces. Stonework remains of the castle are fragmentary and, apart from sections of heavily overgrown curtain walling, there are no surviving standing medieval structures.

Although not documented, local knowledge evidences that the church, St. Giles chapel, which was later demolished or fell into a ruinous condition, was built using the stone from the castle after it was demolished. These facts, indeed, become pertinent to my story which I will highlight later.

The plot attracting our interest was on the side of the more easterly entrance roads to the village and had been on the market for quite some time. It was small, at only 300 or 400 square meters, and from a project perspective presented several hindrances. It was a sloping site in both directions, had a steep embankment on one side going down to the road and was triangular in plan. These issues would have deterred many but I recognised it’s potential and saw these negatives as quirky positives, I could indeed, turn them to our advantage. Being elevated there were stunning, panoramic views in all directions, more especially to the south.

At the higher end of the site was a small mound known as a “kaim” which describes a geological feature, a ridge of stone and sand created at the side of a valley by a glacier in the last ice age.

Upon which was the only suitable place for the build but there was a mild slope across the kaim, for which the plan would need to accommodate. It was, however, sufficiently wide enough for a large detached cottage at about 30 meters. The land tapered to a point as it sloped down to the lower end, toward the main road. It can be identified on the village map above, to the left side of the easterly road entering the village.

We were to drive to the site countless times from our home at Caverton Mill in Morebattle, the cross country route would take past what was the old Wark railway station, platform and under the disused railway bridge on the hill opposite. As we drove down the hill toward Wark we had incredible views of the village and the site as we approached. On these journeys we would often encounter the wildlife synonymous with the Borders countryside. Rabbits, hares, deer and grouse or pheasants which were the subject of the Borders’ hunting sports. Why it’s classified as a sport baffles me, not much of a sport; the birds were unable to shoot back and had suicidal tendencies anyway. The pheasants were often encountered in flocks in the road and rather than retreat from a speeding car would more commonly rush at it head long making them almost impossible to avoid. I lost a headlamp unit and a front registration plate on two separate occasions. Pauline actually collected two brace of fresh road kills on her walks and hung them

mature. Later gutted, plucked, made them oven ready and placed in the stove and left them to cook while she went out, on her return found them burnt to a crisp.

On the plot stood an old stone built cattle shed, identifiable by the image on the left.

It contained the remnants of 4 or 5 stalls, old equipment and debris were scattered about. There was even an ancient milking machine manufactured by my name's sake Gascoigne’s of Wolverhampton which had long since seen action. Above it, on the second floor, was an area for poultry and birds such as doves. From whence its name was derived, the “Dovecote”. It was in poor condition and too small to be transformed into a home. Although, at the moment it represented a liability, it had value as the stone could be recycled into the new house. The building was stone faced on both the inside and out so it would provide twice the surface area that was readily visible from the outside, this I calculated would be sufficient for the build. The roof was covered in Scotch slate of random size and thickness and had no recyclable value.

The asking price for the plot was somewhat lower than many we had seen, probably as a result of it’s problematic nature and size. But I could clearly see through this to the other side, they were secondary considerations, the real value lay in the location and outlook. The stones from the demolitions were an added bonus as a material source. This was a gem in terms of potential and our limited budget, we couldn’t possibly let it pass us by. But we thought it prudent to cloak our enthusiasm which we needed to conserve for the build at a later date, and began the negotiation process.

We could afford, just, to pay the asking price. But we could maybe turn what was a disadvantage in selling our previous home in Earl Shilton into an advantage here. The vendor was an architect who lived in Newcastle but also owned the cottage adjacent to the plot. It had been on

sale for a long time and the housing market was still in a depressed state. So I could, therefore, take a chance and make a considerably lower cash offer at the outset in the hope that it would be accepted. I was expecting it to be rejected out of hand and was prepared to make an increased offer, even to the asking price if necessary. But, much to my surprise and delight, it was immediately accepted.

We were well pleased, ecstatic even. Our plan and dream was now becoming a reality. We were about to become, if not home owners again, then landowners in the county of Northumberland. The deal would leave us sufficient funds, together with what we could accumulate in the interim, to pay for the materials to get the project out of the ground and even to a landmark stage in the building process, which is the horizontal damp proof course at ground floor level. All that we needed now was to initiate the legal process which shouldn’t take too long as the purchase didn't involve banks, building societies, surveyors or mortgages.

However, once complete, another lengthy one would begin. That was to create plans capable of obtaining local authority planning and building regulation approval. The latter is reasonably straightforward, they are just lines and words that are deemed to satisfy the technical requirements. The former, from experience, was more difficult and focused on the aesthetical aspects.

11. A Cunning Plan, Me Lud We would remain at the cottage in Morebattle for the duration of the build and maintain an income stream that would not only satisfy our living costs but also and at a rate that would at least match that of the build to cover the material costs as it progressed. I was to provide all of the labour and, therefore, there was no financial cost in this respect. The income from our fostering work, although significant, wasn't sufficient in itself to support the build in this fashion so it had to be supplemented. The work that I had been doing with Al and Jack on roofing work I enjoyed and provided such an income but it was intermittent, far spread geographically and weather dependent. I needed continuity and a reliable income on which I could make plans but still enabled me to have time enough to progress the build. This was impossible, I thought, until I spotted an opportunity in the situation's vacant column.

Borders College, Galashiels was seeking a temporary, part time lecturer in brickwork and construction which I thought had my name written all over it. I had experience working with young adults, considerable site experience, excellent tool skills, comprehensive theoretical knowledge and the necessary qualifications. I even had lecturing experience as an instructor in SCUBA diving with the British Sub-Aqua Club in Hinckley. I seemed to check all the boxes. So I made an application and was invited for an interview.

They wanted someone to cover for a colleague who was off work on long term sick leave. The job was to prepare and present lectures and carry out assessments on the practical, workshop elements of courses leading to an SVQ level 3 qualification in brickwork and construction. The theoretical, classroom aspect was covered by another full time lecturer. These courses were sectionalised into units that focused on the many different but typical aspects of brickwork that would be encountered on building sites; cavity wall construction is an example. They offered me the job with an immediate start, but this was conditional on that I studied for and worked toward the D32/33 assessor qualification, this wasn’t a problem for me so accepted the appointment which would be initially for two and a half days a week. This would return half a full time salary, leaving four and a half days a week and 12 full weeks holiday a year to build the house. It was ideal, what was there not to like?

The workshop had resources sufficient for 20 students, although, because of the intake at the beginning of the academic year this number would often be exceeded, the college needed bums on seats for economic reasons. There was a large drop off rate on the full time course but we were encouraged to keep the students until November as this qualified the college for additional revenue. There were two courses, spanning two years, one for full time students installed by the college and one for block release students associated with companies as apprentices installed and financed by the Construction Industry Training Board (CITB). The terms for the CITB course were split into two to create the blocks, one for each year.

It transpired that a more appropriate job description would have been “motivator”. The majority of the full students possessed little if any in this respect. They were often encouraged to enroll on the course as a last resort if all the more appealing ones had been fully subscribed.

There were students who enrolled simply because they couldn’t find any gainful employment and needed something to do to qualify for state benefits. Their attendance was poor as was their time keeping and when they actually did turn up for lectures they thought it more entertaining to throw bricks and mortar at one another. A lot of my time in the early days was spent trying to maintain a modicum of decorum and discipline, leaving very little time left to actually teach. It was another case of the few spoiling it for the many. These types of students, thankfully, didn't stay for long, the little interest they had initially soon dwindled. Together with the college’s disciplinary procedure usually dispensed with them long before the end of the first term. There were exceptions, however, and a few were motivated enough to get apprenticeships. The CITB apprentice students were different, they had a desire to retain their paid jobs and to do this they were required to attain a minimum level of achievement and attendance.

The workshop was divided into individual workspaces and each student had a tool cupboard containing the necessary items to complete the projects. I would describe the process, demonstrate the tool skills and procedure for each task, assist when required and assess the product in accordance with defined performance criteria. The learning outcomes were sequenced in order of difficulty, starting with the least demanding and progressing to the most

difficult. Once the student had achieved each learning outcome, both theoretically and practically, the course was complete. The material requirements for these were ascertained at the beginning of the year, the sand/lime was ordered and delivered by truck as and when it was required, it contained no cement so that it could be recycled time and time again by using a pan mixer by simply adding water and plasticiser to give it workability. The bricks and blocks were delivered and stored in the workshop. There was natural wastage, however, given that some had to be cut to size, but in the main these were also recycled. I had the assistance of a labourer whose job it was to maintain the workshops’ cleanliness and help with the material recycling.

But he also severely lacked motivation, was unreliable, was work shy and was often off on sick leave.

It was now September 1998. The legal process for the land purchase was complete, the next phase was to create the sketch scheme and working drawings. I had no real desire to hire the services of an architect due to the cost, loss of control and as a result of my experiences while working with some in the past. My career experiences have given rise to my understanding that they’re absolutely necessary for large projects, those greater than a one off speculative house build; and for which the good ones are understandably in great demand. But for smaller domestic sized projects there was a greater chance of encountering those less capable.

I am saying this with due respect to all good architects, as in all professions, I’m sure that there are far more good ones than bad ones. But it had, in some instances, made me question whether the lines drawn on the plan had just been randomly placed, in much the same way that some people pick their lottery numbers, figments of a vivid imagination or as a result of using a tape measure that had the first 30 cm missing. In any case not representing the reality that exists in the world of sane men. The worst of my experiences suggested that to successfully construct a proposed loft conversion the roof had to be first totally dismantled and rebuilt.

When the dimensional inaccuracies were subsequently highlighted the architect’s cop out was to refer to a clause in small print so tightly squeezed into the bottom corner of the plans that it was barely legible. It read something like “The contractor is responsible for checking all

dimensions on site”. But what it was really saying was “Don’t bother consulting these plans, they would serve better repurposed as toilet paper”.

The first job was to do a site recce to ascertain its precise dimensions using a fully intact tape measure and determine the degree of slope using a level, tripod and staff. Taking into account other influences, like the embankment, that would affect the extent of the proposal. This would enable me to create a sketch scheme that could be presented to the planning officer for his consideration. The site sloped down in two directions, from right to left which, over the length of the proposal, amounted to about one and half meters and from front to back, which over the width of the proposal had little influence. Although this slope progressively steepened as it descended what was going to be the back garden.

I came up with a scheme that would result in the house being built in two connected portions, the right side (looking from the front) aligned with the adjacent cottage and the left side stepping forward and down to account for the slope and the diminishing width of the site from front to back. The external walls would be built in the stone resulting from the demolitions of the old Dovecote and the roof would be covered in new slate. It would have a large kitchen, living room, utility room, shower room, bedroom and garage on the ground floors and three bedrooms, one with an ensuite, office and bathroom on the upper floors. I say floors in the plural because, although only two storey, it was destined to have five different floor levels to account for the sloping site and a complicated staircase construction that would connect four of them, the fifth level being that of the garage.

The lower ground floor, to the left side, constituted about two thirds of the footprint. Here there was a large “L” shaped kitchen occupying the full width of the house at the end which had a square bay window, overlooking the side road. A stable door and a window over the sink facing the best of the views to the south and a window facing the north, overlooking the villages’ central green. Here was the dogleg of the “L” which led to the hallway. Across the internal corner of the “L”, at 45 degrees, there was to be a cast iron, solid fuel, range cooker. This would also serve as the central heating boiler and backed up to an antique “Coalbrookdale” cast iron stove in the living room, above them would be a twin flue chimney stack. The other side of the

internal corner of the “L” was a modest sized living room with French doors that presented the elevated views. It’s size would be amplified considerably by the addition of a conservatory and the removal of the French doors at a later date. It also had an internal doorway that led into the hallway, opposite which was a utility room that contained the incoming water and electricity supplies. The hallway continued up four steps to the higher level which gave access to the staircase leading to the upper levels, the front door, an internal shower room and one of the four bedrooms. The remainder of the footprint was occupied by an integral garage that was accessible by the double external doors to the front.

The first flight of stairs from the lower levels terminated at a corridor in the larger portion of the house which led to a full width master bedroom with ensuite, a small office over the utility room and a bathroom over the living room. The final flight of the stairs led to a small landing at the highest floor level and further to a full width bedroom over the garage. The last of the bedrooms occupied the area over the ground floor bedroom. The ceilings to the two large bedrooms were not in the conventional style, that is suspended horizontally off the ceiling ties.

A hybrid warm roof facilitates a ceiling between the rafters elements of the bespoke trusses.

This created more voluminous rooms with exposed roof timbers which added to the character of the house.

The scheme received a positive response in all respects bar one. The planning officer wanted new precast reconstituted stone quoins, lintels and cills that mimicked natural stone.

Subsequent inquiries revealed that the exorbitant cost of these would put a massive dent in our budget and set our plans back substantially. So I had to come up with a reasonably priced and convincing alternative that would be deemed acceptable. I found a textured sandstone coloured brick at a fraction of the cost that, if studied at a distance, appeared in all respects like the real McCoy. I would propose if these were block bonded at the corners as quoins, laid on end as a soldier course above the windows and doors and on edge for the cills it would achieve a very similar effect. I was naturally convinced but that fact was irrelevant, it was imperative that I was able to do the same for the planning officer. Another of Baldrick's cunning plans was required.

We thought the best chance of being successful was to take the young children that we were fostering for an enjoyable day out to include a Mcdonald's lunch in Berwick and a visit to the planning office. The theory supporting this plan was that knowing that we were foster carers with three children we might get the sympathy vote and with them running riot in their office they might want to get rid of us, to return never again. Of course, we thought, the easiest way for them to achieve this would be to agree with the idea and approve it; and glory be, much to my relief it did the trick so we could leave their offices with smiles on our faces. Whether it was the quality of my presentation or the presence of the troublesome children I’ll never know, but I didn't much care, it was the result that was important.

The next stage was to produce more detailed drawings for the planners which they could rubber stamp and a full set of working drawings for the building control officer, whose interest was focused on the technical aspects, the nuts and bolts, for building regulation approval. My knowledge of the building regulations was reasonable but not comprehensive by any stretch, but sufficient to make a plausible initial attempt, happy in the knowledge that it would possibly result in a qualified rejection. But with a rejection came the detailed reasons, all I had to do then was to address them by amending or adding to the plans and then re-submitting.

We were in an era of great computer technology advancements courtesy of Windows and Bill Gates but it was when computer aided design (CAD) was in its infancy. I decided that it was neither worth the time, effort or expense to go to the trouble of learning for a one off project. It was more efficient, therefore, to do it in good old fashioned style with, not a quill but drawing pens, a cobbled up drawing board, tee square, set square, scale rule, pencils and, most important of all, an eraser. Not an unpleasurable task, it’s quite rewarding to develop ideas and put them onto the paper and see what we potentially could be living in. This was to be the concept that I alluded to earlier in the book.

Pauline and I spent a lot of time considering the layout and were in a dilemma with respect to the living room and kitchen. The scale of the lower ground floor section would have facilitated either a larger living room and a smaller kitchen or vice-versa. Given that we wanted to have a range style cooker, which was space consuming, and a dining area we elected for the larger

kitchen option. We believed that we could easily extend the living room with a conservatory at a later date but didn’t want to tempt fate with it’s inclusion in the planning application as it was an element that could possibly increase the chances of a refusal. The upper floor was less challenging as we wanted to maximise the number of bedrooms without compromising the size of the two major ones. In hindsight I thought, given the limitations imposed by the sites’ size and topography that the rest of the layout pretty much designed itself.

It was only about a week later that I had developed a scheme that we both Pauline and I liked. I had created a full set of drawings, about twelve sheets of A3 paper in all; and not long afterwards they were winging their way to the council offices in Berwick. It was now just a case of waiting for the conclusion of the due process. Planning approval was a foregone conclusion, a dead cert in horse racing terms. Building regulation approval, though, still hung in the balance. After several weeks and the anticipated rejection and resubmission of the building regulation application I now had the two approvals. Building regulations, which was subject to statutory site visits by the building control officer as the work proceeded and the planning permission which was subject to the commissioning of an archeological evaluation and report prior to the work commencing. The evaluation, for which we had to pay, was required to further develop the understanding of Warks’ and the castles’ history. English Heritage and the historians wanted to either confirm or debunk the theory that there was a gatehouse in the outer wall of the castle on our site going back 500 years before it was demolished.

Much to my disappointment the archeological evaluation had to be carried out by a registered and bona fide contractor. I had my heart set on being Baldrick’s alternative perona, Tony Robinson’s in his role as the famous archeologist in the television series “Time team”. So I had to put my bucket and spade away for the time being. We acquired several quotes for the work which were far ranging in value, the most competitive price was from Newcastle University. I, therefore, placed an order with them and within a week they arrived to carry out the work.

They carefully dug a pit of 1 m x 1 m square and 60 cm deep in the floor of the old Dovecote and a graduated trench about 3m long at a similar maximum depth across what was going to be the garage. But nothing of interest was unearthed, it only revealed a modern but mangled dining fork, a modern bottle lid and pig bones. I was both disappointed and relieved at the same time,

disappointed that they didn’t discover anything of significance and relieved that had they done so there would have been delays while further investigations were made which would have delayed the start of the building work.

12. Building Hope

This part of my story contains a certain amount of relevant technical stuff but not having a wish to bore and deter, I have endeavoured to explain, in an entertaining way, the jargon in easy to understand layman's terms.

