About the Author

Having left school without any qualifications, apart from winning

a school writing competition, David joined his father who was a
nurseryman and landscape gardener. These stories from the early
part of his working life tell of some of the characters his father
employed, Davids friends and their escapades.










Dedication


Theres a saying Behind every great man, there is a woman.
Whilst not claiming to be a great man, there are two great women
behind this man. To my late wife, Patricia, without whose help,
understanding and support, this book would not have been
written.

And to my wife, Susan, who with her love and understanding has
persuaded me to once more pick up the pen and finish this book.







Davi d G. Cox


A SL I C E O F L I F E :
A C O L L E C T I O N O F
SH O R T ST O R I E S


























Copyright David G. Cox (2014)

The right of David G. Cox to be identified as author of this work
has been asserted by him in accordance with section 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the
publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this
publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims
for damages.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British
Library.


ISBN 978 1 78455 336 4


www.austinmacauley.com

First Published (2014)
Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd.
25 Canada Square
Canary Wharf
London
E14 5LB








Printed and bound in Great Britain


CONTENTS


THE PEARSONS 11
GALLOP EASY TRAINED BY GO LIGHTLY 15
THE ACTOR 19
THE GARAGE BASE 23
THE WASPS NEST 27
THE WILDERNESS 31
OLD GEORGE 35
THE JERSEY CALF 39
THE MOTOR BIKE 43
THE ROLLER 47
DICKIE'S MOWER 50
THE OLD CAR 54
THE FISHING TRIP 58
DOODLES 62
THE SHOOTERS 67
SNIP IT QUICK 71
THE FLOWER SHOW 74
THE NEW GREENHOUSE 77
FATHER 82





THE PEARSONS



Like many thousands of young people I left school at the age
of 15 before the advent of A levels and O levels and without
knowing what I really wanted to do as a career. My father
owned and ran a successful landscape gardening and nursery
business and he was keen for me to join him, and so at the age
of fifteen I went to work for him in the family firm. When I
joined, my father was in the process of moving the business
from the small premises near Slough to a much larger site in a
rural village just outside Windsor.
A firm of contractors owned and run by friends of my
father was engaged to clear the site, construct a roadway and
car park and to erect the glasshouses and various out buildings.
At that time we still lived not far from the old business
premises in a small village near Slough. The new premises
were large enough for father to have a house built on the site
which would be more practical, but while the new house was
under construction we had to travel to the new premises each
day. While the core of the new premises was being built my
father and I concentrated on moving the stock of plants and
machinery and started to lay out the planting areas ready to
plant the next seasons stock. Unfortunately the new plot was
old meadow land and had not been worked for some years, and
our small cultivators that we had used at the old site were not
man enough to tackle the job.
Being a rural setting we were constantly visited by the
local characters, one of these was George who worked as a
gardener for one of the local gentry who lived in an old manor
house in the village. On hearing of our difficulties George

suggested that we contact the Pearson brothers who were the
local odd job boys and would undertake any job on offer.
There were three brothers John, Roy and William and one
sister Nora. Nora, the eldest of the Pearsons four children
looked after them and was housekeeper, head cook and bottle
washer and general dogsbody. She was a very large lady who
was always jolly and she would help anyone out if she could.
She was married to Eric who worked for the Electricity Board
but on the weekends he would help out his wife's brothers in
their various escapades. Although they had been married for
several years they did not have any children and Eric who was
as thin and tiny as Nora was large made up for this void in
their lives by keeping tropical fish and exotic birds. Eric was a
keen bird fancier and kept a large number and variety of birds
in aviaries at the family home which was down an old unmade
lane leading to one of the local farms. John was the second
eldest and was a tall rugged man with an untidy beard. He was
the fixer and he claimed that he could fix anything and he
usually could. John looked after the pigs that the Pearsons kept
on their small holding and would butcher them when the time
came to fill the familys larder. Roy came next and he was a
short dumpy man, nicknamed the dreamer; Roy was always
dreaming of better things and he was convinced that one day
he would become a millionaire. Roy used one of the familys
many old lorries to deliver coal on contract for a local coal
merchant in Windsor and most of the time he was as black as a
coot covered in soot. The youngest member of the family was
William; known as Willie to the others he was just an
impressionable lad in his late teens who liked fast cars and fast
women. Willie drove like a maniac anything from motorcycles
to ten ton trucks and usually helped out Roy with his coal
deliveries. The parents were both elderly and retired and the
whole family lived together in a long low bungalow that had
been constructed from two old railway carriages which had
been joined together and had been extended from time to time
as the family grew. Their homestead covered about two and a
half acres and they had erected a couple of old ex-army Nissan

huts that they had acquired at an auction sale, along with other
various out buildings.
The Pearsons kept pigs and chickens and earned their
living doing anything for anybody who would pay them to do
it.
So, my father contacted the Pearson boys by leaving a
message at the local pub, the Red Lion, which was the
Pearsons watering hole, and one day they duly arrived all
piled in to an old battered almost unrecognisable twenty year
old Morris van. They scrambled out one by one and lined up
leaning on the old van while John who was the unofficial
foreman and my father discussed what he wanted them to
undertake, No problem, said John, we will do that for you
on Saturday morning. John and my father agreed a price and
the Pearson boys all piled back in to the old van and roared off
up the drive leaving a trail of white smoke pouring out from
the exhaust pipe which was held up with a piece of fencing
wire.
Saturday morning came and soon we heard the clatter of
machinery being driven along the road and in to our driveway.
When we looked out of the window we were stunned by the
sight which met our eyes. Rumbling down the drive was an old
Fordson Standard tractor with just the faintest sign of the
original green paint showing through the rust. The exhaust
pipe was a length of old guttering down pipe which had been
jammed on the stub of the manifold when the old exhaust had
broken off. The wheels were of the old metal type without
rubber tyres and trailing behind was an old rusty converted
horse drawn single furrow plough which also had iron wheels.
Riding on this contraption were all four of the Pearson
brothers and following closely behind were the mother, father
and sister Nora in the old Morris van. When we had got over
the shock of seeing this procession and its participants arrive
we ventured out to have a closer look. By this time the
Pearsons had dismounted and the argument had begun as to
where to start and who was doing what. John the fixer was
busy getting the plough ready for use with the aid of the

