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 CEMENTING YOUR PLACE IN HISTORY
How do you refit an old cement factory for residential use yet retain the feel and atmosphere of its former life?
Architect Ricardo Bofill has transformed over 3,000 sqm of abandoned cement factory into an extraordinary cathedral like space, retaining as much of the old industrial fittings and atmosphere as possible while creating a contemporary living space.
Story Type : 829
Images :
Location : Spain > Cataluna
Category : News Stories
IP : Logged
ID : 63882
User : 38516 ; Craftspeople/Restorers/Services ; (Registered SalvoWEB user for 2 years or more)
Date Created : 04 Jan 2012 22:15:40
Date Modified : 04 Jan 2012 22:15:46;
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DAVID URQUHART HOLDS FAIR TO SUPPORT GREAT ORMOND STREET HOSPITAL
David Urquhart said he owed the lives of two of his grandchildren to Great Ormond Street Hospital so he organised a fund-raising fair in November to say thank you. David, owner of Posterity Architectural Salvage & Reclamation, said that one grandchild had a rare heart condition as a baby and without Great Ormond Street Hospital he would not be here. Another grandchild was treated there after drinking contaminated baby milk in Dubai. Mr Urquhart said: "Great Ormond Street is a remarkable hospital and I love it dearly."
By way of appreciation he organised a vintage and handmade fair at his Worcester Road business, which took place on November 26th with 25 stalls including clothing, jewellery, toys, games, kitchenalia and house wares from generations past, and some creative and beautifully made glassware, ceramics, cards, patchwork, knits and textiles.
Last year Posterity opened a customer cafe, named 'Salvation', nominated by the 'Netmums' members of the Herefordshire site as one of their top 'Favourite Family Friendly Places to Eat in Herefordshire' which has now closed for the winter, and it also contributed items to an eco-garden at Clarence House.
Story Type : 831
Location : UK > Hereford & Worcs
Category : News Stories
IP : Logged
ID : 63881
User : 1 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Administrator)
Date Created : 04 Jan 2012 19:13:19
Date Modified : 04 Jan 2012 19:25:12;
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BBC SCRAPHEAP ORCHESTRA DOES THE 1812 OVERTURE. HAPPY NEW YEAR!
'The miraculous amplification that comes from the wooden enclosures of stringed instruments is the result of materials not usually found in a reclamation yard,' wrote Pascal Wyse in the Guardian, 'and violin-maker Rob Cain's admirable desire to stick to the scrap brief was tested to destruction - a source for a bit of Dragon's Den tension in the show.'
This performance of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture by the 'Scrapheap Orchestra' which was shown on BBC4 over the Christmas break took place at the Royal Albert Hall in July last year. It was played using instruments made from scrap and discarded items by eleven British instrument makers, played by members of the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Charles Hazlewood.
Wyse continues:
According to maker Ben Hebbert, the situation for the larger instruments such as cellos and basses was even worse: "They're big, so the scrap possibilities are limited: if you find something that's really going to work, it will probably be unique. The fun one was the cello made out of a Land Rover fuel tank. On the first rehearsal it sounded like a hornet trapped in a jam jar, but we cut bits away and adjusted. It's ended up as a beautifully playable instrument - but we're struggling to get up to even half the volume of the traditional instrument. It has great resonance if you kick it, but if you bow it, it doesn't. We were depending on its kickability as a measure of how musical it would be. It's really informing of the evolution of these instruments and why it is, in 400 years or so, we haven't really changed them." He is most proud of a zinc bathtub double bass, which he says really sings out. Not wanting to destroy the tub, he has designed the instrument so it can just be lashed together. "You can go from bath to bass in 10 minutes."
But why the 1812 Overture? Wright took some convincing. "I worried that it was going to sound utterly ridiculous, and that maybe there are more classically based pieces that would sound better. But I was wrong. Hearing the wind, brass and the percussion do the 1812 actually makes a much bigger impact."
Right up the to wire in the Albert Hall, adjustments were made. French horn bells were trimmed, flute keys were filed, and the teddy bears used as percussion beaters on the ends of sticks had to be mutilated so children in the audience wouldn't get upset seeing a bear smashing his head against a bass drum.
"I'm quietly confident," said Hazlewood, as the orchestra tuned up to someone blowing down a length of old waste pipe that sounded for all the world a bit like an oboe.
Story Type : 831
Location : UK > London South West
Category : News Stories
IP : Logged
ID : 63879
User : 1 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Administrator)
Date Created : 04 Jan 2012 18:36:35
Date Modified : 04 Jan 2012 21:53:44;
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 FALL OF PHAETON PLANTER AT THE WINTER ANTIQUES SHOW
Barbara Israel will be exhibiting an antique sarcophagus planter, a figure of Hebe and a recumbent greyhound as well as American, English, and Continental statues, fountains, urns, benches and sundials on her garden ornament and antiques stand at the 58th Winter Antiques Show from January 20-29 at Park Avenue Armory, New York.
The planter has a carved bass relief depicting the Fall of Phaeton, after the 2nd century Roman sarcophagus in the Hermitage. It features Phaeton, son of Helios, falling to his death in the river, having been struck by a thunderbolt from Zeus, with Cygnus the swan and the river god Eridanos nearby. According to Ovid, Phaeton had demanded control of the chariot of the sun god Helios for a day over a paternity issue, but he could not control it, so Zeus shot it down.
The planter is Italian, c1900, carved marble and comes from Hurstmont, the Harding Township, New Jersey estate designed by Stanford White in 1903. The sarcophagus planter is in keeping with the style of ancient Roman sarcophagi but was likely commissioned by Stanford White in Italy around 1900.
Barbara Israel is a luminary of the American garden antiques trade, has written the seminal work on American garden antiques and was an early signatory to the Salvo Code.
Story Type : 828
Images :
Location : USA > New York
Category : GARDEN
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ID : 63877
User : 1 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Administrator)
Date Created : 04 Jan 2012 17:08:37
Date Modified : 04 Jan 2012 17:15:45;
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 MASCO ARCHITECTURAL SALVAGE OPEN DAY SAT 18TH FEBRUARY 2012
MASCo Architectural Salvage are holding an open day on Sat 18th February 2012, 10am-4pm. Still trading after being taken over by Andy Triplow of The Old Radiator Company, they are restocking and planning their year ahead.
Come and visit our garden yard and showroom, browse and buy new stock, and see new ideas that we are developing. Have a drink, something to eat and expand your knowledge on renovation and reclamation with short talks, demonstrations and experts advice on hand! We are just outside of Minchinhampton GL6 8PE and look forward to seeing you. Contact either Debbie or Lizzie on 01285 760886 for further information.
Story Type : 836
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Location : UK > Gloucestershire
Category : Events
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ID : 63863
User : 39 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Salvo Code Dealer)
Date Created : 04 Jan 2012 13:11:30
Date Modified : 18 Jan 2012 15:41:26;
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 TWYFORDS VICTORIAN CAMPAIGN WATER CLOSET AT SALVO FAIR 2011
James Rylands describes the mahogany portable water closet or campaign karzi brought to Salvo Fair 2011 by Norman Cockroft of Alscot Bathroom Company as a taster for the Alscot clearance auction sale held by Wellers later.
The blue and white transfer-printed porcelain bowl was made by Twyfords, and was highly unusual in still having its counterweighted blue and white enamelled trap, together with the mahogany cabinet, brassware pump cistern and bucket which, as Mr. Rylands eloquently pointed out, the military owner's manservant would readily have emptied.
Norman Cockroft reckons the piece was made in the 1840s, and judging by its condition was probably never used on a campaign, but more likely as a portable convenience in a stately home.
The closet, estimated at £1,500 at the auction, did not sell. Although other portable water closets of this type normally sell around £500, Alscot is looking for £1,800 plus vat for this one because, as Norman said, of its superb museum-quality condition.
The earliest reference to a 'portable water closet' was in 1783 in the Bath Gazette, and the most active period of patents for portable water closets was the period from 1860 to 1880.
Story Type : 828
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Location : UK > Hertfordshire
Category : BATHROOM & accessories
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ID : 63743
User : 1 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Administrator)
Date Created : 22 Dec 2011 22:00:04
Date Modified : 05 Jan 2012 16:48:42;
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 CHOI JEONG-HWA'S RECLAIMED DOORS AND OLYMPIC STADIUM REUSE
In 2009 Korean artist Choi Jeong-Hwa created '1,000 Doors' by cladding the scaffolding around a tower block in Seoul with 1,000 reclaimed doors. Glass was removed from all the glazed doors, but the old door furniture seems to have been left attached. Choi Jeong-Hwa said, "I could not really draw so I did not think I could become a painter, but I really liked walking. So I used to walk between streets and narrow alleys and discover garbage piles and construction sites. I realized that normal people built and created things better than artists or professionals. Plus, what they were making was more natural. I decided against becoming an artist and decided instead to be an ordinary person who thinks like an artist."
Salvo estimates that every year Britain removes 2 million doors from demolition sites and refurbishment projects of which 10,000 are saved for reuse. This is the equivalent of destroying 8,000 old doors every working day, which would be a building clad in doors eight times the size of Choi Jeong-Hwa's '1,000 Doors' project - every day. Many of the 8,000 doors are made from tropical hardwood.
The doors reclaimed by the salvage sector usually languish in salvage yards for years before finding a customer, if they ever do, because: fire and building regulations can prevent reuse - indeed they are responsible for the removal of many perfectly good old doors which should not be removed in the first place; the shortage of reclaimed doors of standard sizes coupled with designers not able or not willing to specify the mixed sizes and styles of reclaimed doors which are readily available; lack of support for reuse from architects, mainstream construction, government procurers, local authority planners and from conservationists who seem repelled by, rather than supportive of, the reuse of demolition salvage.
In another installation 'Get together, Gather', Choi Jeong-Hwa mobilised students to collect 2 million old plastic bottles which were then strung onto ropes and studded to the 1988 Seoul Olympic Stadium making it jewel-bedecked with reused waste. Right now the UK Olympics is mired in argument over the sponsorship of the stadium's, presumably new, plastic curtain walling by Dow Chemicals and its connection to the Bhopal disaster. The organising committee could take inspiration from Choi Jeong-Hwa's 'Get together. Gather' by pulling a reuse rabbit out the hat, even at this late stage, and turning the stadium curtain wall into a beacon of salvage and reclamation for 2012. Some chance.