It was now October 1998. All of the qualifying preambles had been successfully completed, the real work could now begin. Before any of this could start the site had to be first cleared and the old Dovecote demolished. There was no way of establishing the date of its construction, but given the style, building method and materials I guesstimated centuries ago. No records exist that would have defined it but it certainly post dated the demise of the old church, St. Giles’ chapel. The demolition process is a reversal of a build, from the top down. The stone was to be recycled into the new Dovecote, this was piled close to where it was going to be used but not so close that it would obstruct the work to create the foundations. This was no mean feat, the stone walls which were nearly 60 cm (2 feet) thick and produced a massive pile amounting to in excess of 80 tonnes and these had to be moved by hand. I was acutely aware of the need to minimise unnecessary material handling, especially in this case.

The irregularly shaped stones were a mix; whinstone, a very dense, black, volcanic rock that defies the ability of the finest drill bit, quartz, limestone and sandstone. On a scale of proportion the whin was the hands down winner by the proverbial mile. Many of the stones’ original colours had since been disguised by an accumulation of calcium deposits during their metamorphosis. Other than the dressed sandstone they had all been rounded off by erosion over time by the abrasive nature of a river and glacier in which they once were. The Tweed river valley was wide which had been widened further by a glacier in the last ice age. These stones had then been deposited at various locations on the sides of the valley as the glacier retreated.

In abundance and free of cost, were used by local builders in house construction and by the builders of Wark castle many centuries ago.

On the corners of the old Dovecote were dressed sandstone quoins. I discovered during the demolition process that these were once actually gothic arched window sections given their shape and the glazing channels to house leaded glass panes that are synonymous with church architecture. In this case they had been laid on their side, which obscured the window profile, so that they presented the observable flat and square sides. I came to the conclusion that the builders of the old Dovecote sourced the stones from the ruins of the old church which in turn was built from the castle ruins. It was totally reasonable to assume that I was about to build a house using stones that were millions of years old, had many previous incarnations, one of which inferred that they had witnessed bloody battles and the deaths of many brave soldiers at the castle. In today's world, there is an emphasis on environmental issues, this endless recycling process not only contributes to an environmentally friendly product but additionally provides an attractive, rustic and more economical style of architecture.

Health and safety regulations have been introduced and evolved over recent years and for good reason. But these add a significant cost to projects and are not confined to the building industry alone. It is my personal opinion that they have now unnecessarily exceeded what I consider as reasonable. I am, however, conscious of the need to consider and respect them by using safe but reasonable working practices without going over the top. At the time, the work that I was about to begin was considered as a DIY project and these regulations did not apply. What a relief!

A close neighbour, Richard, with whom I became good friends, possessed a large excavator which he used in his business of forming and maintaining drainage ditches on local farms. He was more than happy for the opportunity to earn more from work right on his doorstep. The excavations for the foundations, sewerage system and services would now not present any sort of problem. Nor was there for the disposal of excavated materials as I had made provision for this well in advance. I had bartered my time doing work at Tod’s farm at Caverton Mill in exchange for the use of his drivers, tractors and trailers. This was a mutually beneficial arrangement, Tod didn’t have to part with any cash, could use fuel exempt of tax and equipment that may have otherwise been lying idle. I didn’t earn money that would have been subject to income tax or pay the expensive rates that a haulage company would have charged.

Before I could get wheels in motion I first had to do the setting out. This involves installing wooden profiles at the end of each trench, defining the position of trenches and walls with nails on the profile. A string line, anchored to the nails would then stretch between the profiles, a spray paint or white powder such as hydrated lime could be used to mark the ground along the line. The machine operator could use this as a guide to position the bucket on the excavator.

Once these lines were installed I could organise all of the machines to be at the Dovecote at the appropriate times.

It was a fine day and first thing in the morning, I didn’t want this taking any more than one day. Tod had arranged to bring over three tractors with trailers so that Richard would have continuity of work while the excavated material was being ferried away. The ground was extremely well compacted, a mix of river stone and sandy clay. As Richard was cutting the trenches sparks were flying off the bucket when it scraped across the hard and dense whinstone. This was a perfect base off which to build the foundations and would possess an incredible load bearing capacity. I had spent much of the day kicking my heels, other than supervising there was nothing more that I could

do. But by the end of the day the foundation trenches, a meter deep, were complete. The trenches for the services would have to wait for another day, their existence at this time would only serve to hamper the foundation work.

I tend not to use ready mixed concrete if it’s at all possible, it is convenient and makes for lighter work if there's a large team on site to handle it, but getting a team of workers for very short periods is tricky to do. Not just, it only permits a two hour window of workability to place it and apply a finish. If my plans went pear shaped I could be stuck with a liability, six cubic meters of expensive concrete with nowhere to put it. So I like to have the ingredients delivered and mix my own. This is physically harder work but total control is maintained and enables the opportunity to stop and start at will given changes in weather conditions. The precise quantity can be mixed avoiding the consequences of over or under ordering in the event of a miscalculation.

The foundation concrete only needed to be a nominal 150 mm or 6” deep with steps to account for the sloping ground. It is good practice to achieve a level playing field from the very start and maintain it all the way up to the wall heads. Time spent getting it just right at this point is time well invested and continues to pay dividends throughout the process. I used the level, tripod and staff to establish a level at every corner. This is a post with a mark defining the horizontal damp proof course (DPC) and ground floor slab level. This becomes a critical datum from which I could reference to determine levels by measuring down from for the substructure and up from for the superstructure. This is the most important reference point on a house build to maintain levels and would become available at any point around the house at the top of the foundation blockwork once complete.

Once the foundation concrete was in place I could focus on the walls up to DPC level, that of the datum. The timber profiles and string lines defining the wall positions could be used again and enable them to be transferred to the concrete foundations which define the starting point of the walls. I would use dense concrete blocks for the walls, 100 mm (4”) for the inside leaf of the cavity wall and flat on their side, 225 mm (9”) for the external leaf. The external leaf was somewhat wider than the norm to enable the efficient use of the varying sizes of stones in the superstructure. If a particular stone didn’t have a minimum of 225 mm in any one of it’s dimensions it was not usable in the house walls and set aside for use in garden walls where the size wasn’t critical.

Once the foundation walls were complete the incoming water pipe, electricity cable and outgoing sewerage pipes could be installed. The electricity supply company was responsible for the cable and meter, but I had to provide a temporary waterproof box to house it and a temporary power point necessary for the work. This was raised off the ground on two wooden stilts and covered in polythene. In silhouette it resembled the title character in the film ET so Pauline christened as such. It was to be our ET for the next couple of years. The water supply company installed their pipe and stop tap in the same location, then it was possible for me to install a tap as a source of water for the site.

I would install the drainage pipes and inspection chambers; they used to be called manholes, but political correctness put pay to that term, then would make a connection to the villages’ existing sewerage system. But they were illusive, plans of their existence did appear to exist, it was a bit like the search for the Scarlet Pimpernel. But Richard had experience in “dowsing” and he claimed that he could find them. This is a method used to locate underground anomalies such as ground water, metals, ores, burial sites and more importantly for me pipes and drains. The skeptic in me had serious doubts that a process, such as this, that seemed to rely on witchcraft and had no scientific basis would be successful. The process utilises two ”L” shaped metal rods that are hand held. The rods are kept horizontal, parallel and close together while the user walks forward; if any anomalies were encountered the rods would twitch and cross over. Comparable to the self-proclaimed psychic, Uri Gellers’ illusion of bending metal spoons, I thought. But it was worth an optimistic stab in the dark, I had nothing to lose. I had to eat my words and become a convert, witchcraft actually does work. I had the same doubts about the spiritual world but my opinion was to later change in that respect also, I will visit that later on in the story.

The voids around the foundation walls were then backfilled up to ground level.

The levels within the house infilled to the underside of the under floor insulation.

This amount varied , there was very little at the upper end of the sloping ground, but a considerable amount for the lower, at the kitchen end. This is where the ground level was progressively ebbing away from that of the floor as it approached and then descended the embankment. Here the infill was as much as 1.2 m (4 feet) deep. I had a copious amount of inert excavated material which was a mix of small stone and sand, ideal for purpose. Richard’s digger bucket came in handy again for placing it which I then proceeded to compacted with a heavy vibrating machine. It took hours for the gyrations

resonating within my muscles and bones to subside. The expanded polystyrene (EPS) insulation was then laid on top and above it a damp proof membrane (DPM). It was now ready for the concrete ground floor slabs.

Because of the depth of infill, and even though it had been thoroughly compacted by machine, there remained a potential for further fractional settlement over a period of years. If it occurred it may have resulted in cracks forming in the concrete and floor tiles. So, to negate this possible sinking feeling, the concrete floor would need to be suspended, supported by the foundation walls. Concrete, although strong to resist the imposed compressive forces (those that seek to crush it), it is relatively weak in resisting the tensile forces (those that try to stretch or bend it). Given the intended suspensive nature of the floor it would need to perform much like a beam or a lintel over a window opening, but in this case a continuous beam. In this situation the crushing forces are imposed at the top and the bending forces toward the bottom of the slab. To compensate for the concrete’s lack of tensile strength steel reinforcement, which is very strong in tension, would need to be placed toward the bottom of the floor. This was achieved with a heavy gauge steel mesh placed 20 mm up from the bottom. It is the structural engineers’ job to calculate and specify the necessary requirements. But for a small job, such as this, it is less economical to pay the engineer's fee than to have over-specified steel with a greater gauge.

It was now ready for the concrete to form the floor slabs. Concrete has been with us for millenia, and just like the sketch from Monty Python’s “Life of Brian”, “What did the Romans ever do for us”. Concrete is one of the multitude of things that they introduced to the world, old Rome is built off it and has done rather well in terms of longevity. Although it can't compete with that of the Egyptian pyramids just yet, it's been used for over 2,000 years. Its use in construction has flourished ever since even though it’s considered by the preservation fraternities as an environmentally unfriendly product given the energy that is required to produce it. Concrete is a fascinating science in itself if you’re that way inclined, although the more sane of us would possibly beg to differ and think that going down the pub is much more fun.

Ready mixed concrete tends to be manufactured by design and according to compressive strength performance criteria for its intended use. This is quantified by a measure of pressure resistance, that is, downward force over a given area. Represented, in the world of structural engineers, by Newtons per millimeter square (N/mm2). For example, specifications for large civil engineering projects such as road bridges demand a high value, in excess of 30 N/mm2 with a minimum cement content to increase its durability or weather resistance. As a rule of thumb it achieves approximately one third of this value by day seven after the initial set, two thirds after a month and never actually reaches its maximum potential. Structural engineers’ in build large safety margins in their calculations and the resulting product can actually withstand many multiples of the anticipated loads. Think of a number and treble it seems to be the way to go, it can't be that easy, surely. “Gissa job, I can do that”. But in this situation and influenced by the fact it was to be produced on site then a nominal mix by proportion would suffice. Coarse and fine aggregates with cement in a ratio of 4:2:1 would produce a concrete to withstand a compressive force of 15N/mm2; and in colloquial terms, ”this would eat it”. On sites and in practical terms; half fill the mixer with sand and gravel, chuck in half a bag of cement and have a well earned fag break while it mixes. It’s a well tried and trusted formula.

13. Well! Stone Me I was now “out of the ground”, a significant milestone in the building process. The shape of the house was evident and the rooms could be envisaged with vividness if you were to squint a little, although the proposed rooms at this stage appear smaller without the surrounding walls.

The lines which had only existed on the plans and in my head were now a reality. There was a flat area where I could sit on a cement bag and have a cup of tea and to store materials that were not inclined to roll off and down the hill and onto the road. There was an even area at the front of the footprint that could actually be put to a practical use for storing materials. This is where our faithful old campervan would prove to be a boon.

I drove it over from the farm in Morebattle in the dark hours as I wasn’t totally convinced that Delboys’ “road tax in the post” sticker on the windscreen would save me from the inquisitive nature of the local constabulary. It had been idle for so long I wasn’t sure that it would even start let alone manage the journey. But start it did, emitted a rather disconcerting plume of black smoke and gave an explosive backfire. I’m not one for being easily perturbed so having satisfied myself that the essentials were as they should be, I set out, and to the credit of German motor engineering it performed faultlessly. I parked it up with elevated supports for the front wheels to make it level. It contained all of the facilities that would make life more bearable and provided for cooking, heating, washing and toileting. It would be a sanctuary, somewhere to rest and shelter in the event of inclement weather. It also provided comfortable seating so I now could dispense with my cement bag seat and remove the potential of developing piles.

Pauline was always keen to come over to witness the progress first hand and get involved whenever circumstances permitted. Weekends and school holidays were the norm given her commitment to the children for whom we were caring. They also liked to come over, it was a change of environment for them, there was a playground in the village, places to explore and they had made friends with some of the local children. Pauline could satisfy their needs with the facilities that the campervan afforded with it’s rudimentary kitchen and dining room.

Pauline helped me by moving materials to where they were needed, sorting and grading the stones into piles which aided in the selection process.

We had also developed friendships with numerous of the sociable people in the village, with whom she could chat while drinking tea. There were a variety of characters, some of whom had less appealing attributes than others. We soon recognised and tried to avoid the less salubrious, especially, a man whom we jokingly nicknamed “Hissing Sid”. He reminded us of the know it all character in “Harry Ebfield and chums” TV show who coined the phrases "You Don't Want To Do It Like That" and "Now I do not believe you wanted to do that, did you?" I’ve often encountered these advisory characters during my working life, they can be very annoying but very likely mean well. Even while working here in our village in Bulgaria, the regularly inebriated goat herdsman took it upon himself to visit me daily and advise on how I was doing all of the building work wrong.

The finances supporting the build were still in good shape, we had sufficient at the outest to cover the material costs that had got us to this stage and had, indeed, added to them with our combined incomes in the interim. If this were to continue at the same rate then it would comfortably keep pace or even in front of the progress to cover the cost of the material requirements, at least until we got to the expensive internal aspects after the shell was complete. This was a combined effort, we were a team. Pauline’s ambition and desire to make this happen was as great as mine. Her work and the finances that it generated were essential, without them the plan would never have turned into a reality. Her work was equally as demanding, if not in a physical sense, then in commitment, mentally and emotionally.

My work at Borders College continued. The lecturer for whom I was covering had since left the college and I was given a 0.5 permanent contract. The hours were increasing, in addition to the permanent contract work, I was also getting further work as a part of the temporary contract.

However, this represented a two edged sword, my income was benefiting but the time I had available to build the Dovecote was lessening, keeping a happy equilibrium was tricky. For the next four years I would be working constantly 7 days a week, week in and week out. The only break that I would get was for a two week summer holiday, a few days at Christmas and during periods of severely inclement weather which forced a lull in the work. Pauline’s foster caring work was a constant 24/7 which not only challenged her physically but also imposed the associated emotional stress. I did manage to contribute when possible but this was limited to

the times that I was actually at home. Our lifestyle was full on and didn’t provide the opportunity for a social life, not that we were big socialites anyway. This would be four years of constant work and would take its toll on our minds and bodies but; and although we didn’t see it at the time, we would come to reap the rewards in the years that were to follow.

The weather in the Borders was far less conducive to outside building work than I was used to in the midlands. It lay at a more northerly latitude which was influential in many respects. In the summer the daylight working hours were longer, in June it never got totally dark, there was always a light glow on the horizon even in the middle of the night. Conversely, in the winter they were far shorter. In late December it would start to get dark at about 3.30 in the afternoon, which considerably shortened the working day. The temperatures were also generally lower, in the summer if it was 30 degrees in the south of England here would only achieve those in the low twenties. Frosts were more frequent which can adversely affect building processes that required a wet mortar mix as the water could freeze, damaging the joint finish. Winter came earlier and spring arrived later. The proximity of the North Sea and the prevailing easterlies brought cooler temperatures, wetter weather and sometimes a dense sea fog known as haar.

Even in summer I would sometimes have to work with my back to the wind and rain.

Having completed the below ground work, the substructure, I was now able to begin the work above ground, the superstructure. I had all the resources I needed close to hand, a perfectly level playing field and more stones than I could shake a stick at. Lightweight blocks for the internal leaf of the external cavity walls, those that contain air bubbles much like an “Aero” chocolate bar and possess good thermal insulation properties. Several packs of the sandstone like bricks; and sand, cement and hydrated lime for the mortar mix.

Mortar is more commonly known on building sites by the colloquial term “muck”. On a large site with bricklaying teams it is not uncommon to hear the shouts of “muck up” from those who were placing the bricks as a request to the labourers to provide more mortar. My muck included lime as this possesses several desirable properties, it improved the workability without the need to introduce a plasticiser which had fewer benefits. “Workability” is a term used to describe the ease of its use, increase it and the mortar becomes cohesive, less crumbly

and “creamier”. It adds to the strength, durability and permits the building to “breathe”. It also accommodates better the small movements that a building experiences with thermal expansion and contraction without cracks forming in the joints. A house is a bit like a mammal in some respects, it moves in a controlled way with good design and building practices, breathes by allowing moisture to escape and can be subject to diseases that the same design and practices help to prevent. The mix proportions would be nominally four parts sand to one part cement and one part hydrated lime to account for the degree of exposure.

On jobs of this scale I had learned from experience that it is far better to break the work down into sectionalised, bite sized chunks, each representing one of the logical sequential phases.

This narrows the focus, serves to nullify the demotivational effects and doesn’t overload the thought processes. But as I looked up from the ground at the vast space above the foundations I thought to myself, “I’ve got to fill all of that with materials of one description or another”, it seemed like an impossible task. It was quite an awesome, disturbing and daunting thought. The demands lying ahead could have quite easily deterred had I not remained emotionally strong and motivated. But with positive thoughts, I compared my task to a walk of a thousand miles.

The journey begins with the first step and is limited to a finite number regardless of how many of them there are. In my case I just had to replace the hypothetical steps with bricks. I chose the most logical place to start and ceremoniously placed the first brick, my long journey on the superstructure had begun.

