Alan Cavender
they were happy in their work. Bryan was mysteriously disappeared. A quiet word with offered the digger keys on day 1 and was one of the drivers told us that they had still in it on the following Saturday long after received a Facebook alert that some of the everyone else had gone home. Karl worked lads from “down the village” were going to really hard all week on the re-building of the trash the coaches and they had had to hide lower off-side return wall only to be frusthem away! Deciding not to install panic in trated in not being able to see it finished – our volunteers we quietly covered this inforthe job was too big. George and Graham mation and went off on our evening boat trip took on the finding, placing and levelling of as if nothing had happened. Of course on the coping stones which became increasingly our return nothing had happened and the difficult as all the best stones had already camp and the coaches returned to normal been used up. They were followed by a the next day. dedicated team of “brick underfillers!” whose As intimated at the beginning, we didn’t job was to brick up the often large voids finish the lock but had a really good crack at between the top of the brickwork and the doing so. The off-side chamber wall copings underside of the coping stones. Sian, Chris, were placed, levelled, mortared in and back Christine, Olivia and Tegan get a mention filled with soil. Much pointing was done, here. Quietly over-seeing the whole job, Mr including the paddle hole tool store. The Mike Fellows with his quality controlled lower flank and return walls on the offside pointing trowel. were progressed to about 2 courses from Having started by mentioning names I’ll coping level and many tree stumps and logs stop now before I feel obliged to list everywere removed from the canal down to Rucks body. There were others of equally hard Bridge. working stature. In NWPG they are known as Thanks to everyone. Where will NWPG the “B” team and comprise the brick cutters, be next summer? I don’t yet, definitely not mortar mixers, brick, sand and lime suppliEisey, but we will be somewhere. ers, bonfire burners, dumper drivers, brick Bill Nicholson cleaners. They get moaned at by the skilled trades but the camp wouldn’t operate without them. As a part time member of the team myself I must sing their praises. Sue who has cooked for us for almost every one of the 20 years of NWPG camps did us proud again. Each year she comes back to do this most crucial task and we are all eternally grateful. She tells me that for some reason appetites were down this year – perhaps another consequence of the economic downturn? This was the week of the riots and if some of the camp team hadn’t bought newspapers then I suspect we could have remained blissfully unaware of the world outside. Except that on Tuesday evening on our return from site to sleepy Ashton Keynes, we noticed that all the coaches in the Olivia and Tegan on mortar-mixing duty depot next to the hall had
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