Story Type : 832
Images :
Location : South Korea
Category : Salvage
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ID : 63684
User : 1 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Administrator)
Date Created : 20 Dec 2011 18:42:02
Date Modified : 04 Jan 2012 10:15:40;
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 LONDON POLICE LAUNCHES METAL THEFT TASK FORCE; SITA LAUNCHES CASHLESS PAYMENTS
On Monday the Metropolitan Police Service launched a dedicated unit to tackle metal theft - a spiralling problem which is costing £700 million a year and is causing the deaths of two offenders a month in the UK, according to recent research.
The new multi-agency Waste and Metal Theft Taskforce, whose team includes experts from BT and the local authority's environmental crime unit, is based in Bexley, one of the London boroughs most severely affected by metal theft due to its high number of scrap metal yards.
Today's launch follows the conclusion of Operation Ferrous - the latest Met-wide operation to tackle the problem of metal theft. Objects targeted range widely, from cable, drain covers, lift panels from housing estates and memorial plaques, to children's playground slides, fire escape stairs and even English Heritage buildings.
In the first two weeks of December officers across the Met carried out a total of 275 inspections and searches of scrap metal dealer yards, arrested 15 people for offences ranging from burglary to transporting waste metal illegally without a licence, and seized 16 vehicles.
The conclusion of the operation on 14 December was timed to coincide with ACPO's latest 'day of action' to tackle metal theft nationally, led by British Transport Police. The MPS carried out its first Operation Ferrous in late November, and another will follow in the near future.
Chief Superintendent David Chinchen, the MPS lead for Operation Ferrous, said: "Metal theft is not a victimless crime but is causing increasing misery to commuters and householders, and costing millions to the rail industry and local authorities.
"We are keen to work with legitimate scrap metal dealers, but those who aren't can expect to see regular enforcement. These crimes are covered by a complex range of laws, thus a multi-pronged approach is essential in order to tackle it robustly and we are already working closely with our partner agencies.
One of the scrap metal dealers inspected in Islington during Operation Ferrous was so deterred from accepting illegal metals that when he was offered what he suspected was memorial plaque metal the day after his inspection, he immediately called police to alert them.
In Waltham Forest, two men driving a trailer of suspected illegal metal into a scrapyard panicked when they saw police, the passenger jumped down and fled, while the driver u-turned and sped off. He was pursued by officers who discovered the vehicle had no insurance and is now the process of being prosecuted.
Seizures made during Operation Ferrous ranged from lead found in an Ealing scrap metal yard, suspected of being stolen and currently being tested for Smartwater (a liquid which shows up under ultra-violet light denoting stolen goods), to an illegal car breakers yard in Havering that was exporting waste to Africa.
In Bexley borough, results included finds of £16,000-worth of BT cable as well as copper earthing straps stolen from a National Grid sub-station. The removal of earthing straps from electricity sub-stations can cause dangerously high sudden power surges and lead electronic equipment in nearby homes to explode. In an extreme case in Castleford, West Yorkshire, theft from a sub-station caused an explosion which led to the sudden collapse of three nearby houses.
Officers in Bexley who raided the house of a metal theft suspect during Operation Ferrous confiscated a gas-powered handgun (airgun) and two ceremonial swords. In the back garden they found charred remains in an oil-drum suggesting evidence of cable-burning - the process used by metal thieves to extract the lucrative copper from inside.
Bexley officers also discovered one man hauling car metal parts onto the back of his truck, for transport to a scrap metal yard, who had been claiming incapacity benefit since 2008 for a broken leg, pelvis and shoulder, and another van driver claiming he was incapable of working due to depression.
The operational lead for Bexley Waste and Metal Theft taskforce, Acting Inspector James Coomber, whose expertise has led to him holding workshops for other UK police forces, said: "Although the majority of scrap metal dealers are legitimate, those who are not are contributing to a thriving illegal trade which we are determined to clamp down on.
The Deputy Mayor of London Richard Barnes, who attended the launch and chairs the London Resilience Forum, added: "Metal thieves cause huge economic damage and misery to individuals going about their daily lives and it's clear they will stop at nothing to make a quick buck. I am delighted to see the enormous strides Bexley has made with the launch of the taskforce and together with the efforts under the Met-wide Operation Ferrous, delivers a forceful message to those intent on carrying out such malicious theft and sabotage that it will not be tolerated."
The Bexley team will also act in an advisory capacity to other boroughs in the MPS, particularly areas with high numbers of scrap metal yards, which are known to be particularly affected.
Although BT and electricity companies mark all their cables, only certain yards are authorised to receive them. Some scrap metal yards invest hundreds of thousands of pounds in large 'granulating' machines to extract the copper from illegal metals. The time it takes from stolen metal arriving a yard, to being processed, and transported away to the buyer can be as little as twenty minutes.
Yards who do not comply with the law also routinely act in networks, with the first one visited by police calling round others in the local area to warn of imminent searches. A licence to run a yard can be obtained via the Internet by filling in a simple form, and does not have to be renewed annually.
As the industry is run entirely on cash, transactions are hard for police to trace back and as metals are often distributed for sale via 'middlemen', the individuals committing the original crimes can be difficult to track down.
Increasingly, there is evidence that organised criminal networks are moving into the thriving illegal trade in stolen metal. Offenders are also getting increasingly adept - police have found adapted ladders, tools, and even vans that have specially adapted trapdoors to winch up a manhole cover as they drive over it without being observed.
Another method employed by thieves is to set up around a manhole cover, wearing 'BT' vests, carrying 'BT' passes, but as BT always uses sub-contractors to recover its underground cable they will always be acting illegally.
In September 2011, four men were arrested in Lambeth using two bogus BT trucks, a BT van and a winch to steal underground cable. The same team are believed to be responsible for cable cuts across London and Essex in recent months.
The scale of the problem is having a huge impact as a single piece of copper cable stolen from an underground telephone network can knock out the landlines to more than 200 homes and businesses for up to three days at a time.
Many companies now use fibre-optic cable, which is valueless to thieves but often damaged in the their attempts to extract the valuable copper lying alongside it underground. As fibre-optic cable carries internet data this can cause significant disruption to nearby residents and businesses.
The highest number of individuals caught up in a single cable theft incident occurred in Bexley, when 94,000 people had their power disabled for days on end in 2009 after thieves targeted a supply facility near Dartford - the estimated cost of the incident was £29 million.
More recently, in summer 2011, Bexley was again hit after residents in the Larner Road Estate in Thamesmead had to be evacuated after severe flooding and power cuts caused when thieves attacked copper piping attached to the industrial-sized water tanks situated at the top of residential tower blocks.
Two brothers were jailed in August this year in Bexley after a failed copper cable theft which saw their companion fatally electrocuted. John and Jason Tusting received eight years, eight months sentence between them for burglary and criminal damage recklessly endangering life after their accomplice James Payne died.
Copper is not the only sought-after metal thieves are trading in - rising numbers of catalytic converters are being stolen from vehicles due to the lucrative platinum they contain, a crime expected to increase from 3 January 2012 when the Low Emission Zone emissions standards become more stringent.
SITA UK has introduced a cashless payment system on scrap metal deals and is phasing out cash payments at its ten scrap metal sites. Home office minister for crime prevention and anti-social behaviour reduction, Lord Henley, said: "Cashless payments have been tried in France, where they found that illegal traders would attempt to sell their scrap abroad instead. Unlike in France, you can't simply drive across our borders, and this would make it easy for us to police at ports."
Critics of the cashless system claim that without a crack down on unregulated scrap yards, introducing a ban on cash will only drive legitimate trade underground which Lord Henley said he was keen to ensure did not happen.
SITA's new system includes an 'on-the-day' payment delivery system that ensures that funds are transferred within two hours of the sale taking place. Traders must produce proof of identification or address upon arriving any SITA metal yard, and will be asked for bank details to process the payment.
Story Type : 831
Images :
Location : UK > London South East
Category : News Stories
IP : Logged
ID : 63682
User : 1 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Administrator)
Date Created : 20 Dec 2011 16:08:32
Date Modified : 20 Dec 2011 16:08:39;
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 DR JONATHAN FOYLE'S ARCHITECTURAL SALVAGE ASPERSIONS
Did you see the FT Weekend 10/11th Dec entitled 'Finders keepers' (Front Page of 'House & Home' section)? Jonathan Foyle, Chief Executive of the World Monuments Fund Britain, seemed to rapidly skate, like an Alice in Wonderland with arms flailing, through the subject at hand, casting aspersions and implications wildly as he went.
He started in a Marrakech salvage yard, tumbled through a Sotheby's fireplace auction in London and lands in a heap in the subject of Antiquities (he sticks his head into a Cambodian cupboard entitled 'Angkor Wat'). Off again (he has now consulted the Unesco website) he dips into Switzerland, then Italy, and emerges through an Avon rabbit-hole in Bath talking to Andy Triplow of Masco-Walcot about the Salvo Code (I am not sure if he was in a time warp at this point or not). Suddenly we are on the subject of manhole-cover theft in Philadelphia, Lead statues nicked from Stowe, some radiators sourced from Versailles and others supplied to Jordan. At last, he bumps into Charles Brooking whose 'Brooking Collection' plight is contrasted with 'the illicit trade [that] plunders for profit', which is to conflate the Antiquities problems he discovered in Switzerland and Italy with the Architectural Salvage trade that Charles works alongside.
Foyle seems to have done his research on the basis of a Moroccan holiday, a tour around Google and a colourful chat with Charles. Theft of architectural and garden ornament and materials (especially metalwork) is an ongoing problem that should be reported in a proportionate way and not confused with the theft of antiquities in Iraq or Etrurian archeological sites. Why did Mr Foyle not talk to Thornton Kay who could describe the legitimate architectural salvage trade that not only enables the reuse of valuable materials but actively prevents the trade in stolen architectural salvage (and, impressively, has a history of retrieving it)?
The trip around Wonderland would not be a problem if this article did not put an unjustified and unhelpful seed-of-doubt in the minds of our precious potential customers. Off With His Head!
Anthony Reeve
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The original Financial Times newspaper article published 10th December 2011:
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Finders keepers?
By Jonathan Foyle
Trade in antiquities and artefacts is thriving around the world but ethical concerns abound
Any decent guidebook will tell you not to go off with strangers into the labyrinthine souks of Marrakech, just in case you'd neglected basic parental advice, or your own instincts have utterly failed you.