When building a wall the process begins with constructing the corners at each end first and then, with the aid of a string line, infilling the space between. I had the sandstone-like bricks which were block bonded with the stones at each corner, this involves stepping the brickwork in and out by half a brick every three courses, known as “toothing”. The regular

and square faces of bricks enable the use of a spirit level to get them perfectly vertical or “plumb”. I was able to refer to and measure up from the horizontal datum so that each corner remained equidistant and level. The string line assisted in aligning the stones but only from a birds eye view, given the irregularities this was not precise and resulted in a rustic and irregular face to the wall. The stones had rounded edges and even the flattest of faces had indentations and protrusions.

The stones had little or no porosity which slowed the drying rate and delayed the setting time of the mortar. This, therefore, became solely dependent on the weather conditions, cold temperatures and high humidity slowed the process, while warm dry days sped it up. Any rainwater on the stones’ face compounded the problem by adding moisture to the mix, so those for imminent use served far better by being kept dry under cover. Direct rain on a new section of wall, if not temporarily protected by polythene sheeting, could result in the stonework slumping and falling to the ground. The joints between the stones, even if they were narrow where the faces met, widened progressively toward the outside given their rounded nature. It was often not possible to get a good joint finish on the same day, so it had to be left and allowed to dry until the next day, which did create a certain amount of absorbency. Fresh mortar could then be applied, would dry and set more rapidly and a better finish applied. To reduce the joints’ apparent width I sculpted them with a small pointing trowel by cutting back the mortar from the stones’ face.

Stone rubble walling, for which it’s known, is an inherently slow and difficult process compared to it’s brickwork cousin. This limited me in how much that I could produce in a day, which on a good day was little more than five square meters. On less conducive days this figure could be considerably less. Unlike a brick wall where their uniformity enables the bricks to join one another harmoniously, stones don’t and tend to sometimes repel one another, much like the ends of a magnet with the same polarity. In which case the mason has to use techniques that offer encouragement to compensate. I have compared building stone rubble walls to making a large scale jigsaw where none of the pieces fit. To aid the process I would have several piles of stones close at hand, each pile would comprise of those similar in size. Ranging from the very small to insert into a joint to reduce it’s apparent thickness to the largest at 225 mm. This made

the selection process much easier. I would start by using and placing the largest of them first and then, using progressively smaller ones, infill the spaces between.

Having reached the prescribed height I had to form the window openings. The opening sizes and positions had been pre-determined at the planning stage, I had standardised these so that I could use “off the peg” catalogue joinery from a large manufacturer. Made to measure, bespoke, windows would have been somewhat more expensive. The vertical positioning was not as straightforward as would have been the case with brickwork where I could have chosen the top of the nearest, convenient brick course. With the stones’ random nature, courses were not available and I had to refer to and measure up from the datum at DPC level and allow for the brick on edge cills.

The brick quoins could be formed at the sides of the openings which would support steel lintels above, upon which the brick soldiers could be placed.

However, the building of the internal leaf of the cavity wall using the aerated blocks was far quicker and was done in advance of the stonework. At intervals it was necessary to insert stainless steel wire ties in the bed joints between the blocks which projected outwardly and were progressively integrated into the stone wall as it was built. This joined and served to unify the two parts of the cavity wall to increase its stability. By definition the wall had a cavity separating it’s two parts. It’s primary function, as an invisible barrier, was to prevent rainwater from passing from the outer wall to the inside of the house. The 75 mm cavity’s secondary function was to complement the walls’ overall insulative properties by the insertion of fibreglass panels in stages as the wall developed.

This work progressed in the same fashion as I worked my way around the perimeter of the house up to a height that I could comfortably reach off the ground, this was about head height

at 1.6m. For further vertical progress I would need to have a raised working platform, a scaffolding which I was yet to source. But in the meantime I could focus on the internal partition walls that formed and divided the rooms, the fireplaces and chimney stack. For the walls I would use dense concrete blocks and for the stack I would use inexpensive common bricks as the appearance is irrelevant.

14. Hotting Up All buildings lose heat in the winter, regardless of their retaining performance properties. Of the total loss, 25% is through the roof, 35% via the external walls, 25% out of the windows and doors and 15% through the ground floor. Thermal insulation can only reduce the rate of heat loss and not stop it entirely. Each element of the envelope has to be designed to satisfy the minimum performance criteria as stipulated by the building regulations.

The calculations are quite complicated to establish these and are described as “K”, “R” and “U” values. The K-Value represents the thermal conductivity of a material, the R-Value measures the thermal resistance of insulation against the conductive flow of heat. The U-Value measures the thermal transmittance of materials, the lower the U-value, the better the insulation is. As the architect and builder I was only interested in an elements’ composite “U” value. The maximum “U” value requirement for an external cavity wall at the time was 0.4 (currently 0.3) watts per square meter per degree Kelvin (W/m2K). But for ignorant builders such as myself, as in most aspects of design criteria, there is always a rule of thumb. A cavity wall consisting of a 3N concrete block (the Aero chocolate type) for the inside leaf, a dense outer leaf with a 75 mm of cavity insulation would be deemed to satisfy the regulations. So I could sit on my cement bag, have a well earned fag break and a cup of tea, safe in the knowledge.

These values while considering the surface areas of the different elements can be used to calculate the overall heat loss from a building which is measured in kilowatts (kWs), or in good old fashioned British Thermal Units (BTUs). The design and the maximum potential heat output of the heating system is designed based on this figure. The typical heat loss from an average house would be somewhere in the region of 15 kWh (50,000 BTUh). So a 20 kWh cast iron range cooker/boiler would “eat it”. Incidentally, highly efficient eco-houses have “U” values so low that the heat generated by the occupiers is sufficient to keep it warm in the winter. We, as humans, individually generate 100 watts of energy at rest, a family of five has the potential of generating 0.5 kW.

It is desirable to introduce thermal mass to a traditionally built house, such as this. This can be achieved by using dense materials within the insulating envelope when constructing the internal elements, such as the chimney stack and internal partition walls. “Thermal mass” enables the ability to reduce and delay the reaction of the internal temperature to rises and falls in ambient, external temperatures. This resistance to rapid changes is known as “thermal inertia”. For example, timber framed houses or caravans with lightweight internal walls possess very little thermal inertia. Should you turn off the heating in a caravan the internal temperature would fall and equalise rapidly with that of the outside on a winters’ day. Dense materials absorb and retain the heat and release it gradually, much like the bricks in an old electric storage radiator. But a well insulated house with a high thermal inertia value can remain relatively warm in the winter for many days after the heat source has been turned off.

We had made some wonderful friends in the village, to include Richard, his wife and a younger couple who lived in the corner house next to the village hall. Incidentally, the village hall was later sold to a developer, demolished and a new house built in its place; but that was after we had many entertaining evenings on the snooker table. There was an elderly couple, both retired teachers, who lived on the other side of the green in the centre of the village, opposite the site.

They had a large picture window overlooking the green. Among the other activities that occupied their time, they used to sit and watch me and the slow but sure development of the Dovecote. What entertainment value they got out of it, I shudder to think. It was maybe that I was a slightly less boring alternative to “Loose Women” or “Coronation Street” repeats on the television. They commented that they thought I was building another Wark castle when they observed the upper floor window openings formed with nothing above them.

15. Up in the World We were in the summer months, had longer daylight days and could work more hours. The weather was better and the college was closed for the summer recess, so progress would speed up considerably, but with the warmer weather came the insects. We were in a rural, arable farming area and it was at this time of the year that we had to endure the harvest flies. Minute insects that were barely visible, but there were millions of them. They crawled into every available orifice including ears and noses. They were so irritating and there was no escaping them without going inside, even then a few of the little blighters used to get inside and torment us there. There was a solution though, apparently by liberally applying vinegar to exposed areas of skin would act as a repellent. The choice was to get covered in lime mortar stains while attending to the irritating itch or smelling like a greasy chip.

I couldn’t afford the luxury of hiring or buying an expensive scaffold which would be required for many months. For financial reasons this option didn’t enter the equation, I needed to source a much more economical option. My inquiries resulted in the purchase of an inexpensive, second hand, steel framed tower which was intended to access work at high level over a limited width for maintenance purposes. The scaffold could provide a working platform that would reach in excess of six meters, beyond the height of safe working on a building site. But it was my intention to use it halved as two separate towers and then bridge them using substantial timber boards, this would enable me to get the build up to eaves level and provide a safe working platform spanning about five meters. At the same time I bought a triple sectioned extendable ladder, not only would it reach the working platform at eaves level when fully extended, it would also fit into the car with the front passenger seat folded down. Inadequate for reaching the heady heights of the gable ends at 8 m, but this work was months away, I’d cross that bridge when I got to it. I was now able to get the build up to the wall plate level, the “wall plate” being a timber that runs horizontally along the length of the sidewalls that support the rafter elements of the structural roof timbers.

Working at ground level with the heavy stones was certainly not an easy task, but compared to getting them onto the scaffold before they could be placed was a stroll in the park. Prior to actually doing any constructive work on the raised platform I had to first bucket up the mortar and smaller stones, the larger ones had to be carried up the ladder individually. In the interest of conserving time and energy I never went up or down empty handed. If I had to respond to the call of nature or make a cup of tea then something that needed to go down went with me and the same on my return. When Pauline was on site she was able to pass many of the ingredients up to me within her physical limitations, which saved a considerable amount of time. With all the physical work that I was doing I was becoming spindly but super fit, by this stage I was even starting to develop muscles in my spit.

The next stage in the logical process was to build the internal leaf of the cavity walls to the first floor levels. This would enable me to install the floor joists, the timbers that would support the ground floor ceilings and the second storey floor boards above, the dimensions and spacing of these had been pre-determined at the planning stage. But there exists yet another rule of thumb method for sizing joists on ad-hoc building projects. That is, by using imperial measurements, half the span in good old fashioned feet and then add one. For example, if the span was ten feet, half would be five plus one would be six. So 6” x 2” (150 x 50 mm) at 16” (400 mm) centres.

When setting out the joists I had to give due consideration to the scale and position of the staircase which would be installed at a later date.

These joists would additionally provide a working platform to continue the inner leaf higher by working “overhand”, that is from the inside out. Then, later, raise the stonework and internal walls to the same level; and so the process continued until all the walls were up to the springing point of the roof and the triangular gables.

We thought it, not novel, but a great idea to make and install a name and date stone in the front elevation, one over the front door and the other in between two of the first floor windows. These have been traditionally used historically as an addition to the architectural features, traditionally would include the initials of the builder or building owner. This would preserve the name that was inherited from the old barn and accurately define the year of construction to satisfy any future intertest. Of course, the date was not that of completion, two years hence, but that of when the walls were constructed. I created recesses in the stone rubble walls to their dimensions and allowed for a nominal 10 mm mortar around the sides. Behind the stones are small voids and we encouraged the children to make a time capsule that would fit into the void, but this never came to fruition. I had saved and set aside the dressed sandstone church window sections in case I exhausted the stone piles, in which event they could be broken into smaller pieces to compensate for the shortfall. Sandstone is relatively soft and this property lends itself to being easily cut and carved. Having established the size I cut them accordingly with a machine disc that formed a flat and smooth finish.

This was the blank canvas that Pauline would use to exercise her newly acquired carving skills. She had recently attended a stone carving course at Jedburgh Abbey.

At which she successfully learned how to carve limestone into ornaments, resembling birds and the like. This while being watched and photographed by Japanese tourists visiting the Abbey. She’d attained the experience enabling her to

do the carving of the stones that I had prepared. A font was chosen and the script designed on the computer from which a template was printed. This was later transferred and marked onto the stone face and she set about the task on the kitchen worktop. Before installing the stones I impregnated them with a water repellent to increase longevity. The result was wonderful, Pauline and Tom had earned the privilege and honour of laying the stone in ceremonial fashion.

I had managed to construct the inner leaf of the gable wall from the inside using my scaffold which was erected off the first floor joists. However, on a very stormy night, even though the walls were well supported by lateral bracing, the heavy wind blew one of the partially completed gables over and sent the blockwork crashing to the ground below. But I was unable to build the external stonework in the same fashion. The height of gables rendered my scaffolding ineffective so I had to hire a proprietary system and long ladder. I firstly erected this on the more precariously positioned location on top of the embankment to the easterly end of the house. Once complete I could dismantle and transfer it to the other end. Given the geographical location this area was often subject to poor weather conditions, even in the summer. This year was no different and a bad storm was brewing that would be accompanied by more high winds. I understood that the scaffold would be capable of withstanding the adverse effect of the wind, until the storm actually arrived. 60 mph gusts were beginning to make it rattle and sway a little, the forecast suggested that the wind force may well increase to 80 mph. This prompted me to hurriedly bolt anchors into the solid masonry and use strong rope to tie the scaffold to the house. The consequences of it collapsing didn’t didn’t hold much appeal so this was a precaution well worth the effort.

As I ceremoniously topped out the gable end stonework with the final apex stone the superstructure walls were complete, they had taken me a whole calendar year working on my own. A team of builders on a conventional build would have completed an entire project in the same period of time. But I didn’t allow this fact to dishearten me, getting to this milestone event had motivated me more than ever. I was now able to send the hire scaffold back from whence it came.

My next job was to raise the chimney stack using the common bricks through the second storey and into what would become the roof space. When it breached the pitch line of the roof I would transpose these with the facing bricks until the stack terminated above the ridge line. For the top two courses I would use sandy coloured more durable concrete bricks which were able to withstand the effects of severe weather exposure. The stack was then topped out with two traditional chimney pots and a sand/cement “flaunching”. The inside of the brick flues were lined in waterproof dense clay pipes. These pipes were to protect the brickwork against the aggressive nature of the acidic flue gasses and the condensation that tends to occur before the stack warms up after initially lighting the fire. These types of flue liner, which are another requirement of the building regulations, mean that only fuel with a low moisture content, such as anthracite can be used on the fires. Burning wood which contains far more water would result in condensation forming and running down the flue and onto the appliances.

The sibling group of three now not so young children, who had shared our lives for the last three years, were destined to move forward in their life; but not in a direction that we thought was best for them. Their grandfather, who we’d met on numerous occasions, was vying for their custody. Not that it was our job to do, we suspected that he didn’t have the childrens’ well being at the top of his priority list, this appeared to us as merely incidental to a different agenda, whatever that transpired to be. We expressed our opinion to their Social Workers during the legal process but it was either disregarded or considered as an unqualified irrelevance.

I’ve come to understand over the years in the university of life and during my career experiences that the system relies too heavily on academic or occupational qualifications; and,

equally, an insufficient amount on ability and achievement. When I had worked for Coventry City Council as a building surveyor I was among many from different backgrounds. Like myself, many had progressed through the ranks from trade backgrounds by utilising personal development. Their experience and streetwise practical knowledge made for far better surveyors than those with the most impressive paper qualifications straight out of university.

Wonderful people as they were, lacked any understanding of what it takes to put one brick on top another on a building site and how maintenance contracts worked in a practical sense.

They often turned to their less qualified counterparts for help and advice.

We were sensing the same during our fostering endeavours. But the legal process that would impact the lives of these three young children had come to an end. The system had decided, in its wisdom, that they were to emigrate and live with their grandfather on an island in the Indian ocean. In fact the social workers had benefited, and dare I say enjoyed, visits to the Island to make environmental assessments. But conflicts had arisen between him and the Scottish side of the extended family during the contested process and the courts’ custody decision. The social workers had made arrangements for their overseas move in the form of a long international flight the following week but had concerns over the risk of the older children absconding or being kidnapped by their Scottish relations.

We were asked to accompany them and stay anonymously in a hotel away from our home at Caverton Mill in an attempt to thwart the possibilities. But we decided to stay in a friend's static caravan at Pease Bay to the north of Berwick. It was a better environment for the children, an easier situation for us to manage and far cheaper. We stayed there for several days prior to their departure which was to be early in the following week. We watched emotionally as they were collected by the social workers and driven to the airport. Even as a professional carer it’s impossible to avoid bonding and developing emotional attachments to the children that we care for. It was so in this case, especially after such a long relationship. We said our emotional goodbyes, vowing to keep in contact with them in the future while they continued their life's journey and negotiated the next chapter in their story. It was a sad event.

We’re not in the habit of saying “I told you so”, but within a year or two we developed the desire to do exactly that. The children couldn’t cope with the regimented lifestyle and the unrealistic expectancy forced upon them by their grandfathers’ regime. They all eventually returned to their roots and have now carved out lives of their own in Edinburgh, we are still in regular social media contact with the eldest who now has a family of her own.

My lecturing at Borders college had continued alongside the build and I was achieving reasonable successes with the students on the bricking courses. The college was invited to send craft students to a national competition in Glasgow. All of the colleges in Scotland would be invited to send students from the various disciplines to compete in the craft appropriate competitions. I nominated the best two competitors at the college for the brickwork competition, one from the advanced course in the senior section and one from the second year in the junior section. The competition was based on testing their practical skills in completing a complicated brickwork project. This was then assessed on similar performance criteria to their course projects. We did rather well, in the senior section of the competition, which was fiercely contested, managed to achieve a second place and in the junior section managed a fourth.

My workload there was on the increase with additional involvement in parallel courses offered by the college and an extension to my commitment to the bricklaying courses. I was now preparing and presenting theoretical and practical lectures on the surveying and levelling course unit. This included the use of a telescopic lensed site level fitted on a tripod and staff which is a box sectioned, extendable and graduated pole on which the level is focused to take the measurement readings. The final assessment was for the students to work as a team and start from a given point and move the level around the campus over a long route while recording the level measurements as they went. The classroom calculations would later ascertain their performance accuracy. This equipment combination is used to transfer levels from ordnance survey bench marks to larger sites and assist with the setting out process.