So I mused, while strolling down the Rue Sidi el Yamani, an ancient, dusty pink thoroughfare lined with domestic ornaments, lanterns, rugs and cushions, leading into the heart of the medina. On the right hand of the street, I was ushered through a small arch on the right hand of the street and down a flight of steps. There, in a hidden-away courtyard, lay dismembered parts of historic buildings. Doors from Moroccan houses studded with iron with traces of yellow, blue, white and red paint. It was an architectural abattoir, or, if you like, a source of original and exquisite artefacts for inside and outside a home.
Through another door and deeper into the old building came a tremendous, 16th-century domed hall, full of fake antiques and two other tourists, caught like wasps in a jam jar by the proprietor. I ask where all the architectural fixtures and fittings come from.
"From old buildings all over Morocco. They are taken down and brought here by two brothers," he says, caressing an outrageously priced lantern, of prized workmanship. (There were a couple more across the room should a set of these rare items be desired.) Many seek to embellish their house with period pieces. Last year, Sotheby's in London launched the first ever sale of fireplaces.
Home is where the hearth is, after all, as Henry House, senior director in Sothebys' furniture department, told Art Daily: "Their ability to add drama and interest to a room has long been recognised by those of us who have spent long hours seeking out the hard-to-find examples of our choice in architectural salvage yards and the like."
The image of senior directors clambering over salvage yards demonstrates the current interest in their sculptural quality and the demand for the best, attributed, work. At face value, all this might be reasonable. Recycling is the mantra of the age. But when is architectural salvage a good thing? And when is it cultural vandalism?
Jason Felch, co-author of Chasing Aphrodite, a recently published exposé of looted antiquities in museums, argues that many stolen artefacts ultimately come from buildings:
"When you see a classical bust in a collection, its neck is usually broken off. In fact, they're usually heads rather than busts, because they're the most valuable and portable pieces of statues, which were carved upon, or conceived to stand within buildings. You see it all the time in south-east Asia. The great temple complex of Angkor Wat in Cambodia is a giant quarry for traffickers."
One man's salvage is another man's plunder, but gauging which is which is often impossible. The problem is a common lack of provenance. Any object for sale or display should be proven to have been circulated before the Unesco Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property of 14 November 1970, which says:
"It is incumbent upon every State to protect the cultural property existing within its territory against the dangers of theft, clandestine excavation, and illicit export."
How does that clandestine excavation happen? "It's a broad supply pyramid," says Felch. "Across Europe, the poor are encouraged to dig up archaeological sites at night. They don't know the value of what they unearth, and sell the finds on to middle-men who smuggle pieces to order. Switzerland is a safe haven, where items are conserved and sent on."
The need to abide by the pre-1970 provenance for collectables is neatly avoided. "Traffickers have been known to stage an auction through a reputable house, in which they plant purchasers. With a sale in a major house, the piece has arrived with its own provenance - a stamp of approval - and they get it back, worth more second time around."
He's referring to cases like Giacomo Medici, launderer of Italian antiquities convicted in 2004 for supplying auction houses and museums with pieces of Greek, Etruscan and Roman artefacts. When his storage facility in Geneva airport was opened in 1995, thousands of ancient carvings were revealed with links to collectors and auction houses in London and New York. Though many pieces were repatriated, some are still on the open market.
While antiquities are imported to Britain, British salvage is often exported, says Andy Triplow, manager of Masco Walcot Architectural Salvage in Bath, which reopened last month. I ask where their stock comes from, in what I feel to be a non-accusatory tone. "We don't buy anything we're suspicious about, and if anyone's shifty we'll take their vehicle registration. We abide by the Salvo code." This is a 1995 voluntary code for members of the Salvo reclamation collective. Dealers in the UK and US are "not to buy any item if there is the slightest suspicion that it may be stolen."
Between 2002 and 2008 the global price of lead multiplied tenfold. At Stanley Park, Blackpool on August 2 this year, three sculptures made by John Cheere for Stowe House (c1760), were sawn off at the ankles and stolen. Their value as complete works of art might have been a hundred times their value as molten lead. The theft of lead is frequently called "epidemic", and the UK government has now set up a £5m taskforce against metal theft. Iron is a target too: 2008 saw 600 manhole covers stolen in Philadelphia. In Haiti, some vestige of a living is to be had from plucking iron from the rubble of earthquake damage. Picking over buildings, legal and illicit, is a global business.
The supply is very varied. Masco Walcot sells plaster capitals from the Dorchester to anyone who wants the hotel-at-home cachet. A favourite market is for old oak panels, which lend instant antiquity to American houses and club rooms, proving especially effective with a quality fireplace. You can find salvage from around the world on online auction sites, though many Asian pieces are fakes.
Triplow makes the point that the world buys British: "We don't find pieces from abroad: 99 per cent of our foreign dealing is for exported English salvage; 1 per cent would be import." There are some surprises here. "The last job I had was in Jordan. A member of the royal family wanted 42 old radiators so we supplied and fitted them." Selling radiators in the desert would seem an emotional rather than practical purchase.
What persuades buyers to adopt pieces of old buildings? "Quality. Otherwise, it's about the unusual stuff or a strong provenance. A connection with a historical person, or a famous place. I know a dealer: all his radiators came out of Versailles."
I don't know anyone with a similar claim. Except Charles Brooking. Since the age of 18 months he has been fascinated by architectural details, staring from his push-chair at door knockers in Cheam, Surrey, where his nanny wheeled him along streets of varied houses. His parents were at first unsympathetic to the sheds sprouting in the back garden to hold his collection of salvaged windows. His first museum opened when he reached the ripe age of 12.
"My parents invited their architect friends to see it, and my mother saw the value. It was a big disappointment to my father. He was an evangelical, and we had blazing rows over Sunday tea when he'd blast that 'it'll all be burned in the second coming so there's no point in conservation!'," recalls Brooking.
"I tried to trim the collection in 1973 and 1983. It was a mistake. I sold pieces that I regretted and bought them back for twice as much as I got for them."
Brooking haunts demolition sites and recalls the provenance of every last hinge.
"Oh, 1979 was dreadful. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's house at 99 Gloucester Place was being demolished. I removed the sashes but the builders told me they might re-use them. So I took a bedroom fireplace out - it still had coal in it - and lugged it into a taxi and then home by train from Waterloo. A passenger said 'You're fire's gone out, mate!'"
He returned the following week: the windows she knew had been skipped. Eventually Brooking senior had to face the fact that their monomaniacal son was unstoppable, and set up a trust in 1985 as the collection became vast.
Today, Brooking has around 250,000 pieces of salvage that form the basis of a national collection of architectural detail. A lone surviving piece of Crystal Palace's ironwork; the back door of 10 Downing Street. They've cost him his life's salary plus contributions from his partner and family. Now, after more than a decade at the University of Greenwich, there's nowhere to store it. His house in Cranleigh, Surrey, is full, its garden lined with outbuildings.
Whilst the illicit trade plunders for profit, Brooking is staring at a huge liability. His dearest wish is for his architectural details to be a national asset, to help the British understand and appreciate their homes better. And as the clock ticks, he can only hope that the situation is salvageable.
As for me, I salvaged myself from the tourist trap and bought a pair of lanterns elsewhere. No doubt they'll be resold one day.
Jonathan Foyle is chief executive of World Monuments Fund Britain
Story Type : 832
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Location : UK > Oxfordshire
Category : News Stories
IP : Logged
ID : 63680
User : 221 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Salvo Code Dealer)
Date Created : 20 Dec 2011 14:56:27
Date Modified : 24 Dec 2011 15:51:21;
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 RECORD FINE FOR UK DEMOLITION WITHOUT CONSENT IN A CONSERVATION AREA
Piers Rance of Fulham was fined £120,000 plus Hammersmith & Fulham Council's costs of around £100,000 for the demolition of a house in Cloncurry Street in a conservation area without planning consent at Isleworth Crown Court on December 13th - £40,000 more than the previous highest fine. His own legal costs were said to be around £300,000 giving a grand total he has to find of £520,000. The house had been valued at £2.2m prior to demolition.
Nick Botterill, deputy council leader and cabinet member for environment, said: "Rance showed absolutely no consideration for his neighbours or planning law by demolishing this house in a conservation area. Most people in this borough realise that their actions impact on others, but Rance did not care and did whatever he wanted.
"The colossal fine that Rance has been hit with is £40,000 more than the previous highest record fine and reflects how serious his offences are. While we are keen to create a borough of opportunity and welcome responsible development, people simply cannot take matters like this into their own hands."
Rance had submitted a planning application to the council in April 2007 to extend his house on Cloncurry Street, Fulham, which included the excavation of a new basement underneath the house, but before the council could make a decision on whether or not to grant planning permission for these extensions, Rance had torn down the house and already begun digging out a new basement area.
Rance claimed that the building needed to be demolished as it was in a state of collapse but in his appeal trial, which took place in October, Judge Denniss did not accept this defence stating that it was extremely unlikely that Mr Rance would have purchased a property for £2.2million without carrying out a structural survey unless he always had the intention of demolishing it for financial gain.
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Location : UK > London South West
Category : News Stories
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Date Created : 16 Dec 2011 21:43:06
Date Modified : 20 Dec 2011 09:35:20;
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 T'WAS CHRISTMAS EVE AT THE SALVAGE YARD, AND THE SNOW WAS FALLING THICK
T'was Christmas Eve at the Salvage Yard, and the snow was falling thick,
A glistening snow-white blanket covered flagstones, tile, and brick.
The only foot-prints in the snow, the Dealer's, and his cat.
Him looking out for customers - the puss after a rat.
Both were disappointed, and huddled round the fire.
Darkness came, the clock struck five. Time then, to retire.
Lock the Architectural Salvage Yard, and write December off.
Beans on toast, not turkey. From the darkness came a cough…
"Excuse me," said a hearty voice, from somewhere in the blizzard,
"I've heard that when it comes to matching bricks, you're the local wizard."
The Dealer hadn't sold a brick all month, but clicked the padlock tight,
(These customers at closing-time were never worth a light.)
"I'm sorry, mate," the Dealer groaned, "I'm shut now 'til New Year."
But while the wind and snowstorm moaned, the stranger ventured near.
"I need four matching chimney pots, three hundred handmade brick,
And about a thousand Dreadnought tiles, and I need 'em bloody quick."
The Dealer's mental 'rithmetic summed up a thousand smackers,
(But half-past five? On Christmas Eve? Had this bloke got the ackers?)
"I'd like to help," the Dealer said, "but the fork-lift battery's flat."
"Don't worry," quipped the stranger, "I'll take care of that."
The Dealer gasped when he saw the stranger's ermine-trimmed red coat,
And the cash pulled from his fur-trimmed hat. He counted every note.
A thousand quid in fiftys. Christmas come at last!
But the yard all pitched in darkness, and that ice-cold Arctic blast!
He went in search of jump-leads, and steeled himself for work -
But the sight he saw, defied his eyes - the whole yard gone berserk!
He swore he saw a gargoyle, which he'd had in stock for years,
Walk past him with two chimney-pots, the snow still on its ears.
A pair of leaden cherubs somehow freed from off their stands,
Were flying past on leaden wings with tiles in their hands,
While a crumbling compo Venus, her arms long amputated,
Hobbled by with a chimney-pot crown to where the stranger waited.
A swarm of brick were hopping through the yard right at his feet,
Carried by the brick's own frogs, a-leaping t'ward the street.
…back and forth the cherubs, now assisted by stone doves,
and a barrow full of Dreadnoughts pushed by worn-out safety gloves.
And then a voice beyond the gate: A "Thank you!" boomed out jolly.
The dealer stood, amazed and dazed, but keen to count the lolly.
The only sound above the wind, a clattering of hooves…
The only sight some tail-lights, that faded o'er the roofs.
…and all around, the yard stock-still. The snow-fall undisturbed,
on bricks, on tiles, on chimneypots! The dealer all perturbed,
unlocked the office, pleased to see the stove still worth a poke,
so counted cash, and poured himself a hefty Scotch 'n Coke…
…and woke to find his socks on fire! A newspaper had slipped
from off his lap, the careless chap. God knows how long he'd kipped,
but the headline on the paper made this caper seem more daft -
"Local house has chimney clipped by mystery air-craft."
At once his mystery customer was, apparently, in dreams.
The empty wallet evidence of all not as it seems,
Missing stock. And tyre-tracks. A Ford, a Merc, a Volvo?
Stolen: Statues, gargoyles, bricks… a Christmas list for Salvo.
Merry Christmas.
Story Type : 826
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Location : UK > Warwickshire
Category : Innovative Reuse
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User : 418 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Salvo Code Dealer)
Date Created : 15 Dec 2011 23:55:13
Date Modified : 15 Dec 2011 23:55:20;
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 VIC CHINNERY OAK EXPERT AND AUTHOR DIES
We regret to announce the death of Victor Chinnery, who started out as a dealer at Crowther's, and became a connoisseur, author and oak furniture expert, and founding trustee of the Merchant's House in Marlborough.
Thornton Kay interviewed Vic Chinnery about his early days at Crowther's of Syon Lodge which was published in SalvoNEWS in 1993.
Victor Chinnery's lifelong passion for old buildings and furniture started when, as a schoolboy in the 1960s, he used to take the No 267 trolley bus from Brentford, where he lived, to Isleworth Grammar School where was a pupil. The journey took him past one of the finest spreads in Greater London, Syon House, which in those days had a wonderfully run down but intact quality. Behind Robert Adam's 1763 entrance gate, the grounds were laid out as the original parkland. Sheep had grazed there for two centuries, and still did beneath the increasingly noisy flight path to Heathrow. The house itself, in a picturesque light gothic by Thomas Cundy (1828) was still the London home of the Duke of Northumberland, for whose ancestors it was originally built. Immediately behind the boundary wall, set in 18 acres of rough pasture and orchard, was Bert Crowther's premises. From the top deck of the 267 Vic used to eye the area with a fascination that beckoned. When he was old enough he started working there part time, and subsequently left school to work there full time.
"When I first started working there, old man Crowther had sold some of the derelict orchard to the Council for flats. The orchard area was completely overgrown, with fallen trees and brambles, under which were piles of gear. You had to hack your way through, and underneath you'd come across piles of dismantled marble chimneypieces and more. They weren't just any old chimneypieces, they were the real thing, fabulous craftsmanship, the sort that would sell for tens or hundreds of thousands of pounds now. Much of this old material wasn't rescued but was cleared by the bulldozers that went in after the land had changed hands. The Crowthers had been collecting stuff there from all over London and beyond since 1943. In the grounds they had erected Georgian panelled rooms, like site huts, which were then roofed with tarpaulins. They used to store items inside and out. I remember turning a corner of one of these structures one day and coming across maybe forty seventeenth century carved four poster beds which had been dismantled, flat-packed, and then stacked one after the other.
"I started to buy bits and pieces of early wood carvings which I rescued from oblivion, offering ten bob or something. I took these to Portobello Road and sold them for one or two pounds until, that is, Bert Crowther found out. He was a great man, but reluctant to sell anything to someone who might make a profit out of it at his expense. I learned a lot very quickly, not only about dealing and dealers, but more importantly about the style and quality of Elizabethan and later wood carving."
Victor eventually went independent. It was not that long before his talent and knowledge was called on by Sotheby's for whom he acted as a specialist consultant on Elizabethan furniture, sorting out the Victorian copies from the genuine article. He wrote 'Oak Furniture: The British Tradition' (published by Antique Collectors Club in 1979), the standard reference work on Elizabethan furniture. He was also involved in the early expansion of Stuart Interiors of Barrington Court in Somerset.
In the 1990s Vic Chinnery moved to Wiltshire where he continued writing, and became a founding co-trustee of the tudor painted Merchant's House in Marlborough.
James Rylands said he was an unassuming academic who produced the great seminal work on oak furniture and was charmingly eccentric in a gentle way. "In 1975 Vic Chinnery came to give an opinion on some pieces in my father's local church. I was there when he turned up at the house with his trousers held up by a belt of baler twine. My father opened the door and, mistaking him for a tramp, said, 'Can we get you anything?' to which he simply replied, 'I'd like a cherry brandy."
The funeral will be held at 2.30pm on Friday 16 December at West Wiltshire Crematorium, Trowbridge BA14 6HL.
Story Type : 831
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Location : UK > Wiltshire
Category : FURNITURE & MIRRORS
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Date Created : 14 Dec 2011 12:39:37
Date Modified : 14 Dec 2011 13:13:19;
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 FLOW DESIGN PHILOSOPHY FOR ARCHITECTURAL SALVAGE ARCHITECTURE
The Rotterdam-based firm 2012Architecten of Jan Jongert, Jeroen Bergsma and Cesare Peeren, is a cooperative which was established to work together until 2012. It does not see design as the start of a process which is ended after completion of the building, but as a phase in a continual flow of creation and recreation.
The firm works on various scales of design: graphical design, lightning, furniture, interiors and buildings. 2012Architecten is trying to make use of the potential that lies in the context of a design: the existing site, energy sources and reusable discarded materials.
For 2012Architecten working with waste or the reuse of materials is an integral design strategy. It finds that the history, which is inherent in the used material and which is absent in unused materials, can be of added value when used in new products and arrangements. Exploring the qualities of the used materials can lead to innovative applications and unexpected design. An example of this design strategy was the espresso bar Sterk at the former Faculty of Architecture at TU Delft, which was made out of old washing machines.
2012Architecten also managed to realize its ideas in a building: the Villa Welpeloo in Roombeek in the east of the Netherlands. This villa is built using their principal of Recyclicity, a design strategy in which local (waste-) material is used to limit the costs and energy used for transport.
Story Type : 831
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Location : Holland > Zuid-Holland
Category : KITCHEN & accessories
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Date Created : 08 Dec 2011 21:49:16
Date Modified : 08 Dec 2011 21:58:47;
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 SAM CAM SLAMMED BY DAILY MAIL BUT WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OLD BATH?
Samantha Cameron has been toshing the prime ministerial residence at Downing Street, according to today's Daily Mail, which included the removal of an old cast iron bath and some other bits and pieces.
The Mail's headline was, 'Secrets of SamCam's £64,000 No10 revamp: In came a luxury loo and floating ceiling ... and out went the old cast iron bath and damask curtains', followed by, 'David Cameron was last night forced to reveal details of the Notting Hill-style makeover of the Downing Street flat his family now calls home. No 10 has handed over a breakdown of the £64,000 refurbishment after a request from Information Commissioner Christopher Graham. The list, seen by the Daily Mail, shows how Mr Cameron and his wife Samantha have overseen a lavish bathroom refit and stripped the flat of almost all its previous furniture and fittings'.
The Mail went on, 'Among the items removed were a cast iron bath, two basins, a vanity unit, WC and cistern, and marble and timber panels. A wall was also demolished to allow for cupboard modifications'.
Does anyone know if the bath and other fittings were salvaged for reuse? The question arises not least because under the 2011 Waste Regulations, if a reuse market exists then such items of architectural salvage should be offered for reuse before they are scrapped, and the Prime Minister should be setting an example.
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Location : UK > London South West
Category : BATHROOM & accessories
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Date Created : 08 Dec 2011 21:06:03
Date Modified : 08 Dec 2011 21:27:28;
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SUSTAINABLE TRADITIONAL BUILDINGS ALLIANCE LAUNCHED IN LONDON
John Edwards MA, DipBldgCons, CEnv, FCIOB, FRICS, IHBC is a Chartered Environmentalist and co author of CIOB guidance on retrofit for climate change and sustainable refurbishment as well as maintenance and operation of buildings. Also a member of the CIOB Carbon Action 2050 Group, he has now co-founded the UK Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance.
Well known for his work involving historic buildings, John first undertook non-destructive surveying techniques and environmental monitoring of buildings in 1981, and has since been responsible for investigating and designing works to a wide range of buildings from social housing to Castles and Cathedrals. John currently specialises in the development and promotion of expertise required for both crafts and professions involved in the sustainability of the UK's building stock.
The STBA, launched on 29th November 2011 at Somerset House, was described as 'an umbrella organisation of legal entities that work in the built environment which seeks to promote better understanding of traditional buildings and their impact on environment and society. It will seek to actively promote and deliver a more sustainable traditional built environment in the UK through high quality research, education, training and policy work.'