The college offered a “Workwise” course for school leavers who wanted work experience but were unable to register on courses that led to qualifications. I had a half day per week

commitment to arrange construction based projects in the college’s garden area and sometimes off site within the community. I enabled the students workshop experience in the manufacture of concrete paving slabs and on site with setting out and laying them. But, frustratingly, it represented more of a child minding exercise for me than a learning experience for the students. My D32/33 assessor course wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped. I was becoming despondent but not as a result of my lack of will or motivation. But by the fact that it was an in-house course administered by another college lecturer who I rarely saw and who spent the most of time in his office with his feet up on the desk supping coffee. If I approached him with an issue or a problem it only provoked a waffling, nonsensical reply. My motivation to continue working at the college was beginning to wane. In addition to my experience on the assessor course the college appeared to lack direction and the management seemed to be content with allowing it to just bump along aimlessly.

16. A Night on the Tiles I could now turn my focus to the roof structure. The roofs consisted of three separate sections. Of which there were dual pitched on the main roof over the two main sections of the house, the third was mono pitch at low level over the ground floor living room projection at the rear of the house. I was to construct bespoke, in-situ, raised tie trusses for the main roofs. A “raised tie” truss is “A” shaped in elevation so that the horizontal element was elevated and only the rafter feet rested on the supporting wall plate. When complete they would create “coombed” ceilings. The trusses couldn’t be made on the ground, they would have been too heavy and cumbersome to lift by hand. So they were made at roof level and immediately lifted to a vertical aspect and temporarily supported until they were all in place, they would then be permanently fixed and braced. For structural reasons the apex joint at the rafter heads just needed to be pinned together as the imposed roof loads served to push this joint tighter together. However, the joints between the ceiling ties and rafters were exposed to greater stresses. The same loads tend to encourage the roof to spread laterally at the wall heads, the ceiling ties (sometimes described as ceiling joists) absorb these tensile forces which maintain the roofs’ structural stability. These joints needed to be firmly bolted together with dog tooth washers on the interface to increase the friction and prevent any undesirable movement.The lower roof was a simple affair but would have no horizontal ceiling tie either. Both of these constructions would form hybrid warm roofs whereby the thermal insulation was fitted between the rafter sections leaving the timber elements exposed in the rooms below.

Before moving to the Borders I had no experience in fashioning complete new slate roofs, only in maintenance and repair. In the English midlands they rarely exist in recent architecture due

to the cost. It was only while working with Jim and Al in the Borders that I became familiar with the process which is somewhat different to that of more modern and conventional materials and methods. I was to get great satisfaction in working with the material and the associated leadwork. Lead is a malleable, forgiving and long lasting metal which makes it an ideal partner for slate in the harsher weather conditions experienced in Scotland; and by using non ferrous fixings and following the correct methodology the product is capable of surviving many generations. I’m always keen to learn and thankful to Jim for imparting his knowledge. It had become another string to my bow.

Unlike the more contemporary concrete interlocking or plain clay roof tiles, which can be fitted by merely “hooking” them onto tile battens, slates require a continuous background so that each can be nailed. This implied that the top side of the rafters needed to be fully boarded. To achieve this I fixed tanalised softwood “sarking” boards across the entire roof surface.

“Tanalised” means having been pressure treated with a trademarked timber preservative during manufacture. Over such a large area this requires a lot of nailing but I had a Paslode gas powered nail gun which made this task quick and painless. On top of this it was necessary to install a micro porous membrane slate underlay, this is waterproof in terms of keeping rainwater out but allows moist air to permeate out from the inside of the house and prevent condensation forming on its underside. Once this was in place the roof was ready to be slated.

I would have much preferred to use Welsh slate which is generally regarded as the finest slate in the world, many of the alternatives fall short of its stunning appearance and long-lasting performance but they are prohibitively expensive and to which our budget would not stretch.

After inquiries and evaluation I decided on slates imported from Spain. These were far more affordable and there was no import duty to pay given the EU tax laws that prevailed at the time.

From an aesthetic point of view, especially on a two storey building when viewed from ground level, there was no appreciable difference any way.

Slates vary in thickness and the first stage of the work is to grade them, that is to sort them into piles of similar thicknesses. Failure to do so would result in using slates of varying thicknesses next to one another which leads to unsightly gaps that compromises the appearance of the

finished product. For a wide ranging variety of thicknesses then this can be done in five categories starting at the thinnest; lights, heavy lights, mediums, light heavies and heavies. But in my case the range was more marginal so they could be separated into only three; lights, mediums and heavies. The heavies would be used first at the lower end of the pitch, mediums toward the middle and the lights toward the top. Having done this I had three separate piles of slates that I would use in sequential order.

Before commencing I had to consider the positioning of items that were to be installed in the roof. I had sourced an antique cast iron roof window which I had earlier refurbished, painted and into which had fitted a new double glazed unit. The more modern “Velux” type roof windows would have looked out of character and compromised the aesthetics of a country cottage. This was installed in the low level roof over the living room. I also had two ventilator duct terminals to install over the bathroom and ensuite. Neither of these rooms would have windows for natural ventilation, the bathroom because its external wall was occupied by the roof over the living room and the ensuite because there was insufficient wall area.

Creating a slate roof is a far slower process compared to the more contemporary alternatives given that each slate had to be nailed in place. Extra care and precautions also had to be observed as they are far more fragile than conventional concrete tiles. Walking across them or applying a heavy point load could result in breakages. The sequential order of placing them is the same in any case, that is, starting at the eaves and progressing upward in regular courses.

The slate overlap is critical, not only does the slate in hand have to lap that of the previous course but also partially the one before that.

I started by working off the scaffold at eaves level and ceased at the limit of comfortable reach. Each slate was fixed with two non ferrous nails through preformed holes, if the course didn’t work full slates then it was finished with one cut to size. This, by using a specialist slate

axe over a metal bar known as a “break”. I used chalk to strike a line on the underfelt for alignment and to maintain a regular coursed gauge. At the wall abutments I would install a lead “soaker” which is cut to slate size, bent so that it could be tucked under the last slate and return up the wall surface. Each subsequent course the slates and soakers were lapped over those of the previous. Later a continuous cover flashing was used to cloak the soakers, this is chased into the masonry at a pitch parallel to the slates, the bottom followed the same pitch line of the slates on the roof. In the case of the coursed brickwork on the chimney stack, the flashing was stepped and dressed into the horizontal bed joints of the brick courses.

To make further progress I introduced intermediate step platforms to work from, installed at intervals until the top of the pitch was within comfortable reach. The step platforms are created by installing metal “step irons” at intervals to support timber scaffold boards. The step irons had a spiked, shorter front leg that was driven into the rafter below, a longer lower leg that rested on a pad and the slates of the previous courses and between them was a horizontal bar that supported the scaffold board. Either side of the front leg, two “spinner” slates were fitted, these had their top corners dressed and a single nail was used to secure them loosely at the top. When the roof was finished; and while retreating off the roof the step iron could be removed and the “spinners” simply swing back into place to fill the space and nobody would be any the wiser. To complete the roof it was necessary to top it out with ridge tiles, these are bedded on a durable mortar. I used terracotta coloured clay ridge tiles as a contrast to the grey slate, although at this height it was barely noticeable when viewed from the ground, more especially after years of moss and lichen growth. The final job on the roof was to install the gutters and downpipes. We chose a brown box section gutter which blended in unobtrusively.

It was now March 2001, Before I could install the windows I had to construct the structural timbers to form the bay window, this couldn’t have been done priorly as damage may have

occurred as a result of working on the roof above. There were vertical supports at each corner with an intermediate to break the span of the beam above and make the openings to a standard window size. There were two more vertical sections adjacent to the house wall, one at either end. The outer beam supported the rafter feet and the top of which were secured to a wall plate anchored to the house. The half gables were then fitted with timber panelling before I modelled the slate roof. This was then ready for the windows, after which I would fit dressed softwood facings to cloak the rough structural elements. But then the job was brought to an abrupt halt.

17. A Stormy Affair It was Sunday night and we were settling down to watch TV at home back at the Mill. As I glanced out of the window I noticed that it had begun to snow. This is a bit late in winter for snow, I thought, so it shouldn't amount to much and soon disappear. But my prediction was soon to be proven inaccurate. Little did we know that this was about to become, locally, the worst snowstorm in living memory. The temperature plummeted, the wind picked up and was now blowing like a hoolie. By bedtime the snow was starting to pile up outside. We woke in the morning to discover there had been no let up in the snow, it was getting heavier and being driven by the wind, coming down now almost horizontally. Drifts were forming at the corners of the house and around walls where the vortex was dumping it. The electricity supply had been truncated, as it had to the whole district. The road outside the house was impassable and the only audible sounds were those of our mutterings and the wind, it was quite eerie. We had a battery operated radio which we then used to get updates on the unfolding events from the local station, Radio Borders.

The level of the LPG in the storage tank for the central heating was getting very low. So low that I thought that the boiler must surely now be running on the vapours. I'd placed an order for a gas delivery more than a week ago and it was now well overdue. We were down to our last few buckets of coal in the shed for the open fires, the coal deliveries were scheduled for every Monday in the winter months and as luck would have it today was, indeed, Monday. But, of course, neither of the delivery lorries could get through the snow. We had plenty of food in the kitchen cupboards, fridge and the freezer but a prolonged period without an electricity supply could result in the freezer food thawing and possibly going to waste. The contents of the fridge could be stored in a cold spot in the house, there were plenty of them. Fortunately the freezer was in the cooler utility room, so we packed all of the voids within with snow and ice and for insulation covered it with quilts and coats to keep whatever heat in the house there was out.

We were now trying to heat the whole house with coal on the two open living room fires. We had a house full of children, six in all, who still needed to be serviced and entertained so we resorted to the good old fashioned games like charades, I spy and board games. There were no

means of heating the water for baths and showers and getting children to wash in cold water is no mean feat. The storm continued unabated all day, through the second night and the majority of the next day when it eventually ceased. There were now drifts as much as 3 m deep at Caverton Mill Head, the snow around the house was upto the bonnet level of the car. The whole area was cut off from the outside world but even with snow thigh deep I could now, with difficulty, visit our neighbours to check their well being. It’s in times of adversity that community spirit really kicks in, much like in times of war, I guess. I managed to visit all of them, they were in fine fettle with regard to health and fuel. Although some were getting a little low on food and liquid refreshments, others had a surplus of fuel. So we bartered some of our food and in return we were gifted coal, a bit like the traditional Hogmanay celebration.

The Borders road maintenance team were overwhelmed and couldn’t make any headway in clearing the roads and many of the drivers were unable to get to the depot to drive the snow ploughs anyway. The farm managed to get their heavy machines out to clear the local road and some areas within the farm estate. The local government reacted quickly and arranged helicopter airdrops of essential food supplies into Morebattle village and had contacted other local authorities in order for them to send their snow ploughs to help deal with the emergency.

By the fourth day the ploughs had progressed to clear the main road to Morebattle and a back route into Kelso. I again visited our neighbours to ascertain their needs for a trip to the shop in Morebattle, but I could only do this on foot as the car was still entrenched. The ploughs had cleared a channel in the snow creating walls over 2 m high, so high that I couldn’t see either side, only the road ahead. I got to the shop only to discover that the highest priority items on the list were already sold out, alcoholic beverages and cigarettes. Well there’s a surprise, who would have imagined that? I thought.

By the fourth day the status quo was starting to get reestablished and delivery lorries could get through. The electricity company was working away to repair cables that had been downed by the storm, but it wasn’t until the end of the fifth day that the power was restored. And hallelujah, we could shower again, the freezer foods had survived, we had sufficient coal and the techy games were back for the children. I could now get back to the Dovecote, a little more stressed but with renewed energy for my rested muscles.

The build had taken two years to get it to this stage. The shell was now finally complete, the only job remaining to make the new house wind and watertight was to install the external joinery and glazing. The project had now reached a point that demanded Pauline’s greater involvement in the decision making process for the finishing elements that included personal preference. Having said that, Pauline was so excited by the prospect that she was mulling over paint colours and wallpaper designs 18 months earlier when the foundations were being dug.

The progress had resulted in what was becoming not an unattractive home. But there was still a long way to go, all of the internal work was yet to begin, I couldn’t afford to take my foot off the gas and had to still remain focused on the desired outcome.

Quite strangely, or so it appeared to me, that it was only now, when we didn’t need it, that the bank was suddenly keen to throw money at us. Was it that our credit rating had risen so rapidly from the murky depths that it was likely to get a severe case of the bends? I have such a great respect for the corporate banking system which is quite at ease with making vast profits out of real peoples’ misfortunes that I was able to say to them inwardly. “Go forth and multiply and stick your expensive money where the sun doesn’t shine”. Bitter and twisted! Me? No, not in the slightest.

The windows and external doors were chosen from a manufacturer's catalogue. We thought that timber was the most natural material and the best choice for the frames. There was a vast range of styles to choose from but we wanted one that complimented a country cottages’ architecture. Eventually decided on a design that had “stormproof” window casements, either fixed or side hung for ventilation purposes. They consisted of five glazed panels, one in the lower half and four in the upper which were separated by glazing bars. The double glazed units would be secured into place with nailed wooden beading and neoprene gaskets. The frame heads contained inconspicuous plastic “trickle vents” that could be opened and closed manually. This is a building regulation requirement, introduced by the nanny state that appears to insult the building user by suggesting that they don’t possess the wherewithal or intelligence to decide when it’s desirable to open a window. One of the upper floor windows had to comply with a standard stipulated by fire escape regulations so that both of the unlockable casements,

one with a “flying mullion”, fully opened enabling ladder access by the fire brigade and provide a means of escape in the event of a fire on the ground level. This did, however, create a conflict and a catch 22 situation with the social services family placement team’s requirement that all upstairs windows should be lockable to prevent a child in care from opening and falling out.

After much confusion and debate over the requirement for us to serve two masters, but the social services department eventually yielded and the building regulation requirement prevailed.

The back door to the kitchen was to be a stable door, one that is associated with a horse stable in appearance, consisting of two leaves, the upper one containing a glazed panel. The front door was robust looking with vertical slats having a small glazed vision panel toward the top.

The double garage doors had numerous glazed panels at the top and solid wooden vertical tongue and grooved boarding in the lower section.

We now had sheltered accomodation where the frames and doors could be stored and worked prior to fitting. It was far more efficient and easier to stain and seal the wood before installation. This was Pauline’s next job, so we created a temporary work bench at a comfortable working height and she set it to the enormous task of applying it. There were approaching 600 glazing beads alone, in addition to the frames and doors, not an inconsiderable task.

Advancements in adhesive technology obviates the need for mechanical fixings like nails or screws when installing items of external joinery. Proprietary expanding foam adhesive that is applied via a narrow tube from an aerosol can is now available to fix a window or door frame.

Although this can be messy and create problems if not used with due consideration. The foam eventually expands to 20 times its original volume and can result in the deflection of the frame sections and spillages, which are difficult to remove, if applied excessively.

I used timber wedges to temporarily hold the frames firmly in place while the foam was dispensed and had time to cure. The excesses that protruded around the frame could then be removed and a sealing compound applied around it externally. On the inside of the cill section,

on the bottom window reveal, I would cut and install a window board. More commonly, but incorrectly, termed as the window sill. All of the staining had been completed so that I could install the double glazed units onto a gasket on the rebates and held in place with the beads fixed with panel pins. The doors could then be hung by installing the hinges, locks, glazing units, handles and the other associated ironmongery. Pauline had made extensive inquiries to locate traditional door furniture that looked and felt authentic and eventually sourced the hand forged hinges and handles from a smithy in the south of England, a bit more expensive but well worth the extra cost. We were now truly wind and watertight and for the first time it actually felt like a house, a home even.

Some of the internal room partitions couldn’t be constructed using the more preferable dense masonry materials given the lack of foundations imposed by the design layout. These were instead constructed using timber sections centered to suit the plaster board dimensions, the spaces in between would be later filled with sound suppressing mineral fibre wool. The house was now ready for the plumbing and electrical first fix. The “first fix” involves the placing of the water pipes and cables bearing in mind the desired location of power points, switches, boilers, immersion heaters, tanks, sanitaryware and the like. These would eventually become inaccessible once the plastering and floor screed was in place so it was imperative that everything was where it should be, done correctly and sound. It was not necessary at the time to have the electrical installation installed by or certified by a registered electrician and given that there was no plumbing work involving gas there was no requirement for a CORGI registered plumber either.

There were a lot of cables and pipes to be installed, so many in fact that eventually these weren't quantified in terms of meters but kilometers. The eclectic circuits emanated from the utility room where the incoming cable and meter had been installed. ET, the temporary legged structure containing them, was dead and buried and they were now fixed permanently to the wall. The cables radiated or circulated from this point and visited all of the required locations enroute, where the distribution board and circuit breakers would be installed on the second fix.

The plumbing had two systems, one for the central heating and one for the domestic hot and cold water circuits. On the ground floor many of the copper pipes would be encased in the floor screed beneath the floor tiles, on the upper floors within the floor space, between the joists.

Some of them had to be chased into the concrete walls in the bathroom and ensuite. The water circuits could be completed later and the pipe surface mounted on the walls and within cupboards.

I laid the floor decking which was a manufactured proprietary compressed waferboard, ordinary sterling board (OSB). It comes in easily manageable sheets, is water resistant and easy to lay. This was a suitable base for laminate flooring which would have a natural wood appearance. I made the internal door linings, a straightforward and undemanding job. They were a simple construction having two vertical side elements, “jambs” and one at the head. It just was a matter of butting the joints, screwing them together and fixing into place with the tinned foam adhesive.

18. Stepping Up I now had the task of constructing and installing the staircase. This would normally be work for a specialist joinery company, but I still had an interest in saving money where I could. We had managed to this point by using ladders to negotiate our way between the different levels while carrying out the work, but now was the logical point on the critical path to do the inevitable.

The staircase was going to be a real challenge given the complicated situation surrounding the multi-levelled arrangement of the floors. The building regulations governing stairways are very strict regarding the width, treads, risers, handrails, spindle spacings and degree of pitch. There were tight parameters limiting the range in the dimension values in every respect. The lowest flight, between the two ground level floors, was already set in concrete but still subject to the building control officer’s inspection and approval. I had to design the stairs that were to connect the three other levels that complied in every aspect. If the pitch was too steep the riser heights might not comply, if the overall going was too short the treads might not comply and if the treads were too short the pitch might not comply. It was about achieving a happy balance. The openings in the upper floors had already been formed when I’d installed the joists many months previously, which I had done with this in mind. But I could, if the need arose, make alterations to these.

I am not one for, what I consider to be, a waste of time with pencils, a scale rule and bits of paper. I place more importance on what’s on my harddrive; the house had been built in my head for a long time, since soon after I’d completed the working drawings. But it wasn't easy to envisage a complicated three dimensional staircase in such detail. But what really mattered was the reality that existed on site, this is where the staircase would grow roots and continue to function til long after my demise.

It was by using trial and error that I repeatedly drew white chalk lines on the wall next to the stairs until I got it right. It took numerous attempts, after each I could compare the lines to the legal requirements and wipe them clean and try again if unsuccessful. The final attempt revealed an outline that I could transfer to the “stringer”, the timber that supports the treads and risers. I now had all the measurements required to create a cutting list and assemble the staircase. The staircase, in two separate flights was, in the main, built out of softwood except for the treads which, because of their subjection to foot traffic, would be made out of hardwood. It’s components are numerous and construction so complicated that it would be too difficult to describe the process using words alone. But we now had a not an unattractive staircase with newel posts and finials, handrails and balustrade with spindles which sprang from the lowest newel and continued up both flights and around the edge of the landings.

I could now focus on the plaster finishes, my least favourite of the trades, in fact I loathe it; and there was so much of it to do. But in the interest of acquiring complete, more rounded abilities and knowledge it had been necessary to confront it. In my personal opinion wet plastering must be the most difficult of the building trades to master given the physical demands and the materials’ formless nature. To achieve the standard of a maester I understand this as a job that one needs to do all day, everyday to achieve. My skills in this I consider as only adequate, at best; self analysis has highlighted that I fall well short of the standards set by the best. However, material technological advancements have made life far easier and I take full advantage of the fact. Nowadays it’s not necessary to apply wet plaster as dry preformed sheets are readily available, plasterboards, that only need a wet plaster applied to the tapered joints.

They come in a variety of types, sizes and thicknesses, the choice is dictated by circumstance.

In areas of exposure to water or high humidity, like bathrooms and kitchens, there is a waterproof option which is green in colour. In dry areas the standard, grey, is acceptable. On ceilings where the boards have to span supports then a 12.5 mm thick board is necessary whereas in fully supported locations 9.5 mm is adequate. Metric sized boards are commonly 1.2 m wide but there are imperial sized boards at 1.22 m (4 feet). There are various options on board lengths and the choice is influenced by the storey height.

I would go for the green in the kitchen, bathroom and shower room, for the remainder, the standard grey would suffice. 1.2 m x 2.1 m; and being a belt and braces man, all at 12.5 mm thick. The initial order would be for 200, any shortfall could be supplemented toward the end of the job by additional order. I have learned that it is better with this material to calculate the quantities and deliberately under order as any boards leftover pose a hindrance in storage or disposal. Those fixed onto timber supports would be secured with corrosion resistant screws.

Onto the block walls I would use a “dot and dab” cohesive gypsum adhesive; this is where the adhesive, with a two hour set time, is applied in “blobs” to the back of the plasterboard, then lifted and pushed into place. This is a reasonably quick process but given the quantities it would still take weeks to complete. Once in place, the tapered joints can be filled with a fine gypsum plaster incorporating a reinforcing mesh which helps to prevent cracks forming in the joints.

When the plaster has dried it can be smoothed flat with sandpaper. After cleaning and priming this becomes ready for painting or papering. Wallpaper was no longer fashionable and we preferred a simple paint finish.

I’m health and safety conscious mainly down to my previous site experiences. I’d survived 30 years of working in the industry and I was intent on enjoying a few more. But it was during this work I experienced the only real mishap on the project. I was working on the installation of insulation between the rafters and had laid a temporary working platform across the top of the ceiling ties off which to work, but had inadvertently left a board with an unsupported end, otherwise known as a trap. As I stepped on the trap the board gave way and I descended feet first to the floor below, rattling my bones on the joist as I passed. It was fortunate that I went feet first, had I become inverted and descended head first I may have damaged the floorboards!

It was one of those accidents when everything hurt but I was yet to discover which part of me hurt the most. I lay for a while and pinched myself to make sure that I wasn’t floating about in the ether. After several minutes I took a brave pill and stood up to discover the only injuries were cracked ribs and a dented pride. No coughing or sneezing for me in the next couple weeks, the pain is palpable as those who have had such injuries well know; and the 200 plasterboards were due to be delivered the very next day. Oh! What fun.

I was now ready for the internal joinery. The doors, skirting boards and facings (or architraves).

The latters were easily available, ex stock, profiled softwood sections. It was just a matter of cutting to length, with mitred joints at the corners and fixing mechanically or using a gun applied proprietary adhesive.

The doors were to be handmade, bespoke, ledged and braced in a cottage style.

“Ledged and braced” doors are made from a series of “v” jointed, tongue and grooved continuous vertical boards on the doors’ face. On the back of the door there would be three horizontal ledges, toward the bottom, top and in the middle. Then two diagonal braces fitted between the ledges, the lower ends of which were on the hinged side of the door and the tops on the leading edge, creating a double ”Z” or zig zag effect. The vertical boards were then fixed to them using nails and adhesive. The elements could then be edged with an attractive moulding using a router. The practical purpose of the braces, in addition to their aesthetic value, was to prevent the leading edge of the door from dropping and deforming its shape. The doors would then be hung on ornate “T” hinges to the door lining and a “Suffolk” latch fitted, that is a latch with a “D” handle and a thumb operated lever that lifted and lowered a latching bar into a keeper on the reverse side.

The next job was to lay a sand/cement screed onto the downstairs’ structural concrete floor slab. This is a strong semi-dry mortar mix that would envelope the water pipes and would have a flat, level and smooth surface to accommodate the floor finishes. We had elected for a slate

effect tiling throughout the ground floor levels. This provides for an easily maintainable and long lasting finish compared to the soft carpet or vinyl alternatives. The initial cost is greater but proves more economical in the long term. The floor tiles would return a little up the adjacent walls to form a course of skirting tiles and finish the floor attractively around the perimeter. Then later have a dark grey grout in the joints to match the tiles colour.

It was now the time to complete the plumbing and electrical “second fix”. For the electrics this includes the installation of the distribution board and the circuit protection devices, the light fittings, switches and powerpoints. The connections to the boiler, immersion heater, circulation pump, showers and the like. Connecting them to the cables that were placed during the first fix.

For the plumbing this would be the sanitaryware, hot water cylinder, tanks, boiler, circulation pumps. The ensuite, off the master bedroom, found an ideal space formed between the chimney stack and the main bathroom bedroom consisting of a low level, close coupled WC suite, a small washbasin and a shower cubicle. The bathroom, corridor and chimney stack naturally enclosed the cubicle and tray, which was fully tiled on three sides, the remaining side housed a glass access door. The ground floor shower room was larger and fully tiled, but consisted of the same sanitaryware. Here, though, the shower cubicle was in the corner and had a curved tray with a sliding door.

Our daughter, Geri, worked in marketing for a national bathroom company who had just had an exhibition stand at the Ideal Home Exhibition in London. They had bathrooms on display that they couldn't sell conventionally, being no longer new, and wanted to move them on quickly. We were so impressed with one of the suites for which Geri negotiated a great deal. It was Edwardian in style and

consisted of an elegant WC suite with a high level cistern, brass chain with ceramic pendant and a long brass flush pipe discharging into an equally elegant pan. So now, when we asked the children if they had pulled the chain, a generic term for flushing the loo, we literally meant it.

The wash basin and pedestal matched the WC in terms of style and had period brass taps. The “slipper” bath had a scrolled top which ascended from the tap end and was supported on ball and claw feet. The mixer taps, again period in style, included a ceramic handled shower head on a flexible brass hose. I installed a horizontal rail at dado height and vertical timber panelling below which was painted to complement the suite.

In the roof space there was a small expansion tank for the central heating system and a domestic water tank that fed the indirect hot water cylinder which was sited in a purpose made airing cupboard in the corridor below, next to the master bedroom. The water in the cylinder could be heated electrically by immersion heater or by the boiler and central heating system via the coil or serpentine pipe inside the cylinder. The cold water taps and electric showers fed off the rising main. The central heating system had hot water radiators in every room and the shower rooms had towel rail radiators given their more limited dimensions.

The heating boiler was a solid fuel “Stanley” cast iron, black enamelled range cooker. It was typical of the sort that can be found in large farmhouse kitchens and suited the style of the house. It was as much of a design feature as it was a cooker and central heating boiler. We did consider the LPG option but it was appreciably more expensive and the fuel storage tank, which was unsightly, would have added to the cost and occupied a large space in what was already a limited sized garden.

I had a space already prepared in the kitchen with a brick recessed fireplace. The bricks were those I had used on the outside but had black mortar joints, a multi-coloured glazed tile panel at the back and a reclaimed oak beam above the opening. The monster was supplied and delivered by a specialist company from Kelso. It weighed the best part of half a tonne and it required four men and a combination of steel rollers and metal ramps to get it into place. It had a very large heat output, far more than a well insulated modern house required even on the coldest of winter days. Comparable to using a sledgehammer to crack a walnut. However the

output could be controlled by simply limiting the fuel that it was fed. The store for the anthracite was a bunker that was sited just outside the kitchen by the back door. The distribution of the heating water was provided by a thermostatically controlled pump that was housed in an adjacent cupboard and was programmed to first give priority to the hot water cylinder. When it reached the desired temperature a cylinder thermostat switched the pump to then feed the radiators.

In the living room I had built a recessed fireplace using the dense concrete blocks which now needed an attractive face.

There were still a large number of the sandstone church window sections which were sandy tan in colour and well weathered given their age. I wanted to make the best use of these where their appearance could be most appreciated, any remaining could then be used in the garden walls.

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock and contains fossils of crustaceans and fishers which are weaknesses in the stone that join but separate the layers in the rock. I wanted to expose the opposing faces in these layers and visually examined stones to discover the joint. Then, with a heavy hammer and wide blade masonry chisel known as a bolster, split the stone along the fisher to expose the faces and a variety of textures, generally greenish tan in colour. The edges were irregularly shaped and not suitable for use in walls. To overcome this I squared them off using a large cutting disc to form right angled, rectangular blocks. I then “double cut” around the edges with the bolster to give the face a mild projection from the joints, this produced more depth in the stones’ appearance. They were then bedded and bonded in a cement mortar on the three faces of the fireplace recess. Then I made a timber surround and mantle using reclaimed oak beams, installed the antique Coalbrookdale stove which had black, enamelled metal flue pipe connecting it to the larger flue of the masonry chimney stack.

19. A Moving Experience The house had now become livable and really felt like home. It was no more of a building site now than other houses that were having a periodic facelift. The gardens still required landscaping and there was still a little to do on the inside but these were trivial compared to what had preceded them. We had been paying rent for the cottage in Morebattle for the last five years and the landlord had never raised it once. We were grateful to Tod and his family, they were good people. We had enjoyed our stay on their farm, there had indeed been many memorable highlights. But now was the time to move on and begin the next chapter in our lives. We were to move house yet again, the third time in six years. Although this doesn't break any world records it was quite enough for me, thank you very much. It was also the end of the line for the campervan that had served us so well, but there was just no room for it at our new home. I advertised it for sale at a price that would be difficult to resist and it soon found a new home.

We were becoming experts at moving houses under our own steam by now, but progress on the Dovecote had to be put on hold for a few days. We had to vacate the farm cottage but didn’t want to provide any opportunity for the landlord to withhold our deposit. There was a student on the painting and decorating course at Borders college who expressed an interest in getting some work. Given that some of the decorations needed minor repairs and I was otherwise preoccupied I asked if she wanted it. It wasn’t much, just touching up the paintwork and wallpaper after five years of natural wear and tear. In the meantime I had hired a box van to transport the furniture and our bits and pieces to Wark. Some items of the furniture were well past their sell-by date and others that wouldn’t fit into our new home. This was a big house and the Dovecote, although large, was more compact in dimension, and isn’t it amazing how much junk can be accumulated in as little as five years? We couldn’t load the van until I‘d taken a small load to the tip. By the time we’d got everything into place and said our goodbyes to the many good people at Caverton Mill there was little change out of three days. But we were in and there was more than a little urge to do some celebrating. But the partying was short lived, there was still an amount of work to do on the inside and the garden still needed landscaping

I had my sights firmly fixed on the light at the end of the tunnel which was now looming, I was more motivated now than ever and in no mood to relent. I’ve always been one to put off procrastinating until tomorrow and applied the policy that the best job is the finished one.

Pauline and myself were now here permanently and she was available for support and practical help, we could work together.

My next target was the fixed kitchen furniture. The kitchen had a complicated and irregular shape, there were ins and outs and unusual angles that had been formed by the orientation of the range cooker. The kitchen was “L” shaped, the corner of which was large enough and lent itself quite nicely for a dining table and chairs; and there was sufficient space for a work island in front of the range cooker. The return leg of the “L” was divided by a walk-through area to the hall. But there was enough space for a low level shelving unit and work surface between the cooker and the hall door. The wall opposite was adequate enough for a separate full height fridge and freezer. The area below the square bay window was ideal for a low level storage cupboard. The other leg of the “L” with the southerly aspect and great views represented the bulk of the space to site the working area of the kitchen. This needed to facilitate cupboards, a dishwasher, a space for a microwave oven, a Belfast sink and a oven and hob for use in the summer when the solid fuel cooker would not be in use.

I’m not a big fan of prefabricated, flat packed kitchen units. They tend to lack unique styling and, therefore, all look much of a muchness. Individual styling can only be accomplished with purpose made, bespoke units. Neither do their standardised sizes make the most efficient use of the characteristics of atypical spaces. Their laminated faces make them very difficult, if not impossible to repair; and for top end quality can prove expensive. Laminated work surfaces, although easy to clean and hygienic, present the same maintenance and aesthetical issues.

The work surfaces take most of the punishment that the working environment affords. I, therefore, prefer to invest in quality worktops of natural materials that compliment the aesthetic aspect of the room, are robust, serviceable and in the event of damage, easily repaired. Bespoke units that make the best use of every available space and satisfy the same criteria. We selected beechwood worktops and hand built cupboards out of medium density fibreboard sheets (MDF) that could be painted to comply with the kitchens’ colour scheme and adapt to future incarnations.

The “Belfast” sink was sited below the window. It was a white enameled box sectioned sink, voluminous and practical, but attractive in period style that would never become obsolete.

Below and to the left of this was the dishwasher. To the right of the sink the units and work surface returned to meet the range cooker. To the left of the external stable door and extending to the bay window were low level cupboards. I installed an inset hob and separate oven for summer use, a work surface and a housing for a microwave oven above. The work island unit stood in front of the range cooker, had a work surface and open shelving below, facing the range that could store the cooking pots and pans, the edge of it had a hanging rail and an additional rail above the cooker to hang tea towels and oven gloves.

The only thing that remained to be done on the inside of the house was to paint the walls and woodwork. The decorations were done room by room on a priority basis. We had chosen not to use wallpapers as they were considered unfashionable, demanded more work to install and more expensive than paint.

They tend to be more popular in older houses with deteriorating plasterwork, hence the cliche; “papering over the cracks”. We had new plaster and were

content with applying vinyl emulsion. This was a design element in which Pauline had an interest so the decision was ultimately hers. I’m easily pleased with most colour schemes and was happy to leave the choice to her, I just had the job of splashing it on. The house had many pleasant architectural features that may have been obscured with heavy colours and, in fact, white paint would serve to accentuate them. White also amplified the natural light entering through the external glazing. So the decision was for white throughout with two exceptions.

Pauline wanted the living room painted in a mid range pastel green and Thomas wanted a space theme. Pauline painted scenes of the planets on his elevated bedroom ceiling and gable wall with transfers of rocket ships and spacemen. The woodwork throughout was stained and sealed with walnut coloured varnish to match the external joinery, and, once constructed the kitchen units were painted with a yellow gloss.

The inside was now totally finished. I could turn my focus to the outside, landscaping and fencing. There wasn’t a front garden as such, but I could create a border at the lower end of the site. I’d already built a shallow stone retaining wall at the top of the embankment, on the border. I installed a layer of weed suppressant fabric upon which I spread a 10 cm layer of plum coloured slate chippings. I’m useless at gardening and can’t differentiate between weed and a plant, but fortunately Pauline was keen and rather good at it. So she created some isolated holes in the chippings and underlay; and planted decorative shrubbery. Between the border and the opposite, top end, by the garage and between the front of the house and the road I laid a paving stone parking area and driveway to the garage. The garage was never used for the car, it was never intended to, this was to pacify the planning officer in respect of the number of off road parking spaces. At a later date I would install a central partition, the front would be a workshop and tool store and the rear half would become a TV and games room for the children.