The launch was coordinated by Seamus Hana, Specialist Projects and Development Manager from Construction Skills. The Alliance is hoping to draw membership from all sectors with an involvement in traditional buildings and sustainability initiatives including those campaigning for or managing schemes to promote sustainability to, specifies, contractors, developers of relevant technology and any trade bodies, institutes or organisations with a relevant interest.
There is an urgent pressure to increase sustainability and reduce the carbon footprint associated with the UK's housing stock including initiatives such as the Government's Green Deal. About one quarter of the UK building stock are thought to be pre-1919 buildings of solid wall/permeable construction. It is recognised that some technologies and techniques designed to increase sustainability in current construction may not be appropriate for the pre-1919 sector of the housing stock.
The STBA broadly wishes to understand how traditional buildings perform thermally, the impact retro fit technology has, and the appropriateness of technology. The STBA will provide policy, guidance and training to minimise long term risk to traditional buildings and their owners with the focus on energy consumption, health, building fabric, impact on communities and culture. The STBA has engaged Dr Caroline Rye of SPAB to carry out a gap analysis of research on performance and energy efficiency of traditional buildings.
Speakers from organisations such as the Usable Buildings Trust, SPAB, EH, CADW and those involved in contracting and training within the industry, gave brief talks. A steering group consisting of a chair, deputy chair and eight members will be formed, meetings will be held, funds sought, and a web site will be launched in due course.
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Location : UK > London West
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Date Created : 08 Dec 2011 20:13:02
Date Modified : 08 Dec 2011 20:13:06;
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 RECLAIMING THE WHOLE WAY
Great to see organic food specialist Wholefoods Market add a Glasgow store to its expanding chain. Much like BrewDog (our favourite pub) before it we're delighted to see that it has chosen to utilise reclaimed flooring as part of the shop interior presentation - a growing trend in commercial interior fit outs.
Wholefoods Market has used reclaimed flooring to clad the walls and counters as well as use some beautiful coloured parquet flooring to form a unique sign.
Editor's Note: Wholefoods Market is a USA food chain started in 1978, with four branches in London, which has now expanded into Glasgow. Its core values include '… retail experiments … We create store environments that are inviting and fun, and reflect the communities they serve … We constantly innovate and raise our retail standards and are not afraid to try new ideas and concepts … We respect our environment and recycle, reuse, and reduce our waste wherever and whenever we can.'
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McKay Flooring is one of the largest suppliers of reclaimed and new flooring in Scotland - supplying and installing reclaimed sports floors, oaks floors and reclaimed parquet floors throughout the UK.
Story Type : 829
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Location : UK > Strathclyde
Category : FLOORING
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ID : 63520
User : 38516 ; Craftspeople/Restorers/Services ; (Registered SalvoWEB user for 2 years or more)
Date Created : 08 Dec 2011 19:24:19
Date Modified : 08 Dec 2011 19:30:06;
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 THE PERILS OF WORKING ALONE … AND GOD'S ALMIGHTY WRECKING-BALL
Peter Hill Jones' article on the stroke he suffered while working in t'shop left me mindful of the perils of working alone in the Architectural Salvage trade.
Only a few weeks ago, working alone, I had a 12 inch square beam tumble off the pile, which, had my brain not given me instant recall in the art of skipping, would have reduced my shins to mincemeat and bonemeal from sock to knee.
While I slapped myself on the back for being so nimble for my age, I did not immediately sign up for the local Morris Men, but instead pondered on how long I might have lay there with only screaming agony & the unbearable company of a beam to pass the time. My mobile was in the cab of the truck, so I couldn't even have played Super-Mario, let alone call an ambulance or cancel my ballroom dancing lessons.
A couple of years ago, I dodged a left jab with the agility and speed of reaction as quick as Mohammed Ali in his heyday. Only the jab wasn't from any budding Amir Khan, but a three ton fork-lift truck. How many times have I told my lad that the handbrake is unreliable if the gearlever's in Forward? I wouldn't have told him many more times, not with my neck skewered into the pallet, I thought.
I remember a local trader delivering York flagstones to the back of a house in the shadow of Warwick Castle. John had over-loaded his Peugeot pick-up with a small order of 4 inch thick flags. He'd backed up to the drop area, and dragged 'em, one by one, off the tail-gate, and stacked them slab-style, upright, behind him, up against one laid long-ways.
Straining to get the last one off, he was suddenly hit from behind, across his arse, by a dozen-or-so neolithic dominoes that had made a unanimous decision to lean the other way. Trapped face down on his own pick-up, he had no chance of extracting himself. Luckily he had left the radio on in the cab, so he had Radio 2 to entertain him while he got up-close and personal in a bonding session with his pick-up's bed. Couldn't even get his fags from his arse-pocket, and couldn't use a mobile because they hadn't been invented yet. Alone, and nowt to do but scream for help … for a good forty minutes later, when his customer arrived, who called the fire-brigade, John was relieved to escape with a few bruises and a crushed packet of Embassy Filter.
Last summer a trader who I would deem to have all the required commonsense necessary to be left working alone, lost one-and-a-half fingers, crushed by the fat end of two lamp-posts clapping together as they slipped their strapping as he worked solo on a truck and crane. He took the finger-ends to Casualty in a margarine-tub, to no avail.
Alf 'n Safety might have a few words to say about the incidents which we make light of, and who can disagree that a Skid-lid, Hi-Viz or Safety Boots would assist any of the above? Or Peter Hill-Jones in the hallucinatory wilderness of his stroke? The fact remains, many of us work alone, and I've one hell of a hernia to prove it. At least it hasn't been diagnosed Post-Mortem by a Coroner's Court. I believe it would have read thus; "Death by hernia - aggravated by a half-ton millstone compress". All they would have to do is carve my name on it and leave me there. It was a big bugger.
Epilogue: Working alone, we all do daft things and take short-cuts, and no-one else takes the blame. But the unforeseen … a stroke, for instance, that has nothing to do with the price of a six-foot diameter millstone, or when God's Almighty Wrecking-Ball swings in the direction of your heart, and the sign on your chest simply says "Danger! Demolition in Progress!" then, the least we should do is take extra care, keep the mobile to hand … and wear clean pants, for your Mother will never forgive you.
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Location : UK > Warwickshire
Category : Letters
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Date Created : 08 Dec 2011 10:29:18
Date Modified : 02 Jan 2012 18:05:49;
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 LIFE AND DEATH AND OTHER MATTERS OF BUSINESS PART 2
The ambulance ride was astonishingly noisy. It was the tyres in contact with the road's surface that caused this the ambulanceman answered me when I queried it. I retched violently and noisily several times on the journey and apologised to the crew who soothed me and said it was fine as they held a paper vomit bowl under my mouth. It was made in the same way that the mottled grey, cardboard egg boxes used to be.
At the hospital a young doctor saw me and I remember bustling persons with surrounding faces, dark watchful eyes, my blood pressure being taken, a painful injection in my bum and later another. The babble of voices babbled lowly about me. Inner ear were the words I kept hearing being repeated. I was utterly unable to get up or raise my head. A band I once loved called The Holy Modal Rounders cut a track on their c. 1968 album on Elektra entitled 'The Moray Eeels Eat'. The track was called 'My Mind Capsized' and those three words sum up what my head and vision felt like. I smiled miserably to myself at the memory of the song.
In the hospital I was asked by someone what exactly had happened. I was able to relate it all much as I have done in my last article on this event. Every time another doctor approached me I was asked what had happened. Explain it from the beginning they would ask. When I'd told my tale they would sometimes nod and say something along the lines of 'mmmm yes, that's what I heard'. While the memory of it all is now a little hazy, it's not that hazy. I must have related the sequence of events of what befell me that Sunday luchtime eight or nine times that day. I was lucid enough to tell it like it happened each time.
"Peter? Peter! Peter? I want you to sit up Can you open your eyes?" The young doctor was insistent. I think I groaned and retched horribly. He waited. "Peter?" he said more gently, "Peter, I know it feels awful but I must get you to sit up. You must sit up. You must sit up"
With a near supreme effort I opened my eyes and did so and it was like balancing my entire vision on a tray of oiled ball bearings on a choppy sea while standing up in a rowing boat. It was ghastly.
"Swing your legs over the bed please". He smiled helping me with the assistance of at least one other nurse. I looked down as I persuaded my reluctant legs to hang over the edge of the bed while trying not to let my vision or was it my mind turn upside down. I looked with utter indifferent weariness at my socks, the left with a hole in the heel and my dirty three quarter length Tesco trousers I'd been wearing when I'd been clearing up and weeding the yard.
"Peter? Are you ok? How do you feel?" the doctor asked as he helped me to sit up. My eyes kept wanting to close.
"As sick as a dog!" I muttered. He smiled.
"I know. It feels awful. I know it does Peter but actually, we think that you only have a problem in your inner ear. It's not that serious but it feels terrible," he said smiling.
"Ah! That's good to know!" I tried a wan smile with my eyes partially open.
He laughed and chatted away for a bit before he then asked me: "Peter? Tell me. When your vision 'tilted' as you say it did and then 'turned over' as you describe did you appear to be sideways on to it so that it was happening left to right or right to left rather than towards you and away from you? Do you understand the distinction?" He peered into my eyes.
"Yes, I understand the distinction," I said carefully, trying to concentrate on feeling normal but with an overwhelming desire to put my head back onto he bed and close my eyes. "It happened from side to side."
"Ah! That's good!" he said, "That's good". He conferred with the others. "A bit of debris, Peter, I am sure, has detached itself in your inner ear - there's always bits of stuff in there. Everyone has it. Anyway a bit has come away and is floating around and hitting the hairs in your inner ear that are responsible for your sense of balance. It's the same as vertigo. That's what's making you feel nauseous. I think I can fix it quite easily" he said triumphantly.
"Great!" I groaned trying to lie back.
"No! No! Don't lie down Peter!" he said, firmly holding me in place, "Peter! Don't lie down! Look! Look! Watch my finger. Hold your head still but watch my finger".
With effort I did. He moved his finger slowly to the left, looking into my eyes as he did so, then to the right, then up and then diagonally and then down. I concentrated with some effort and followed his finger's moveme4nts picturing my dolorous, semi-decrepit face and wondered if I had dribble stains round my mouth.