I made and installed a side rear access gate next to the garage and a 1 m wide paved path leading from the gate to the back garden. At the lower end at the back of the house, next to the kitchen I made and installed a similar gate. This was between the rear left corner of the house and the embankment. The back garden looked bigger than it actually was and was bounded by an existing stone wall adjacent to our neighbours garden. Because of its triangular shape it only had one other boundary which was the top of the embankment on the opposite side which

sloped steeply down to the side road and covered in nettles which I had to strim periodically.

Along the top of the embankment I constructed a vertically slatted timber fence from the lower point of the triangle up to the side gate next to the kitchen which was subsequently stained green with a proprietary fence paint.

The back garden, which was plot width at the house, tapered to nothing at the lower end and terminated just short of the main road. It was covered in weeds and the top end still had a small pile of building stones, brick rubble and inert debris resulting from the construction work. The slope rendered the garden unusable in its present state, to make it functional I would need to form a terrace next to the house. To support it I would need to build a substantial stone retaining wall to retain the infill and soil. This would require a lot of earth moving and trenches dug for the wall foundation, a big job and couldn’t possibly be done by hand. There wasn’t enough width to get Richard's large excavator through the gates so I had to hire a mini-digger to complete the task.

I had operated one in my dim and distant past but was in dire need of a refresher to get back into the swing of it again. It took me half a day of practicing to become proficient, confident and safe. I had no desire to go gambolling down the embankment and end up in a crumpled heap on the road below. It was not easy to master, not only did it include forward and backward movement, it had several levers to operate the bucket arm and these movements had to be coordinated. A bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach in a circular motion at the same time. I had the machine for a week which would be ample for practicing and to do the earth moving work.

I had to calculate accurately the quantity of excavated materials and infill so there was no shortfall or surplus once the backfilling was complete, I didn’t want the task and cost of importing more or disposing of any surplus. I created a pathway to get from the house to the garden bottom alongside the embankment top fence. I had dug the foundation trench for the retaining walls, deposited all of the infill material into a pile ready for backfilling and moved the stones for the wall to where they were needed. The mini-digger was parked up then I mixed and laid the concrete for the walls’ foundation.

The stonework for the garden walls was easier and quicker than it was for the house, sizes had less relevance and the back of the walls needed no consideration given that they were to be blinded by the backfill. The largest of the stones would be used at the bottom and diminished in size as the wall ascended. The top of the walls would be finished with stone on edge. Once the mortar had set and had time to harden the infill material could be backfilled and levelled. I had now finished with the digger and it was returned from whence it came. It was now looking more like a garden and less like a building site. I had established a level terrace and we were free of weeds and debris. The only areas that were on the incline now were the path and a small triangle at the bottom of the garden.

On top of the terrace I created an area of timber decking, on top of which a small enclosed pergola from where we could sit and enjoy the views. In front of the decking I created a small pond which was later benefitted from fauna in the form of hardy fish and flora. The remainder of the terrace was paved in slate chippings and riven paving. The same paving was used to interconnect and harmonise the various areas and continued down to the bottom of the garden. Pauline, being a keen gardener wanted, a greenhouse which I installed on the lower level next to the retaining wall.

We had completed the work necessary to apply for the completion certificates from both the planning and building regulation departments of the borough council. After the final inspections we received the documents that would accompany the property deeds. There were two more jobs to do that we could now commence since we had the certificates. One was to divide the garage to create the childrens’ TV room and the conservatory. The TV room was simply done by installing a partition wall in the garage and forming a doorway in from the hall.

A conservatory with a glazed roof required no planning permission if built within prescribed size limits. It was six-sided in plan and could be described as an irregular hexagon. One side was the living room house wall, two sides perpendicular to the house, a short one parallel to the house and two on angles which joined the sides to the outermost. I constructed dwarf walls in brick on four elevations to support the windows and the outer elevation would have a pair of French doors.

These joinery items were identical in style to the existing. The roof timbers to support the twin walled polycarbonate roof sheets met at a central point. The underside of which would be insulated and plastered. The inside of the walls were insulated and plastered also. The floor was tiled using the same slate effect tiles as the main house. The original french doors were then removed and the open plan living room almost doubled in size. The inner part had a sofa for watching the TV. The outer, conservatory part, had a coffee table and lounge seating from where the views could be appreciated.

20. The After Life

The Dovecote was now well and truly complete. I could barely believe that we were liberated from the desperation, despair and anguish of six years ago. We had achieved something that realistically wasn’t possible. Logically, it was a pipe dream idiom that no sensible or sane person would have attempted. Having had everything we had strived for taken away on a whim and as we ambled up the motorway toward an uncertain future all that we could do was cry. We had never been in such a dire position both emotionally and financially, it appeared that there

was no solution to the predicament. It would have been oh so easy to give up, wallow in self pity, say “poor me” and our relationship could have easily foundered on the rocks.

But after the initial negative impact we regained impetus and the strength of our love gelled us together. I was determined not to let this conundrum beat me, the word “failure” doesn't exist in my vocabulary, I certainly don’t accept it lying down. It was with objective and positive thinking that we were able to look beyond the dilemma to discover a plan and a way to make a dream happen. We couldn’t have done it individually, it was only possible as a team. A team of two, Pauline and Russell, we each had an essential part to play that contributed to the result.

It was a demanding process, both physically and mentally. There were many occasions that challenged our determination and motivation, when it would have been so easy to quit and chuck in the towel. When I was on the scaffold working with my back to the incessant, biting wind and rain. When the gales sent the gable wall crashing to the ground. When I was struggling to carry the heavy stones up onto the scaffolding. When I fell through the rafters and broke my ribs. When the planning officer rejected my initial proposal. Above all, when I looked up from the ground from the top of the embankment at the massive void of nothingness that I had to fill with somethingness and the realisation of the awesome task that was ahead of me.

But I’d learned never to underestimate the power of positive thinking and what can be achieved with its application.

Upon reflection I discovered that the quantities that the project invoked were staggering. It demanded somewhere in the region of 10,000 man hours for the construction work alone, not to include the work necessary to provide the finances and the preliminaries. I’d moved somewhere in the region of 1,000 tonnes of materials by hand, there were 80 tonnes of stone alone and countless thousands of bricks and concrete blocks; and probably in excess of 100 tonnes of other materials. There were kilometers of cables and pipes and 100’s of square meters of tiles, slates and plastering. But bit by bit, one step at a time and in bite sized chunks I assembled the materials together.

We’d worked non stop, seven days a week, for four years to complete the building work, the whole process took six. But by wearing blinkers, persevering and remaining sanguine it had eventually paid off. We were in a new house, our home and one that was truly ours, all of it. No building societies, no banks, no mortgages and no loans. We sensed liberation and were now free to move forward without hindrance. Time to sit back for a while, relax and look forward to a bright future. I wasn’t in any hurry to do the same any time soon, but we were satisfied with the result and the potential it provided for an early retirement. It was now time to sit back and enjoy the rewards of our labour.

Having spent six stressful years of either working to save or building the house we were now able to focus on what could be described as a more normal lifestyle. Our earnings no longer had to be saved or immediately invested in building materials. The household bills still needed paying but we could now afford to be a little less than frugal. The Blue Bell Inn, near Crookham, on the A697 heading south out of Coldstream served up great steaks and we had family evenings out there. The cross country route took us past the famous Flodden battlefield and the nearby village of Branxton, with which I would become a lot more familiar.

We had made do with furniture that was now looking very tired, these had accompanied us on each stepping stone along our long journey from Earl Shilton to Wark. The more compact dimensions of the new living room wouldn’t support our conventional three piece suite and we also needed a set of dining room furniture that we had managed without. The new sofa, an Ikea corner bed settee, and dining room furniture eventually moved with us to Bulgaria and are still serviceable today, 20 years later. The old Volvo that had served us valiantly for four years was also well past its sell by date, the outer door panels had been rusting and were now perforated

at the bottom as a result. It needed updating but Pauline had fallen in love, and would miss the heated seats and the memories that it created for her.

I have only once bought a brand new car when I was working for Coventry Council, I purchased it on the never, never as the generous mileage allowance that came with the job covered the monthly installments. But that new car feeling comes with a big price tag, the phenomenal initial depreciation cost becomes clear at trade-in time, 30,000 miles and three years later. Once bitten, twice shy; I now leave new car buying to companies who offset the loss against tax and those whose ego thrives on the prestige of driving a car with the current years’ registration plate. I’d driven old bangers for the last six years, not that it bothered me a great deal, my two star outlook on life thrives on driving an old jalopy. But the Volvo that had served us valiantly was now on its last legs. I had come to understand that the optimum time for a car buying, in financial terms, is when it’s three years old. We were taken by the appearance of and opted for a Mitsubishi at a dealership in Berwick that had only 9,000 miles on the clock. Red, with no “go faster” stripes, quite nippy and barely ran in. I apply a different policy here and now in Bulgaria, I drive a 22 year old Opel Zafira. I’ve come to the conclusion, despite systemic conditioning, that running a car into the ground is the most economical and eco-friendly option.

We happily settled into what wasn't by far a new environment in most respects given we’d been there for four years building, but it was in terms of permanent living. Tom had been attending Kelso high school since the transition from primary school education when he had attended Morebattle. Although we were now in another catchment area, a different county and even a different country the system did recognise the need for continuity in a child’s education. So his place at Kelso high school was maintained. There was no bus service to and from but the authority provided a taxi service that collected and returned him home. But after a long period of “normality” I was beginning to get itchy feet again, there was a gaping hole where a project once existed. To me, it felt like an anticlimax, much like the 3rd of January after the festive season.

My lecturing work at Borders College had become a demoralising and tedious bore. The questionable attitude and methodology of my lecturer for the D32/33 assessor course and qualification had been recognised by the college management, he and the college had since acrimoniously parted company. As a result the college lost its accreditation and was no longer able to administer the course. This placed me back at square one with my work for the qualification, everything that I’d done had been a complete waste of time and I had no inclination to start over again. The college also still appeared to be bumping along in the same aimless fashion and it was a stressful environment given the immature and unmotivated nature of the students. We, as lecturers, were expected to jump through hoops that were represented by continuously moving targets. There was now even an expectation for the craft lecturers to visit working sites to achieve up to date experience of current practices, but I'd done nothing but for the previous four years! This mirrored, I thought, the education system as a whole which is designed and aimed at the “average” student and doesn’t account for varying individual learning styles.

Ofsted’s periodical visits were adding to my discomfort, not that I personally ever had a performance related problem, it was just that the visits had the college management running around like headless chickens in an attempt to make everything look cushty. I considered these incursions as a validation exercise to justify ofsteds’ existence. The college alluded to conformity prior to their arrival but it returned to the morm soon after their departure. It’s only purpose, that I could identify, was to make it appear that the system was working as designed when it was patently broken. The employment for me there had served its purpose from my perspective and I really couldn’t envisage myself spending the rest of my career in such a negative environment. With no regrets I gave notice to quit at the end of the academic year in June of 2002.

We were continuing with our fostering career and my personal earnings were now a bonus and not the essential that they were. Since the exit of the sibling group of three children we had been blessed with caring for many individuals who came on a more temporary basis to subsequently move on. But one memorable young lad, Timmy, stayed with us for a more prolonged period. He was placed with us initially when we were at Caverton Mill, at the time

Christine was still with us but she had since moved on and was now enjoying her new and independent lifestyle in Hawick.

I could confidently describe Timmy as a “likable rogue”. He had been cared for by his grandmother in Hawick, their relationship had become fractious, untenable and Timmy was suffering with emotional issues and was also displaying undesirable, difficult to manage behaviour. This had resulted in him being permanently expelled from mainstream schooling, he was now attending a special school in Hawick. A taxi used to collect him at Caverton Mill in the morning and return him in the afternoon, this arrangement continued after we moved to Wark.

He was also suffering with, what we thought as, an eating disorder. His excessive appetite meant he had attained an over-stout stature, to an extent it was affecting his mobility and health. We believed that if this was left unchecked it would be carried forward into later life and the health issues may become more serious. This condition may have been triggered by his emotional issues but despite our encouragement his love of food thwarted our initial efforts to curb it. However, over a longer period of time and as he matured, he learnt to recognise that his eating habits were affecting his health and appearance. He subsequently made significant successful attempts to moderate it. We applied our tried and trusted routines that included the structured and safe home environment that he had lacked previously and, in conjunction with the staff at the special school, were making steady progress toward more acceptable behaviour both at home and school. Sufficiently so, that Timmy was able to leave the special school and returned to mainstream schooling at the primary school in the nearby village of Sprouston. In fact, Timmy was one of a very small elite group of pupils from the special school that achieved such a positive result. With Pauline’s communication and cooperation with the head teacher this arrangement was maintained successfully until he advanced to the high school in Kelso.

Foster caring was no longer the casual affair that it once was, there were now strict criteria defining the expected level of performance. These were ever increasing and continuously evolving to respond and comply with new child care laws. The system was now demanding a professional approach from it’s carers but failing to acknowledge it with the application of an

appropriate status. The payments for the work we were receiving were in two distinct parts; one to cover the financial costs incurred in the physical support of the child, the other as a reward element for our services. This element for a carer with one placement was, at best, mediocre.

Although for those with multiple placements it was proportionally better. But given that the job was 24/7, and if broken down into an hourly rate, worked out to be very modest. We were now carers with appreciable experience and skill, by the end of our career we would have fostered in excess of 100 children. We felt that we deserved some recognition for our efforts and achievements, not in the form of an OBE or knighthood which are reserved for millionaire celebs and obedient civil servants, but simply with status and commensurate remuneration.

However, some of the independent agencies were now beginning to respond by creating positions worthy of status and offering salaried positions. The Jane Moore Trust, based in Livingston near Edinburgh, was a charitable organisation providing care and support to young people in Scotland. They were advertising for professional foster carers to contribute to the services that they offered. We contacted them to discuss our interest in the position and were invited for an interview. After a successful application process we attended their Livingston offices for a series of courses as part of the induction process. After the necessary checks we became registered as approved carers and offered a conditional placement. The condition was that we were to work exclusively for them. But accepted that they would postpone this requirement until all of the existing children in our care with the Scottish Border Council came to a natural end. We were now professional foster carers and this work would continue well beyond that of our expectations.

Our link worker at Jane Moore had introduced us to a fifteen year old girl that they were hoping to place in a family home environment rather than residential care. She had allegedly been a victim of abuse by her father who had been arrested and was awaiting trial to face the charges.

But, unfortunately, because of a seriously deteriorating health condition he died before his court appearance. Colleen's previous home life had now become untenable and the trust had decided to place her with us at the Dovecote where she would stay for the foreseeable future and, given her age, attended the same school as Tom and Timmy in Kelso.

We were now in the summer of 2002. By choice, my four year stint as a lecturer at Borders College had come to a conclusion. This came with mixed feelings but no real regrets. The job had served its purpose, it had enabled us to successfully complete our project. But it did have many rewarding aspects; witnessing students at the beginning of the courses who could barely differentiate between one end of a trowel and the other, to confidently and effectively being able to use it as if it was a biological hand extension. Some of the projects that the second year and advanced students created were not so much parts of a wall but more like pieces of artistic sculptures. We’d had great successes at national competitions and the students in the earlier courses had now completed their apprenticeships and were earning good money. At the time, because of EU investment, the building industry in Dublin was booming. The more competent bricklayers were taking advantage of the fact, commuting weekly or monthly for work and being paid as much £1 a brick for top quality facework. With some work a good bricklayer could lay in excess of 500 in a day, which represents good income by ayones’ standards. But there were many negative influences involved in the job and my employer neglected to apply effective motivation. The salary didn’t compare to the industry’s equivalent for example, a site foreman, was far greater. The motivational methods used by the education system more frequently used the metaphorical stick as opposed to the carrot. The lecturers were more concerned about retaining their jobs rather than encouraged to improve their situation and that of the colleges’. I was now free again to do what I enjoyed, become totally independent and work on more rewarding building projects.

21. Eco-friendly I had been approached by an architect who had an eco project on his books for which his client didn’t want the services of a contractor, instead wanted to supervise the work himself, with the help of the architect, in the interest of saving money. The architect visited me at the Dovecote,

not only in the interest of discussing the work, but to assess my work. We came to an amicable arrangement and introduced me to the job which was located in the village of Branxton and very close to the famous historic site of the Battle of Flodden, these we had passed on several occasions while travelling by car. The building site was situated only a few hundred meters from the monument that commemorates the battle.

The Battle of Flodden, sometimes referred to as Flodden Field or occasionally Branxton, was fought on 9 September 1513 during the war between the Kingdoms of England and Scotland, which resulted in an English victory. The battle was between an invading Scots army led by King James IV and an English army commanded by the Earl of Surrey. In terms of troop numbers, it was the largest battle ever fought between the nations. James encamped his invading army on a commanding hilltop position at Flodden and awaited the English force to arrive which had been sent to repel the invasion. Declining the challenge to fight in an open field, the English army marched to a position at the rear of the Scottish camp. The Scots countered by abandoning their camp and occupying the adjacent Branxton Hill. The battle began with an artillery exchange followed by a downhill advance by Scottish infantry. But they encountered an area of marshy land that lay in their path, which had the effect of breaking up their formations. This gave the English troops the chance to bring about a close-quarter battle, for which they were better equipped. James IV was killed in the fighting, notoriously the last British monarch to die in battle.

The subject of the work was a small ancillary building that served the main house that lay in a modest sized garden but surrounded by 12 acres of agricultural land. It had previous incarnations as a horse stable, a farm animal barn and more recently a garage. But the architects’ plans, for which the necessary approvals had already been obtained, was to convert it into a one bedroomed, eco-friendly cottage.