"That's good!," he said to the others gathered in the room. He then in a low voice spoke to them - there must have been five others besides the doc - and I heard the words 'hornpipe' and 'Appsley Test'. "Peter! Peter? Look I want you to listen carefully Ok? Peter? I know It's hard but you'll feel better soon I promise. Peter? Sit now with your legs over the bed and look to your right. Ok? Look to your right and don't move. Ok? I'm going to lower your upper body sideways over the edge of the bed - don't worry I won't let you fall - and then lift you up again to the same position. Ok? Are you clear on that?"
I said I was, wondering what would happen when I vomited on him and how he'd take it.
He firmly, unerringly and comparatively swiftly, did exactly what he said he'd do. It was dreadful but I wasn't sick. I then had to reverse my position on the bed facing the other way and he lowered me right over sort of sideways and backwards at the same time with my head lowered almost touching the floor. He then lay me back on the bed. Five minutes later he asked me with a bright tone in his voice how I felt. I raised my head a little and said I felt dreadful. He told me that this movement would make the 'bit of debris' in my ear return to its point of origin. I would soon feel better. He continued to tell those gathered and myself that this was what an inner ear problem felt like and I would soon feel completely cured. It was not open to discussion. It was an inner ear problem and he had sorted it out with the 'hornpipe' and Appsley tests. I then realised he was going to discharge me and I felt utter panic.
"Look doctor, please don't send me home. Please! I can't walk. Honestly. I'm a strong man and resourceful and not keen to say in hospital and I know you are overworked and that there is a shortage of beds but honestly I can't go home. I can't stand up! I really cannot stand! I would if I could but I can't! Please let me stay here for the night. Please!" There was silence in the room and then some discussion amongst them all and then they left. I lay there quite still and with my eyes shut. I don't quite know how long it was before someone else entered the room but someone did and I was told I was to be admitted. I was wheeled off somewhere, injected in the bottom again, given some tablets to take and then lost consciousness. I remember being wheeled to a ward and a sweet faced nurse asking me if I wanted anything to eat. I thanked her and said no.
In the morning, soon after I woke and after tablets, blood pressure taking and another injection, a doctor probably in his late 40's came to see me asked how I felt and then asked me what had happened.
"Oh! Dear! Not again!" I groaned, "I told a dozen people yesterday a dozen times what happened. Don't you honestly know?"
"Look if you don't want me to examine you then that's fine by me!" he said clenching his teeth with vehemence and flashing his dark eyes at me," but I am the registrar you know!" I was staggered by this attitude and frankly slightly nervous.
"I'm sorry," I lightly whined, "I didn't mean to upset you…."
"That's ok!" he quickly snapped back interrupting me, "now, tell me exactly what happened." I told him. He listened nodding. "We'll have you scanned, I think. I'll book it in," and with that he went away.
I slept on and off and about midday I was wheeled off to be scanned. The scan wasn't too bad. I just was rolled head first into a tube thing that rotated and hummed. It was over quickly and I was taken back to the ward where I was with three other men considerably older than myself. One groaned a bit. The one next to me had his clothes on but lay on the bed with his hands behind his head. He sucked his teeth every couple of minutes and then exhaled loudly. I lay on my bed musing on my predicament and wondering if my dogs were ok.
"Doo yoo vant henny larnch?" a youngish blonde woman with blue overall things on suddenly asked me. I hadn't noticed her arrival. She had a clipboard. I considered. Could I eat anything?
"Just a little soup please if you have any?"
"No hot meel?" I declined. "Any froot, yoghurt or pooding?"
"No thank you" I said.
"Any tee, cawfee, a ban-an-a orer napple?" I declined again and said no thank you just soup. Her name was Katya and she came from Poland and had married and left an Englishman but had no children.
A little later a bevvy of entirely young female doctors came in to see me and the largest and most feminine - a newly-qualified lady doctor from Arabia I soon found out called Nadeel - questioned me as to what had happened. I told them all while addressing her and answered all their questions and at the end complimented her on her shoes which were animal print and of a nice design. She and the others laughed. She said that I had an inner ear infection and that she would be back later
I slept much of the day and about five thirty the previously shirty registrar returned.
"Hallo," he said, "I am sorry if I was a little off with you this morning but…" I interrupted him and assured him it was ok. I though it was a good idea to keep on the right side of him but I was as equally surprised by his apologies as I had been by his aggression earlier! "Well now, Mr Jones," he commenced, "well now," he repeated, " I'm surprised to tell you that you've actually had a stroke. It's surprising; very surprising but there it is! In effect you're too young, too slim, too fit to have one and you don't smoke at all you say or… drink too much?" He asked that last one as a question and I replied that I did drink a little too much on occasion. He paused. I waited, not entirely surprised by what he had said but unaware at that moment of the implications. He then went on to tell me how surprised he was at the result of the scan but it was without doubt, a fact. The damage had occurred in the back of the brain in the cerebellum - the area where balance is located hence my initial distorted balance and view of the world turning upside down when it happened and the accompanying nausea. He told me I would be moved to the stroke ward soon which was 'very good with lots of very good people there who will look after you (me) and that while a stroke was not a good thing it was undoubtedly the best time to get a stroke what with the astonishing progress in drugs that can be prescribed to helpme.' I sighed. Well that's that, I thought. How the heck did that come about I wondered as I lay there after he'd gone. What now Life?
I was moved soon after to Petworth ward, the one for stroke victims. I had a room to myself.
The next morning, Tuesday, Nadeel and the girls came around again and stood around my bed while their leader - a lady doctor - told them I had an 'inner ear problem' and she was going to demonstrate the Hornpipe and the Appsley tests.
"But I've had a stroke…." I began.
"No. You've an inner ear infection. Believe me. It's better to have that than a stroke!"
I didn't argue. My brain was razzled and I now realise I was very confused. She ordered me into the positions I had become familiar with and I had to watch her finger as before. I didn't protest. After explaining the position I must adopt on the end of the bed for the tests she thrust her bust towards me as she held my shoulders and with a 'keep looking to your left' shoved me over the edge of the bed. I was feeling much better generally but with this treatment I quickly developed a nasty, sicky feeling. The demonstration complete and with a satisfied look on her face she and the girls left. I could hear them going through my notes that were kept on a file outside my room and commenting on them.
A short while later I heard the busty doctor gasp and exclaim loudly enough for me to hear,
"He's had a stoke! It's here on his notes! Oh! Dear! What a faux pas! Oh! Dear!" I heard her laugh nervously and a rustle of acknowledgement of this extraordinary fact from the girls. "Really one must read the notes next time before visiting the patient! Remember that now ok?"
I am not normally the kind of man to go on about personal misfortune, especially of a medical kind. As a young man working for my father here at the Yapton Metal Co I would frequently come across invariably older male customers who on being asked a courteous 'how are you keeping?' would then regale me with their tales of illness and survival frequently insisting on showing me their surgical scars irrespective of whether I wanted to see them or not. I had an aptitude then to listen politely and these men took that to be interest on my part.
I relate here the tale of my stroke and subsequent treatment I received for three reasons: firstly, had I died Thornton would have probably written a bit of an obituary about me so as I didn't die I see this as a human interest story for Salvo. Secondly I have dealt with architectural salvage as an employee of my father and latterly in my own right for well over thirty years so my audience is in part contemporary with me and plenty of them of a similar age and life style I reckon at least judging by the bunch of odd-bods I saw at the Salvo fair. Lastly the business as I run it and certainly the premises it occupies and the way I work in it is old fashioned and will probably die out in due course with me. So I write for posterity too.
Story Type : 826
Images :
Location : UK > West Sussex
Category : News Stories
IP : Logged
ID : 63501
User : 13036 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Salvo News subscriber)
Date Created : 07 Dec 2011 22:49:42
Date Modified : 20 Dec 2011 15:20:52;
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 SALVAGING THE SNOQUALMIE FALLS POWER COMPANY
On a cool and rainy Washington State morning we donned our harnesses and stepped into the personnel basket, double clipping onto its frame. The crane was signaled and it gently lifted us off the ground, just adjacent to the last few hundred feet of the Snoqualmie River before it drops over the two hundred seventy three foot high Snoqualmie Falls. We paused mid-air, hanging over a 300 feet drop into the utter darkness of the penstock shaft leading to the underground cavity below. Wow, some days I really like this job.
The Snoqualmie Falls Power Company was founded in 1898. Work had started on an underground power generation plant in 1896 where a shaft was blasted three hundred feet straight down into the earth. A huge cavern was then excavated including a tail-race or tunnel leading to the base of the waterfall. This power generation facility was critical to the early development of nearby Seattle, Washington. Not surprisingly, the plant, which was using Nikola Tesla's 1896 technology (first used at Niagara Falls), had to be updated over time, but eventually could no longer be adequately retrofitted and demanded a significant renovation. After 112 years of nearly constant operation, Plant #1 was shut down and decommissioned in 2010. The entire cavern and above-ground building complex had been deemed as historic structures that could not simply be demolished, despite restrictive construction schedules. RE-USE Consulting was hired to come up with a plan that would inventory, remove, and store salvageable items for later use.
There were several buildings on the site, including the train depot which was to be preserved intact and complimented with reclaimed wooden benches made of wood from the other buildings onsite. The carpentry shop was stabilized, and prepared to be moved intact. The structure was a rustic woodshop and carpentry shop that will eventually house educational displays about the history of the facility. The building was lifted, moved out of harm's way, and staged out of the construction zone. The machine shop, a masonry building with many layers of paint covering the earthquake damaged brick, was scheduled for complete removal. This building was partially deconstructed with arched windows, doors, cabinets, antique lights, timbers, and decking being reclaimed. The same was true of the transformer house, a single story structure with twenty-fix foot high walls and a mezzanine structure. The power panels were all solid marble sheets with massive copper shut-off switches and relays. The one hundred year old gauges and ammeters, many with their original glass covers, still worked until the day that the Plant #1 building was silenced for good. Other items reclaimed from this building included eight round casement-style windows that would tilt in from their central axis.
The suspension bridge over the Snoqualmie River and the elevator tower were the other structures inside the work area. These structures were also fully removed after being partially deconstructed. Workers helping shut down the Plant related stories about how the river would flood and how one year the roots of a tree floating down stream caught onto the suspension bridge and started to pull it apart and eventually would have pulled it over the waterfall a mere two hundred feet downstream. They remembered a brave (or foolish!) worker cutting the roots to release the bridge and how the tree was washed over the falls and fell to the riverbed below. Two workers said that a deer that had fallen into the swift water was carried down over the falls, and was seen swimming away from the bottom of the waterfall, but I digress.
One of the most interesting parts of the project was removing the penstock pipes that had to be cut and removed from the vertical shaft. These seven foot diameter hot-riveted pipes had to be torch-cut by workers suspended in the shaft and lifted out via crane in sections weighing tens of thousands of pounds each. Some were saved for future creative reuse projects, and some were simply recycled. Safety was of the utmost importance in this procedure, as it was for all parts of the project and for the workers before us that ran the power plant. They had to deal with two thousand volt bare wires just feet from where they would walk. They had to be ever watchful for flooding, as the river would overflow the penstock shaft and fill the cavern with hundreds of thousands of gallons of water, and walking the narrow suspension bridge was an adventure in itself. Ah, it would have been nice to have been there to watch as the ancient wooden gantry crane was used to pick up massive cast iron pipe fittings and turbine parts, but at least the job is safely over now.
We were successful in reclaiming and storing hundreds of doors, cabinets, windows, beams, and other materials. Many items will remain in storage for now, but we helped solicit interest from museums, municipalities, and the power company itself in using or displaying dozens of the reclaimed items. Picnic tables made from the reclaimed wood, a rain chain made of chain from the power plant, and a static display of the massive Unit 5 turbine are examples of the team's successes. The work was completed safely and quickly, and the historic preservation requirements were met. Projects such as this one are helping to raise awareness of the reclaimed building materials industry in North America. Projects that purchase or use or display the items that were reclaimed from these structures also help promote our work.
Over the next months, Re-Use Consulting hopes to relate other stories of projects that we have been asked to help with, and describe the challenges and benefits that came out of working on these structures.
Dave Bennink
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Dave Bennink of Re-Use Consulting lives in Washington State and travels internationally to consult on projects and to help start new reclaimed materials operations.
Story Type : 826
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 SUPER SIZE ARCHITECTURAL SALVAGE AMERICAN STYLE
I visit the East coast of the USA annually and have done so since 2005. The trips always take the usual slant of design, architecture, art, garden visiting themes with the added bonus of scouring disused sites for interesting salvage. This time was no different and some friends had told us about this Architectural Salvage yard up the coast of New England in New Bedford Massachusetts.
Usually when in the USA I visit antiques centres, they are never small, this being America, nothing ever comes on a small scale. It's not often you get to see a Salvage yard there, especially with items that span the American architectural styles. I was expecting a large warehouse-type of building but perhaps not as big as this. Parking a few planes in this old factory would not have been a problem; the building must have been over 300 metres long, three floors high (it took 3 flights of stairs to get to each floor).
In over 20 years of scouring architectural salvage yards in mainland Europe and having visited pretty much all the salvage yards in the UK, I have never ever seen anything so big. It was not just the size of the building which literally made us gawp for a good five minutes before entering, but the quantity and quality of the artefacts within it.
One normally expects to see a few fireplaces, twenty to thirty at the most in a large salvage yard. I once visited a Manchester chap who had two thousand fireplaces but that is truly the exception. Here in New England there were literally thousands of any one item and the range was vast. On the ground floor there was an area that measured (and I did measure it) over 100m2 stacked with shelves and containers housing door knobs! An area of at least two hundred metres by thirty metres wide was full of doors stacked against railings, a smaller area (only by a few metres) was replete with porch pillars leaning against each other from every architectural style - I saw early American styles from Georgian to Greek revival, Victorian styles such as Folk and Second Empire to American colonial styles such as Tudor Revival to Beaux Arts and Italian Renaissance. There were over 500 claw foot bathtubs and hundreds of tubs with deco fittings still attached laid out over one side of the whole length of the 1st floor and the other side was packed with what must have been over 1000 radiators. Some of the radiators were particularly beautiful - intricate castings from every era were on show. I wanted to take a few home. Excess luggage would have been rather exorbitant. I kept saying "waow" the whole time as I went from area to area.
I loved the Tutti Frutti section as I call it - early twentieth century sinks, toilets and cisterns in every conceivable colour. Not something I would use in any restoration but American do like to restore faithfully and anyone with an old house would definitely find replacements here.
Mid-century was very well represented throughout and downstairs houses furniture loosely set up as rooms, different lighting sections, doors, windows, architectural mouldings, flooring and even a Buffalo, to the more industrial salvage such as old bars, railroad signage, train station ticket offices, wall panelling and office desks from the early thirties.
I love embossed tin ceilings in the USA and there they were stashed flat on top of each other on pallets next to the porch columns of which there were, once again, thousands of - the picture does not do the size of the place justice.
The great thing about this place is that everything has its place and nothing is stacked on top of other things - segmented into areas, it was a pleasure to visit. I kept thinking that if I worked in the USA this is where I would get most of my salvage for my clients. As one can expect from America, the level of service was exemplary, helpful, smiling and always willing to chat about this and that, I wanted to pitch up tent and stay there. The few hours I spent there were not enough - American really does super size everything and pictures cannot even convey the scale of this site.
Françoise Murat
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Francoise Murat is a degree qualified Interior Architect and Garden Designer. She runs workshops on Interior Design for period homes and contemporary houses. She also writes for Country Life and Sarah Beeny on interiors and gardens. Visit her website for more information.
Story Type : 829
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 WELSH GOVERNMENT CONSULTATION ON C&D STRATEGY INCLUDES REUSE
The Welsh Government wants your views on its construction and demolition sector plan in four key areas.
1. Waste prevention:
• Reducing the waste arisings directly produced by the sectors covered in the plan; and
• Utilising ecodesign approaches throughout the construction and demolition sector's processes.
2. Preparation for reuse:
• Use of demolition plans to ensure resources such as bricks, blocks, window and doorframes etc are preserved, where practicable, for reuse; and
• Provision of infrastructure to encourage partnerships for reuse between construction & demolition contractors and the third sector.
3. Recycling:
• Encourage better segregation of waste to enable higher recycling rates and improved quality of recyclate; and
• Encourage use of recycled materials and products as replacements for virgin materials, where viable.
4. Treatment and disposal:
• Deliver sustainable treatment and disposal of residual construction and demolition waste in a cost effective way and work towards the targets set in Towards Zero Waste, including those that limit energy from waste and seek to reduce landfill to zero.
Reason for this consultation
The purpose of this consultation is to seek the views of interested parties on the draft Construction and Demolition Sector Plan which covers wastes generated by construction and demolition companies in Wales. The draft plan supports 'Towards Zero Waste', the overarching waste strategy document for Wales, by detailing outcomes, policies and delivery actions for this sector. It forms part of the suite of documents that overall comprise the waste management plan for Wales in accordance with the plan making requirements enshrined in UK and EU legislation.
Outline of the Proposals
The proposals contained in this document seek to deliver the sustainable development outcomes identified in the Sustainable Development Scheme 'One Wales: One Planet' and in Towards Zero Waste. They contribute to the delivery of the Welsh Government's commitments (including targets) set under relevant EU Directives in a way that meets and delivers key overarching policies and strategies on sustainable development and climate change, as well as those set by other Welsh Government functions.
Story Type : 831
Images :
Location : UK > Glamorgan
Category : News Stories
IP : Logged
ID : 63404
User : 1 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Administrator)
Date Created : 01 Dec 2011 22:49:14
Date Modified : 01 Dec 2011 22:49:17;
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 BMRA LOOK FOR NEW DIRECTORS
The BMRA (Building Material Reuse Association of America) needs to find two new directors for which elections will be held on January 19th. In addition, depending on the decision by members about a proposed bylaws change, the number of BMRA board positions could be increased.
The BMRA states that service on the board can be an incredibly rewarding experience. It provides the opportunity to help shape the work of the BMRA, and to participate at the leading edge of progress of the C&D materials reuse/recycling industry. The organization has a some great projects going that will only move forward with good leadership and facilitation.
Story Type : 831
Images :
Location : USA > Illinois
Category : News Stories
IP : Logged
ID : 63397
User : 1 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Administrator)
Date Created : 01 Dec 2011 16:32:28
Date Modified : 01 Dec 2011 16:32:30;
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 DREW PRITCHARD IN 'SALVAGE HUNTERS' ON QUEST TV
Drew Pritchard is currently featured in ten part fly-on-the-wall architectural salvage documentary on Quest whose website states that , 'with demanding customers, high turnover, and one of the biggest decorative salvage yards in the UK, Drew Pritchard is constantly on the road, crisscrossing the country in search of derelict gems and forgotten remnants. Drew loves the thrill of the hunt and while he gets his hands dirty in the country's architectural backwaters, his crack team of restorers is back at the shop giving old and rare finds a new lease on life.'
On this weeks episode Drew bought lampshades and benches from a derelict airfield and a shop display counter and glazed doors from Steptoe's Yard in Montrose (not the Steptoe's Yard in Lancashire), packed a curtainliner for a customer in St Tropez and sold the glazed doors to Maria Speake of Retrouvius. 'Salvage Hunters' gave potted captions of the buy price and sell price with the gross profit made.
The series is made by Cineflix for the Discovery Network and can be seen on Quest on Freeview on Mondays at 9pm - and possibly Saturdays at 7pm.
Story Type : 831
Images :
Location : UK > Gwynedd
Category : News Stories
IP : Logged
ID : 63392
User : 1 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Administrator)
Date Created : 01 Dec 2011 14:35:57
Date Modified : 01 Dec 2011 16:23:50;
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 ITV PRIMETIME TO REPEAT NEW SEEKING SALVAGE SERIES
'Seeking Salvage' is a new eight part hour long fly-on-the-wall documentary series featuring Trevor and Lee Jones of Beeston Reclamation in Cheshire and Dale Sumner and Paul Johnson of Ribble Reclamation in Lancashire. The series, which launched this month on the History Channel, is the Channel's most popular programme of the year with 100,000 viewers. It now looks set to be repeated on ITV1 as a six part half-hour long series in a primetime slot next April renamed as 'Trash to Treasure'.
The production company, RDF TV (Secret Millionaire, Dickinson's Real Deal, Attack of the Trip Advisors), thought the architectural salvage world merited a series, and contacted forty UK yards of which twenty were screen-tested and two were selected as the mainstays of the series. Other salvage businesses have also been filmed and have smaller roles.