The client was a retired cargo ships’ captain and was keen to tell stories of his seafaring adventures. He described how, during a stressful situation while he was navigating his ship in difficult waters, he dared not to leave the bridge to relieve himself. So he had to evacuate, not into a bottle which wouldn’t have been suitable for this particular need, but in a cabinet drawer on the ships’ bridge. He also told of the way he had to observe and control the thieving stevedores' in foreign ports to protect the ship’s cargo. I enjoyed his company and conversations while I worked, but he was not capable of offering any practical help in the process. His well meaning and regular interventions only served to slow the progress to an extent that the job ran overtime and over budget.

Although the building was relatively small the conversion work was extensive and would take several months to complete. The main building presently consisted of only one very large room but it was to be divided into two areas. The left side would have a mezzanine floor, the space beneath would be occupied by one small double bedroom at the front and a small kitchen at the rear, accessed by the open planned arrangement of a large living room/dining room and the secondary living room on the mezzanine floor level. There was a single storey attachment at one end of the main building which, at one time, was used as a pig sty, but as part of the proposal was going to be the new bathroom.

The roof had to be removed and a new one installed. At the front I was to create a foundation for a prefabricated, curved roofed, galvanised steel framed structure. It’s primary function was an entrance lobby but was also to serve as a solar heating source on sunny days.

The first job was to remove and set aside the roof slates for reuse, then remove and dispose of the old roof timbers. The design of the new roof did not require the need for ceiling ties ( joists) which would have compromised the design and encroached on the living space. Without which a dual pitched roof tends to spread at the wall heads, to compensate for this I had to install a universal steel beam (USB) at the ridge line, (these used to be known as British standard beams (BSB’s) and more historically as rolled steel joists (RSJ’s)). This beam supported the upper ends of the rafters along the ridge line and prevented the roof from spreading at the eaves. Then the new timber rafters could be installed between the beam and the wall head.

I laid a new ready mixed concrete floor throughout. The ground around the side and back of the building, which was about 1m too high, had to be reduced to below the new concrete floor level which required the use of a mini-excavator and truck to remove. There was significant work in the stone walls; I had to form an opening for a combination door and window opening to enable access to the proposed patio area at the back. For the formation of the reveals I utilised pre-used sandstone quoin stones which had to be imported, cut, dressed and installed to the sides of the opening, upon which rested a new reconstituted concrete lintel. The existing stone wall joints contained no mortar to prevent rainwater and vermin ingress, to achieve the desired effect I had to introduce a coarse sand, cement and lime mix with a brushed finish. This was a large area so it took quite some time. I constructed a concrete foundation to support the prefabricated galvanised steel, curved roof structure on the front elevation which was bolted together in engineering style.

I fully boarded the top side of the pitched rafters to receive the recycled slates and a plywood covering over the curved roof. This section of green roof signified that this was to be a sustainable home. They don’t actually serve the houses’ eco purpose sufficiently to be worthwhile, but they do have some genuine benefits, they absorb heat from the sun, absorb CO2, a large proportion of the rainwater and do provide a degree of insulation.

The re-slating of the main roof was challenging as the join between it and the porch roof formed an elliptical shaped curve which had to be convincingly formed with straight edged cut slates. There were to be three velux roof windows, one to the bathroom as there was no wall

space for a vertical window and two smaller ones over the mezzanine floor. I also had to install a pair of proprietary solar panels which were to supplement the electrical energy to heat the domestic hot water. Their performance turned out to be nothing more than disappointing.

When I did a soundness test on the system and pump I realised that even in the summer the water was barely lukewarm and flowing at no more than a trickle through a small diameter rubber pipe. In the winter, I thought, it would provide little or no benefit whatsoever.

I have since considered the idea of a solar water heating system. But despite the claims made by those who profit from the installations, my analysis has proved (at least to me) that the limited savings, even over a period of decades, make it virtually impossible to achieve payback let alone produce a profit. Both a washing machine and dishwasher are “cold fill” and, therefore, can only be heated using electricity anyway. In the summer there’s an abundance of sunshine and hot water but we tend to use cool water for showering; and the heat emanating from the stored hot water only adds to the uncomfortably high temperatures in the house. In the winter the energy to heat the water is provided by the wood burning stove which is working to heat the house anyway. If the system was to save me 50% on my water heating costs, this would amount to £5 per month, if the capital cost was, say, £1,500 it would take 25 years to recoup the capital sum and that calculation didn’t include for system maintenance or depreciation costs.

The new eco-house would arguably benefit from a small wind turbine to generate electrical energy. The stored electricity from a 12v battery, would then illuminate low energy LED lights.

Another debatable attribute incurring a significant capital and depreciation costs to utilise a resource only available on days with significant amounts of wind. The same lighting can be inexpensively achieved with modern and efficient LED lighting utilising a conventional 240v mains supply. Lighting only consumes approximately 5%, at most, of a homes’ total consumption. Far be it from me to comment but I am convinced that the advertised attributes of renewable energy of this nature are red herrings in the interest of creating profit for big business. Just saying, that’s all.

The house would be heated in winter by a single wood stove with an internal stainless steel flue and definitely benefit from the supplementary solar heat on sunny days from the fully glazed

entrance lobby. The floors would be tiled in a dark coloured tile which would more readily absorb the heat which the buildings’ thermal mass would gradually release overnight. The project was then completed by the plastering, kitchen installation, bathroom installation, retaining wall and patio at the rear.

22. Haunting Apparitions We were now into 2003 and really enjoying our social life in Wark, as were the children. Tom, Timmy and Colleen were appreciating the company of their friends and the playground in the village. For home entertainment I had set up a TV with a secondary “Sky” satellite TV receiver

and their Playstation games console. This provided a childless sanctuary for me and Pauline in the main living room. Tom and Timmy had mountain bikes and would make Evel Knievel ramps to make daredevil jumps on the central village green. They had all made friendships in the village and Colleen had a school friend who lived in another village amongst the hills beyond Sprouston. I used to ferry her there in the car for weekend daily or evening visits. On one occasion, as we were returning in very stormy weather, the gales brought down a very large oak tree that had crashed to the ground across the road only 100 meters in front of the car. We were very fortunate, had we commenced our journey only ten seconds earlier then it’s possible that we, along with the car, would have been crushed and neither of us would have survived to tell the tale.

Timmy was a bit of a “Jack the lad” and, on occasions, was mischievous. He was in the habit of not engaging his brain before administering his words and actions. On a summers’ day while playing in the village he was overcome by the urge to answer the call of nature and rather than return home to use the toilet he lazily decided to relieve himself against a neighbours wheelie bin. Later the same day while I was preoccupied upstairs Pauline answered a knock at the door.

There stood a very abusive, insulting and aggressive man complaining about Timmy’s inappropriate treatment of his wheelie bin. I immediately rushed down to support Pauline, apologised for Timmy’s actions and endeavoured to suppress his aggressive nature. We patiently humoured him over what we perceived as an undesirable but very trivial incident. But he was adamant to continue with his abusive complaints, I had to encourage his retreat using no uncertain terms. We chastised Timmy for this misdemeanour for which he was apologetic.

But Pauline was understandably upset by his inappropriate and aggressive behaviour, so we decided that a call to the police to report the incident was a justifiable reaction.

We later learnt that the man was a Jehovah's Witness minister at a church in Berwick. Although I acknowledge and respect the benefits that religion provides for the many who choose to subscribe, this episode only served to compound my reasoning not to. I was under the illusion that the principles underpinning Christianity were to understand, forgive, and apply high moral standards; attributes this man evidently lacked. The police officer arrived and concurred with our concerns, but again highlighted to Timmy the error of his ways. He subsequently made a

visit to the minister to discuss the issue. I've no idea of the conversions’ content but we were never bothered by his unhealthy attitude ever again.

Having said that, the few unreasonable villagers’ were well outnumbered by the many great characters. The village hall committee arranged numerous community events and the snooker table was available for anyone to use. We put it to good use and were regular visitors, the cost of its use was covered by a coin operated electric meter controlling the over table lighting. We maintained, therefore, a good supply of twenty pence pieces. The hall was used for children’s birthday and Christmas parties, Pauline was often involved with other parents and friends by making and providing the food and goodies. There were also other events at the hall to include quiz nights and in the summer there were car treasure hunts over the wider area to collect and solve clues.

Since living in the Dovecote Pauline had started to experience, otherwise inexplicable, transcendent events. I was somewhat skeptical and tended to search for logical or scientific answers. She witnessed small dancing white light globes in our bedroom, the Dovecotes’ master bedroom. I initially put it down to the effects of headlamps of passing cars refracted into the room by the window glass. But we had timber window shutters that totally obliterated light from external sources. I couldn’t find another logical explanation but remained unconvinced until our daughter, Mo and her ex-partner Eric stayed for two weeks to enable us a respite holiday. Eric, who is a level headed and practical guy, recounted similar experiences while we were away. My opinion was swayed, Paulines’ experience had been validated, and there was no empirical evidence to support a scientific explanation. This was confirmed on a late evening later in the year when my friend, Al, had made another social visit, as we chatted and drank tea in the kitchen we heard heavy, slow footsteps in our bedroom above. “I’ll catch that mischievous Timmy” I whispered as I hastily ascended the stairs and entered our bedroom. But there was nobody there! I checked the kids' bedrooms on my return and they were all soundly asleep, there was absolutely no chance that any of them could have gotten back to their room and appear to be asleep in the few seconds that it took me to get upstairs.

Although not intimidated, we were all convinced that these experiences evidenced an unworldly presence. Could the stones with which the house was built, with their historical connections, have resulted in these haunting experiences? Or was it, although not archeologically proven, that our bedroom was, indeed, once occupied by the Castles’ gate house tower? I have no religious beliefs but these had confirmed to me the notion that our consciousness continues after the demise of their biological host. I do believe that there is someone or something that many call “God”. Not an old man with grey hair who created the world in six days and on the seventh day he rested. But an entity that we are destined to meet again and who created the opportunity for life to develop and exist on Earth, despite the astronomical physical odds that conspire and seek to defy it.

Geri, who had helpfully provided us with the opportunity to acquire the bathroom suite for the Dovecote, was still plying her trade as a marketing engineer for a company that supplied and installed bathrooms, at the time she had helped with a national television advertising campaign. The building industry was experiencing one of it up’s and multi skilled installers were in short supply. Geri had directed my attention to the fact that her company was looking to recruit, on a self employed basis, multi-skilled fitters. In addition to plumbing, competency in plastering and tiling was also a prerequisite and they were paying good rates. This was worth a whirl, I thought, and went for an interview at their south of Scotland depot. After it’s successful conclusion there was a brief induction process and I bought an inexpensive Citroen tool carrying van on an Ebay auction.

My first job was to install an ensuite shower room in a large detached house associated with the Longridge Towers private schools on the Coldstream to Berwick road. The material content had been predetermined and together with a builders’ skip were delivered to the site on my first day at the job. The claim that the fitters could earn a considerable sum was true but they failed to qualify the fact that to achieve it would be necessary to work ten hours a day, seven days a week. Standard work hours would have resulted in nothing more than an average wage. I proceeded with the work to be visited on a daily basis by a supervising foreman who was steeped in self importance and a tad arrogant. My work was regularly interrupted by telephone calls from a call centre requesting me to attend to snagging issues on other completed projects

in the region. This would involve long drives to carry out corrective work which only served to slow the progress on mine.

I was also regularly interrupted by the inquisitive nature of, who I assumed to be, the head teachers’ partner, more often than not with a glass of red wine in her hand. I was developing a sense that I was getting nowhere fast. Despite these I did manage to eventually complete the installation to everyones’ satisfaction only to learn that the company would hold a 10% retention that I would have to move Heaven and Earth to recover and I struggled to recover my costs involved in the call outs attending to the snagging issues. I respectfully declined all subsequent inquiries for further work. The company no longer exists, Hmm…… .

23. Home and Away It was now the spring of 2003. Pauline was starting to look toward the advantages of reaching retirement age. I had a fair bit longer to wait, I’m her toyboy and ten years younger. There are many negatives involved in the aging process, we need no reminding. But there are, however,

some positives; accumulating experience, wisdom and receiving a pension income to mention a few. We could have happily retired in the Dovecote but we were interested in buying a holiday home that we could use as such in the interim and to increase our options when the time came.

We pondered the alternatives and decided that the further away from civilisation and the rat race the better. We were still on the cusp of living in Scotland and thought somewhere in this great nation, but out in the wilderness, was very appealing. Pauline began her online investigations, which she enjoys and is far better at than me. She narrowed it down to an area of about 5,000 square kilometers and 200,000 nominees so that made it easy. Aberdeenshire, Banffshire and Moray were to be the target and near to the sea if possible. The housing market was now booming after years of being in the doldrums and property prices in these areas were now more expensive than I anticipated. But, nevertheless, we would now qualify for a mortgage that we could afford on our income, either the Dovecote or the holiday home could be either sold or rented out at a later date to service or pay it off.

We narrowed the search down by generating a wish list and browsing the estate agents websites to ascertain availability. We now had a short list of four from the potential candidates. One near Keith, one near Huntly and the other two nearer the sea, close to Banff. We had an enjoyable weekend break away and an overnight stay in a country hotel while taking the opportunity to view. We eventually set our hearts on one near the sea, a little inland from Banff. But had the potential for the house near Keith as a second choice.

The purchasing process north of the border is significantly different to England. To register an interest we had to place our offer as a bid in a sealed envelope, this value was based on the agents’ suggested “bids over '' price, these had to be received on or before a specific date. We carefully considered ours which was 5% over the suggested price and waited for the due date.

We were miles out, the other bids were generously over the guide price, far too generous for our liking. But undeterred we placed a bid for our second choice in Keith, this time with a proportionally higher bid. But it too was unsuccessful by a margin. This had now become a fruitless exercise, to be successful in acquiring a house to satisfy our checklist would stretch the budget too far. Disappointing to say the least but an interesting experience, nevertheless.

Our eldest daughter, Heather, and her partner, Jeremy, had emigrated to Spain some years earlier. He was an architect and had taken the post as the director of the company’s interest in Spain which was based in Madrid. Spain was rapidly becoming a property developers’ and an architects’ paradise as a result of EU investment. They lived in an apartment in the nations’ capital that was provided by the company but had also bought a house in an outlying town which was at a commutable distance to the capital. Many retiring Brits have emigrated to Spain to benefit from the better weather and more preferable social environment. The “Mediterranean” lifestyle is far more appealing than the live to work, money is king, society that Britain had become. We also had the desire of subscribing to the notion that escaping what was rapidly becoming an acidic and uncaring environment was a positive move. We were now, therefore, considering the option of retiring and enjoying a better way of life in foreign climes.

We discussed our intention with Heather and Jeremy, and given their superior geographical knowledge and language skills, would rely on them for valid information. They subsequently invited us over for a three week house hunting holiday, for which they offered the aid of assistance.

We arranged for the respite care of Colleen and Timmy to provide us with the opportunity and Thomas was invited to stay with his sister, Mo, and her partner at the time, Eric, at their home in Callington near Plymouth. We drove down from Wark to Plymouth, dropped Tom off and got the overnight ferry from Plymouth to Santander in northern Spain. The weather in the Basque region was not dissimilar to that of the UK. Although this was summer, the proximity of the Atlantic Ocean and the notherlies brought cooler and wetter conditions. We disembarked and drove along the motorway from Santander in a westerly direction with the windscreen wipers in overdrive and then turned south over the mountains toward Madrid. Having negotiated the mountainous region, descended and arrived on the Spanish plains. It seemed like we were now on a different continent as the weather turned from cool and damp into a blue skied, baking cauldron. It was then a case of coats off, sunroof open and air conditioning on until we arrived at our destination.

We stayed at their apartment, in their spare bedroom, for the first night and then began our southward bound adventure toward Seville. They had booked a rental of a country house which had a small swimming pool enroute and we followed them in the car until we arrived. We were to stay for a few days, enjoy one another's company, then they were to head off to meet up with friends enabling us to appreciate the environment and commence our search. We were to continue south to Seville, then toward the border with Portugal and continue south to eventually arrive at the British overseas territory of Gibraltar, one of the few remnants of the once great Victorian empire. We had arranged several viewings in various locations along the way.

Gibraltar wasn’t what we’d imagined it to be. It had all that was associated with Britain like the traditional police uniforms but there was a certain lack of British people. It appeared as a multicultural and cosmopolitan society, self contained, compact but relied on a Spanish immigrant workforce. It didn’t appeal to me in any shape or form. We stayed for a few days and then began our reciprocal journey north to again meet up with Heather and Jeremy.

For one of our overnight stop offs we stayed at a rustic, shabby chic hotel where the accommodations were individual, traditional chalets scattered around unregimented gardens.

The hotelier performed a hands on roll and engaged with us in many conversations. He had multi nationalities, French by birth, Spanish and spoke perfect English. Most Europeans have attained English as a secondary or tertiary language. This fact has often resurrected the joke in me; “what do you call somebody who can speak three languages?”...”Trilingual!”, “what do you call someone who can speak two languages?”...”Bi-lingual!”, “ and what do you call someone who can only speak one language?”...”English!”. He was interested in my surname, Gasccoigne, and was knowledgeable of its origins. He convincingly described this as the region in northern Spain bordering and to include Southern France. Hence the district name of Gascony in France, there is also a famous French wine producing company which trades under the name of Gascoigne. Interestingly, well interesting for me anyway, my parents had made a genealogical study of the family name which was introduced to us by an immigrating French monk who plied his trade at the church in the Warwickshire village of Monks Kirby. I was previously under

the illusion that monks practiced celibacy, but patently not, there must have been a lot of “monk-ey” business going on in the nunnery at the time.

We had completed our tour of Spain, said our goodbyes to Heather and Jeremy, returned on the same ferry, collected Tom from Callington and driven back to our home in Wark to consider our findings. We loved Spain and all that it offered in terms of lifestyle, weather and social environment but the property prices to conform to our wish list, like Aberdeenshire, exceeded our budget, or at least what we were prepared to commit. Another disappointment but a great and memorable holiday, nevertheless.

With our fostering connections we had developed many friendships in the Borders. Angie and Mathew lived only two or three miles away on Coldstream’s high street, the namesake of the famous military regiment, the Coldstream Guards. Coldstream was just north of the river Tweed, border and Cornhill. In fact it was only about a mile away as the crow flies, directly across the river and was visible from Wark on a clear day. Matt was a Geordie and hailed from the north east of England and Angie was Scottish Borders, born and bred. They had a large house with numerous bedrooms and fostered many children over the years, and now 20 years on are still carers for the Scottish Borders Council. We had a lot in common, not just in fostering but also in many other respects. We used to visit them regularly to enjoy conversations, I even did some building work for them once the Dovecote was complete. We also had another friend, Jeanette, although she was more Paulines’ friend than mine. Pauline would chat and visit her regularly and learnt that she was hoping to retire and emigrate to Bulgaria which provoked an interest in us since our disappointment of Spain.

Jeanette had developed a friendship with a Bulgarian tour guide, Antoanetta (Toni), when together they had toured Bulgaria in search of a property for her to buy. But Jeanette’s personal circumstances had changed such that she was temporarily no longer able to chase her dream.

From what Pauline gathered from their conversations prompted sufficient interest in us to make contact with Toni and learn more. Toni lived with partner, Venci, in an apartment in the nations' capital, Sofia. Spoke and wrote in English, although not perfectly, to a very high standard, was well educated and a very intelligent woman. So Pauline communicated, via

email, our renewed interest in finding a retirement home, this time in Bulgaria. Toni had been supplementing her income by providing unofficial tours for Europeans, mainly British, who were interested in seeing the country or looking for properties to buy. We wanted to learn more and acquire first hand experience so it was necessary to make a convenient arrangement with Toni and book a flight. We couldn’t go together as it was not possible to arrange respite care for the children at such short notice. So Pauline took the flight while I stayed at home to hold the fort and look after the crew.

Toni was there to welcome her as she arrived at Sofia airport and drove her back to her apartment for the first night of the tour in her 25 year old Lada Riva estate. This was the beginning of what was going to be a long lasting and close friendship with Toni and Venci that continues today. Pauline was interested in discovering and achieving a sense of as many of the vastly ranging regions of this wonderful country as was possible in a two week holiday. Toni had an interest in religious architecture so the tour included visits to the numerous churches and monasteries. Having started in Sofia they toured the mountainous Rila national park area to the south which included a stay at the famous elevated winter resort of Bansko, where the air is thin and makes for a good night’s sleep. They continued east and explored the tourist areas of Troyan and Aprilci at the foot of the 2,400 m high Mount Botev in the central Balkan mountain range. Then toward the coastal region bordering the Black Sea, to include Burgas, Sozopol and Primorsko as they headed south to the Turkish border. Pauline returned exhausted, it was not so much of a relaxing holiday as an intensive fact finding trip. But she was excited about the prospect of buying a retirement home there, enjoyed the experience and Toni and Vencis’ company.

24. The Top Rung We were sufficiently impressed with Paulines’ experience for us to arrange a

holiday in the summer of 2004 and tour again with the help and kindness of Toni. Carole, my sister, was also intrigued, had a great interest and decided to share the experience by accompanying us. Together we took a Lufthansa flight from Edinburgh, via Frankfurt, to Sofia (pictured opposite). I bought a learn Bulgarian book at the airport and by the end of the flight I could count beyond ten in Bulgarian without having to take my shoes and socks off. Toni was in the arrivals hall to greet and whisked us away in her faithful old Lada, it had a turning circle that of an oil tanker and she had to wrestle with the steering wheel with muscles of steel to do a three point turn. But it was a great motor, of which I have fond memories. She has since succumbed and traded in the Lada for a Mercedes, oh how the other half live!

I had managed to paint a limited mental picture of what I was about to witness from Paulines’ account of her trip, four months earlier, and the language book had primed me with a few rudimentary facts about the country. I previously knew as much about the country as I did about the rings of Saturn, I wasn't even sure where it was until I looked on the map. Bulgaria is one of the oldest countries in Europe, dating back to 681 AD and ascended to the EU in 2007. It is one of the most southerly countries and borders Romania to the north, the Back Sea to the east, Turkey to the south east, Greece to the south, North Macedonia and Serbia to the west. It had become entrenched in the USSR at the end of the second world war in 1945 since when the social infrastructure and economy had begun to stagnate, influenced by the communist regime.

But with the advent of communisms’ demise, which began in 1989, Bulgaria became liberated, as did the many eastern bloc countries. We had witnessed the fall of the Berlin wall on the television news and Germany’s reunification, the first time since the end of the Second World War.

Bulgaria had achieved independence from Moscow and was moving forward under its own steam making progress, slowly but surely, to catch up with the economies of the western European countries. However, Russia and Bulgaria have remained good friends because of their historic connections; the Russian military, indeed, played a pivotal role in the war between Bulgaria and Turkey to rid the country of the occupying Ottoman forces in the late 19th c..

Independence was achieved on 22 nd September 1908. It was also the Bulgarian monks, Cyril and Methodius that invented the Cyrillic alphabet back in the 9th century; to be later adopted

by their Russian cousins. The languages have many commonalities, although the Russian alphabet contains more characters, sufficient for native Bulgarian speakers to be ably understood by their Russian counterparts and vice versa. Having said that, with my current limited Bulgarian language skills, my understanding of the spoken Russian language is no better than that of Chinese. There are also similarities with other ex eastern bloc countries, even with those who use the more familiar Latin alphabet.

My initial impressions as we drove through Sofia were occupied with the consequential hangovers from the communist regime. The transport infrastructure was suffering from a lack of investment, the roads weren’t good even by Borders’ standards; littered with potholes, some large enough to swallow a car whole, the cars’ meanderings to avoid them almost doubled the distance to reach the desired destination. Most of the city’s residences lacked individuality, and were lacklustre, grey concrete tower blocks. Given the east to west Balkan mountain range there were two main highways emanating easterly toward the Black Sea, one to the north of the mountains terminating at Bulgarias’ third city of Varna and the other to the south to the fourth city of Burgas which passed Plovdiv, it’s second city, enroute. These were, in the main, single carriage trunk roads in various states of disrepair, interspersed with dual carriageways and made for very slow progress. Toni described how it would take her a full days’ driving to get from her home in Sofia to Varna. Now, as a result of EU investment, and the installation of motorways, the same journey can be completed in as little as four hours. The top of the mountain passes connecting the two main highways provide magnificent views of the valleys and plains below.

Bulgaria has a similar land mass to England in terms of area but it’s population, at about six million, is only about one tenth in comparison. Bulgaria is one of only a few countries in the world where the population is actually declining, due mainly to the brain drain and emigration of younger people in search of more lucrative earnings abroad. The population densities, much like other countries, are in the cities. These include the capital, Sofia, which accounts for about a third of this number, Plovdiv, Varna, Burgas and Stara Zagora. The remainder of the population is sparsely distributed throughout the country in small rural towns and villages. A third of the country is forested and holds the accolade for hosting the largest hardwood forest

in Europe. The weather to the south of the Balkans’ is milder in the winter months and becomes extremely hot in the summer. The annual temperature range is vastly greater than that of the UK. The highest recorded temperature is +46 and the lowest is -39 degrees celcius Last year, where we live and despite the moderating effects of the Black Sea, experienced 41 degrees; so warm that chocolate bars were melting at room temperature. The country is steeped in traditional culture, has a laid back lifestyle with a “work to live” attitude as opposed to the “live to work” paradigm that persists in the more westerly nations of Europe. As in most other capitalist societies there is a significant wealth divide between the affluent city dwellers and those in rural locations. International business investment has brought with it booming city economies but the “mafia” style control has tended to suppress wage levels. There have been positive advancements in reducing the overt corruption that exists but is no worse than the covert corruption, for those who have had the wherewithal to discover it, within the current UK government.

The country's national currency is the Leva (BGN) which is divided into 100 Stotinki' (known colloquially as “stinkies”), although there are plans afoot to adopt the Euro in 2024. The exchange rate at the time was about 3 BGN to £1, although now it stands at about 2.3. The cost of living was very low but has steadily increased since 2007. For example, at the time a packet of cigarettes cost 1 Lev (33p), a beer at a cafe was 80 Stotinki’ (30p) and a litre of petrol was 1.5 Lev ( 50p). Although the mafia types were driving around in their black Mercedes' with tinted, darkened windows, in 2004 most of the cars on the road were either the Russian Lada or Moskovich or the east German Trabant, or “Trabi” as it was more affectionately known. The Trabi was powered by an economical 500 cc, 2 stroke, motorbike engine. Toni actually owned one and gave us hilarious accounts of her adventures in it. She also told us a funny joke about Russians’ and their cars, which I remember to this day. It went something like…”What do Russians drive in the villages?”...”A Moskovich!”. “What do they drive in the city?”... “A Lada!”.

“What do they drive for international journeys?”...” A Tank!”

We paid for Toni’s expenses, meals and hotel accommodation and a sum to cover her time and effort as a guide and translator as she conducted her business, accompanying us through the country. We stopped off in the historic town of Tryavna, where Carole would eventually buy a

house some years later. We had many enjoyable evenings together sampling and discovering traditional Bulgarian cuisine. The many great hotels and restaurants enroute afforded many opportunities, as did the Hotel List overlooking the beach in the centre of Sozopol upon our arrival. We were to stay there for two weeks which was sufficient for me to fall in love with the country, the people, way of life and their reaction to us foreigners, although not unique, were quite unusual. But I felt more welcomed here as a Welshman with an English accent than I ever did in the Scottish Borders.

Sozopol (pictured opposite) is the jewel in the crown of Bulgaria's resorts to the south of Burgas. It’s history spans millennia and was founded in the 7th century BC by Greek colonists from Miletus as Antheia. The first settlement on the site dates back to the Bronze Age. Undersea explorations in the region have revealed relics of dwellings, ceramic pottery, stone and bone tools from that era. Many anchors from the second and first millennium BC have been discovered in the town's bay, a proof of active shipping since ancient times. It’s economy thrives on the tourist trade in the summer season which spans from early May til late September, although some of the hotels, bars and restaurants remain open all year round. It is now not a port, but does host the base for the border security ships and has a marina where the affluent moor their yachts.

Bulgarias’ border security is high profile and can be witnessed daily while driving around the area. There is a small army of land based specialist border police to deal with the massive influx of illegal immigrants. The border with Turkey is fenced and patrolled but runs through the mountains where it is regularly breached by those seeking sanctuary from the tyranny in some middle eastern states. Only recently, while walking the dogs along their favourite forest track, I noticed what appeared to be three hikers carrying rucksacks resting at the side of the track. As I approached them I greeted them and started a conversation in my best Bulgarian

which didn’t provoke the anticipated reaction. The youngest of the very dark skinned and bearded group then addressed me in English and stated ”We are from Syria, can you please telephone the police for us?”. I was shocked to put it mildly, for one that I’d met such a group of guys in the first place and, two, that they didn’t want to do a runner but be arrested. I couldn’t oblige their request as I was out a signal for my phone and advised them to continue on their journey to the village where they would find someone to fulfill their need. On our return I witnessed the presence of several border police vehicles and officers who scrutinised me suspiciously, but when they saw me walking a pack of dogs were pacified and passed me by.

The illegal immigrants had obviously achieved their peculiar desire. In my mind I wished them all the best for a brighter future.

We had formed a checklist of wishes and had already decided that we prefered to buy a property at the coast, somewhere between Burgas and the Turkish border to the South. Toni made contact with an estate agent from Burgas, Zdravko, who happily obliged in escorting us.

The viewings included houses, apartments and regulated plots in the coastal resorts and within the hinterlands, a few minutes drive of the sea. From Chernomorets, a little south of Burgas to Sinemorets in the south and very close to the Turkish border. This included the resorts of Sozopol, Primorsko, Kiten and Lozenets. We also visited the inland villages of Rosen, Vesselie, Yasna Polyana and Pismenovo. Most of the properties were in poor condition, many not even in a habitable condition. However, there were a few that were, not to the standards that we were used to, but livable nevertheless. We liked the idea of living in a resort but, being in-season, we witnessed how busy they got in July and August. So we decided on a village house within striking distance of the Black Sea so that we could enjoy a resorts’ facilities in the summer without having to endure the masses and limitations imposed during the high season.

The “Black” Sea is a misnomer, as black is something that it’s not, it is, indeed, as blue as any other sea. A mix of fresh and salt water but was originally a freshwater lake, not dissimilar in shape to the Australian continent and occupies about the same area as the UK. There are numerous hypotheses regarding its formation which are based on the theory that at sometime in history the sea level rose significantly and the isthmus to the north of the Bosfora strait adjacent to Istanbul gradually gave way, initiating the deluge that allowed the Mediterranean

sea to flood the lake. This theory forms the basis of the famous biblical story of Noah, the Ark and the animals that boarded two by two.

Our viewings highlighted two potentialities, one in the village of Yasna Polana and, as a second choice, one in the village of Pismenovo. The Yasna Polyana house, which was out of the village centre, had a large garden with a small vineyard and an orchard. It was in need of considerable improvements and upgrades but was in a habitable condition so the work was doable while resident. We expressed our interest and met up with Zdravkos’ partner who was an advocate, Georgie (George), the equivalent of a UK solicitor. He had offices just off the pedestrianised area in the centre of Burgas. Our wishes were expressed to the vendor but there was another interested party, a Bulgarian, who was prepared to make an offer. The offers were similar and matched the asking price but our situation, as foreigners, was significantly worse. Prior to Bulgarias’ ascension to the EU any non Bulgarian prospective purchaser of properties within a prescribed distance of the border, to include the Black Sea, were subject to extensive national security checks, these could take several weeks or months to complete. The vendor was in immediate need of the cash, didn’t want an unnecessary delay and opted for the alternative offer. Zdravko even encouraged the seller to reconsider by arranging our 10% deposit money, in cash, on a coffee table in the solicitor's office as temptation but to no avail.

It was now only three days before our planned return to Blighty and we were no nearer to making a purchase. Although I was neutral, Pauline was still interested in our second choice, the property in Pismenovo. She remembered how the old lady had offered us produce from the garden, how animals freely wandered the streets and the attractiveness of the location.

Pismenovo was in a Cul-de-sac, there was no through road. The only way of accessing the village was via the main road from Primorsko, other than a rough track through the Strandja forest by using an off road vehicle. There were distant sea views from some parts and it was on the cusp of the forest which extends far out of sight, southerly into Greece and Turkey.

The popular resort of Primorsko lies about 50 Km south of Burgas and a similar distance north of the southernmost

coastal village of Resovo, next to the Turkish border. It is a more modern family resort that lacks the history of it’s sister resort, Sozopol, but has many attractive features. It is the home of Beglik Tash, the Bulgarias’ equivalent of Stonehenge, which is a prehistoric rock sanctuary situated a few kilometers north of Primorsko. It was re-used by the Thracian tribes in the Iron Age. Primorsko also boasts many miles of the best beaches on the southern Bulagrian coast with taverns that serve inexpensive beach food and drinks. Our favourite tavern is the Crosshairs (featured opposite) which lies out of the main resort on the beach at the end of the road as we travel toward the Town. The town itself has a water park, many restaurants, bars, an open air amphitheatre which hosts live bands, folklore and traditional dancing events. There is also a funfair which is situated in the schools’ gardens during it’s summer recess.

We made a second visit with Zdravko to reinforce Paulines’ initial impression of the village and house. The house was in extremely poor condition but the village, which is elevated 140 m above sea level, was wonderful and only seven kilometers inland from Primorsko. This visit also enthused an interest in me and was converted to the villages’ appeal. Not so the house, it was a borderline demolition candidate. But not perturbed by the prospect we pursued the purchase, it was cheap given its location, even by Bulagarian standards of the era and no more than the cost of a good second hand car. But we only had three days which was insufficient to complete the process.

Here the legal process to purchase a property is infinitely more simple than the UK equivalent.

The same solicitor represents the legal interests of both parties and their fees are only a fraction of the cost of their British counterparts. The process requires the purchaser to make a

commitment by making a 10% deposit and after the legal documents are produced, which can take as little as two weeks, the balance is paid and the deal completed.

We opened a bank account at Bulgarias’ First Investment Bank in Burgas, which we still have to this day, and transferred the funds from our UK bank. There was just enough time to arrange the initial contract with Zdravkos’ solicitor partner, George, and pay the deposit before our departure back to Edinburgh. At the same time arranged a power of attorney to enable Zdravko to complete the deal on our behalf. We could now do a little bit of celebrating and make a toast to what was to become our retirement home in the mountains overlooking the Black Sea.

It was now August 2004. In the autumn of 1995, and on the bottom rung, we were flat broke and very nearly homeless. At the age of 47 and in the space of nine years I was now standing on the top rung and we had earned the right to escape the rat race and retire into what would eventually become a beautiful, extended and renovated home (pictured above) within a serene environment. We were to happily emigrate to our adopted country of Bulgaria, in March of 2006, 18 months later.

The events of our lives since then would make a more interesting continuation to the story, but fall out of my terms of reference and the scope of this book. But, if well received, it may represent a worthy story for a sequel.

But until then….We continue to enjoy life and look to the future with positivity and hope.