Trevor Jones of Beeston Rec said sales had doubled and thousands of visitors had been to its website in the past two weeks. He was filmed at the fire-damaged Peckforton Castle hotel where 400sqm of 140 year old oak flooring was reclaimed, some of which is still for sale at Beeston, but most has been sold to Architectural Salvage Source in Hertfordshire. He was also filmed at the demolition of a silk mill in Congleton where a major client wanted to buy 100,000 reclaimed bricks, although only 28,000 were subsequently saved. A trial dig through the concrete floor turned up nice mill flagstones, and Trevor bargained on 700sqm being available, sadly disabused when it turned out that all the flags had been removed prior to the concrete being laid, apart from the small area beneath the trial dig.
Dale Sumner of Ribble Rec could be seen singing "We're in the money" as a load of quality reclaimed York flagstone arrived in his yard from a deal in Lancashire. Salvo Code member Ribble Reclamation has recently been bought by Paul Johnson of NFDC member Bradley Demolition whose daughter Suzanne Johnson said that Dale and Paul were filmed at Gaze's auction, on demolition sites for reclaimed brick, in the yard, and Dale on holiday in Spain looking at Spanish salvage yards. Suzanne said they had many enquiries about salvage seen in the yard on the programme and the TV series was proving a massive boost to business.
The series can be seen on Tuesday evenings on the History Channel.
Story Type : 831
Images :
Location : UK > Cheshire
Category : News Stories
IP : Logged
ID : 63389
User : 1 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Administrator)
Date Created : 01 Dec 2011 11:29:53
Date Modified : 01 Dec 2011 11:37:22;
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 LIFE AND DEATH AND OTHER MATTERS OF BUSINESS
It happened here in the yard in the early Sunday afternoon of October, 23rd. I was on my own and had been clearing up and had come into the office prior to going into the house to make a cup of tea. It was about twelve fifteen. As I went to leave the office my immediate field of vision encompassing the doorway I was about to walk through:- the lean-to adjoining the office and shop, the scales (for weighing scrap) five foot in front of me, the corrugated, galvanised iron wall of the lean-to behind the scales and a segment of the yard exposed to my visual left through the wide open entrance of this lean-to suddenly turned, without warning and without any other sensation, completely one hundred and eighty degrees anticlockwise and remained there. The experience was phenomenal. A section of the real, physical world here within my yard, right there in front of me, within my field of vision, lay on its side in perfect, absolute focus but I was fully conscious of being vertical. It was as if I was watching a film in ultra-clear-reality-vision-scape and the camera filming was suddenly and deliberately rotated to the left not swiftly but unerringly. I felt no dizziness, no pain and at that moment no feeling of nausea. I faltered because of this amazing visual event and took a deep breath and then another standing perfectly still looking calmly at the world - such as I could see of it - on its side.
As I stood there I was consciously wondering what was happening. I knew that what I was experiencing was in my head and not anything to do with the real world changing at all. My mind ran swiftly though gh through alternative possibilities such as whether this was happening due to the result of a surprise nuclear attack or maybe it was an apocalyptic judgment from God who was now going to strike me down! I gave neither of these instantaneous thoughts any credence. There was undoubtedly something happening to me. I waited motionless to see what was coming next hoping for normality but ready for more of the same. At the same time I carefully and deliberately felt for my mobile phone in my pocket and practised manipulating my hand and fingers to test as to whether my fingers were working ok to press the numbers. They were. If necessary I could phone 999 or someone.
Then - averting my eyes from my phone and looking forwards again - without any volition on my part, the view in front of me rotated to the right, clockwise and returned back to normal. Then in a strange, sinister way it continued the other way -upwards, to the left, nearly one hundred and eighty degrees and then seemed to virtually stop at the angle which if it was a clock it would be telling the time of five minutes to eleven and then, shockingly it - my whole field of vision - slowly went totally upside down and then I allowed myself a miserable acknowledging groan and as it went right the way over. My vision 'looped the loop' in front of me.
I knew then what was happening was serious and beyond my control. No amount of deep breaths were going to clear this up in a hurry. I had to lie down immediately - just where I was before I lost consciousness or generally keeled over and collapsed. If I fell I might hit my head on the scales and crack my skull and the small plate I have in my lower jaw might fly out and get lost. I thought of the embarrassment I'd feel about that if I was found helpless and gap-toothed. I did not want to wet myself either which might happen if I fell. Strangely enough I did not consider crapping myself. I remembered that a customer had phoned up the day before and was possibly coming to look at a door I had. He said he'd be there between twelve thirty and one. Perhaps, I thought, I might be able in a minute to hobble or even crawl to the gate, close it and escape to bed and take stock of this awful thing.
I felt hot, very hot and sweaty. I managed to lie down on the concrete and I remember thinking how cool it felt on my face. I lay on the ground with my back to the entrance. Then I felt so sick. I knew I was going to vomit. Bunty the black Labrador came up to me and nuzzled me and then I was sick. Rex, my border terrier came up too. I groaned at them to go away as they sniffed the vomited porridge I'd eaten earlier and lapped at it.
I placed my work gloves under my head and lay there. I didn't want to at this stage call 999 because I didn't want to be hauled off in an ambulance and then immediately get better and be stuck in hospital. I also had some doubts as to whether an ambulance would even come given some of the awful stories in the press and once I acknowledged that I needed an ambulance I would be waiting for it and if it didn't turn up….! About six minutes later I lifted my head to see if I was better but it was just as bad if not worse. About ten minutes later I heard footsteps come into the yard and then laughter. Although my back was to them I could hear the voices of a man and a woman chuckling. They obviously thought I was drunk.
"Are you ok?" the woman's voice asked.
"Um I'm ok thank you. Just had a dizzy turn and am lying here because the concrete is cool. I'll feel better in a sec."
"Do you want us to call an ambulance?"
"No of course not. Honestly, my friend is arriving in a minute," I lied, "and I'll soon be as right as rain. I'm just sorry that I can't give you my attention now".
"Oh that's ok. We just wanted to look around anyway. Do you want us to wait until your friend comes?"
"No I'll be fine, honest. Pop back next weekend perhaps when I'm better."
"Ok then, see you. Good luck", and off they went. I sighed and smiled to myself at the absurdity of it all.
Five minutes later another couple came in and the same question was asked. There was no laughter this time.
"I'm calling an ambulance", the woman said and she did. After a time taken to digest this information I spoke.
"What did you come in for?" I asked them as I lay there. The woman had covered the vomit in front of me with the rag I use for wiping off scumble glaze from our painted furniture and which also had considerable amounts of Briwax on it. I could smell porridgy vomit, toluene and scumble!
"We were looking for a log basket actually. Are you ok? Are you cold?"
I said I wasn't and there were some log baskets over there and I indicated and I said I was still hot and the concrete was cooling and thank you for your concern. She said they would take a look while they were waiting until the ambulance arrived or someone came to take care of me. Sweet lady I remember thinking.
Paramedics then arrived. Heavy and fast footed. I felt there immediacy. I was still in the same position I had been -turned away from the lean-to entrance.
"Well now what's up Pete?" one of them asked, bending closely over me. I wondered how he knew my name, "It's me David - my girlfriend used to keep her horse in your field, Viccy, d'yer remember?" He bent over and felt my pulse.
"Ah yes, of course David," I managed to say, suddenly feeling a bit cold, "how are you?"
"Oh I'm fine Pete, but what about you? How do you feel? What happened" He spoke gently and kindly but with authority.
The other paramedic was talking to the couple and I could hear them saying in low tones how they had found me and how there seemed to be no-one else about. David quizzed me on what had happened to me and I explained to him what I have written here. They then conversed together and the words 'inner-ear damag' were put forward by David as the probable cause of my condition. David told me an ambulance was coming from Worthing and would be here in about fifteen minutes. I then went icy cold and started shivering violently.
"Shock", I heard them whisper and they went into the office and came out with various rags and blankets and covered me with them. Time seemed to phase out at that stage and I must have drifted off to sleep but was awoken by the sound of the ambulance siren. There was considerable conversation when the ambulancemen arrived and I could ascertain that there were two paramedics, the couple for the log basket and the two new arrivals. I thought about stupid jokes like how many Irishmen does it take to change a light bulb and vaguely related it to my situation.
I was asked again by the chaps in the ambulance what had happened and I related the story for a second time. One said it was probably my inner ear and that though it felt dreadful it was not that serious. I retched violently and with disgusting volume and tone! They were very sweet, kind and felicitous to me despite this.
"We're going to put you on a stretcher now Pete", one said, "are you able to move yourself at all?" I said I was terribly sorry to be so pathetically helpless but I was actually quite incapable of any movement at all. They told me not to worry and got me with a little effort onto the stretcher and then covered me with clean blankets.
"How is he?" the log basket lady asked coming back into my field of hearing.
"I'm ok and doing fine!" I called out from the stretcher before anyone else could say anything, "did you find a log basket that you liked?" There was a general titter of laughter and some remarks about 'even trying to do a deal on a stretcher' but I couldn't raise my head such was the dreadful nausea and my vision - if I did - was still tilting just as it had before. I wondered if it was just my eyesight.
"Yes, there's one with a back attached to it, but don't you worry now we can come back when you're better."
"My dear lady", I said, "let's do a deal now while I can. You can have that basket for £75. It's all cast iron and in excellent condition. Just needs a few logs and it's off and running. It's a special offer to you on this peculiar special day!" I was I suppose trying to be jolly to stop myself worrying about the possible outcome to all this rather than desperate fo seventy five quid!
"Right, Pete! It's time to get off now" said ambulance man No 1, "you ready?"
I assured them I was and for the first time in my life I was lifted up on a stretcher and carried off to an ambulance.
The lady and her husband had left without buying the log basket and I felt a twinge of disappointment. I sometimes make these silly bets with myself which come into my head involuntarily like if I'm walking along the pavement I have to pass the next lamp-post before the next oncoming car does otherwise something will happen to me. It's ridiculous and I don't really mean it but I can't quite stop doing it. I'd half made a bet with myself that if the couple bought the log basket everything would be ok. In hospital the next day I was informed that I had had a stroke, not a minor one but a decent sized one.
Story Type : 826
Images :
Location : UK > West Sussex
Category : News Stories
IP : Logged
ID : 63372
User : 13036 ; Antique/Reclamation/Salvage Trade ; (Salvo News subscriber)
Date Created : 30 Nov 2011 14:51:13
Date Modified : 01 Dec 2011 20:31:44;
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