biggest hammer I have ever seen and lengths of old fencing
wire to stop bits from falling off. It was decided that Willie
was to drive the tractor and Roy would ride on the plough and
operate the various levers that would normally have been
operated by the ploughman walking behind his heavy horse.
Eric was to stand on the sidelines directing the operation while
John was to be held in reserve for when some part or other of
the contraption broke down. Mother, father and Nora settled
down on a nearby grass bank with the refreshments to watch
the proceedings.
Well, the ploughing started with Willie roaring off as if it
were the start of a Grand Prix and Roy falling
unceremoniously off the back of the plough. Willie stopped
and Roy remounted and the ploughing continued for most of
the day with innumerable stops for John to repair the
machinery and for the Pearson boys to refresh themselves from
the mountain of food and drink which had been brought along
by Nora. We just stood there amazed at the spectacle, as at one
stage all four of the Pearsons were perched on one part of the
machinery or other shouting instructions to each other as to
what to do. At one stage, three of them were hanging on to the
plough trying to get it to bite into the soil. When they had
finally finished the meadow looked like the battle field of the
Somme; there were no neat furrows laid out in lines as you
would expect when you see a newly ploughed field, there were
just big holes and mounds with the turf still showing in patches
in some parts of the meadow. George who had suggested that
we contact the Pearson boys came along just then to see the
fun and asked, How's the ploughing match coming along?
and just laughed. It was then we found out that George was the
local practical joker and that we had well and truly been the
butt of one of his practical jokes. After this experience we used
the local agricultural contractor until we purchased our own
tractor and implements and I learned to operate them.




GALLOP EASY TRAINED BY GO
LIGHTLY



To help run the business, my father had to employ several
people one of whom was Harry. Harry was getting on a bit and
had been out of work for some months and was getting on his
wife's nerves being stuck around the house all day. So, one day
when he visited the nursery to buy some plants he asked Father
if there was any chance of him working for us. Father in one of
his rare moments of positive decision making agreed to take
him on and Harry joined the firm working part time mostly in
the afternoons.
Harry had spent most of his life in a factory operating
some machine or other making screws for the motor trade and
had recently been made redundant, but he was a keen gardener
and had a good all round knowledge of gardening, which was
why Father had decided to hire him. He was a tall, thin man
who was always well dressed and he usually wore a suit to
work, together with his trilby hat with a small sprig of feathers
stuck in the band. He rode an old black Raleigh bicycle which
he kept polished up as if new and he would pedal slowly up the
drive smoking a cigar most afternoons. He would change into
his overalls and his suit and hat would be carefully hung on a
hanger in the shed the men used for their tea and lunch breaks.
Apart from gardening, Harry's other great love was the horses,
and most days he would call in at the local betting shop on the
way to work and place a bet.
Another member of the work force was Frank, a short
stocky chap and a real countryman who loved working
outdoors. Instead of working on the land he had been

apprenticed as a stone mason when he left school and worked
making and fitting replacement decorative stone parts for
churches and other classic buildings, but for the last few years
he had worked for the local council until he retired at the age
of sixty. He came to work for Father to keep himself occupied
during his retirement and with his skills he was quite a
valuable addition to our work force.
Now Frank was a real worker but Harry had only one
speed and that was dead slow. He used to skive off whenever
he could for a quick smoke , finding some corner in which to
hide, and Frank would track him down by the foul smell from
his cheap cigars and the plume of smoke rising from behind
some bush or other.
Frank would always be saying Where's Harry hiding
now? and off he would go and look for him. One day in
particular Harry was nowhere to be found and Frank set off to
search for him. When Frank found Harry he was asleep in the
wheelbarrow down by the compost heap. It was then that
Frank gave Harry the nickname that was to stick with him all
the time he worked for us. Due to Harry's fondness for the
horses Frank nicknamed him Gallop easy trained by go
lightly' as if he were a racehorse.
One day Frank and Harry were sent out to erect some
fencing for a customer at Datchet near Windsor. Harry was
hammering the posts in to the ground whilst Frank was
steadying them but Harry kept missing the top of the post and
kept sending the sledge hammer skimming down the side of
the post. Frank was getting rather annoyed at Harry and
jokingly laid his hand on top of the post and said to Harry,
That's where you are supposed to hit it. At that moment
Harry delivered one of the few blows that afternoon that
landed on target and sent the sledge hammer crashing down on
Franks hand. Luckily the blow lacked force and no permanent
damage was done but Frank let out a few good expletives
about Harry's parentage.
Harry was always rather slow to put his hand in his pocket
and whenever the lads went to the pub at lunch time Harry was

always the last one up to the bar and very seldom had to buy a
round of drinks. I remember he was always on the lookout for
anything he could acquire and therefore avoid paying for it,
and most days he would ride off on his bicycle carrying
something or other that he had acquired.
One day he had acquired some timber that was going
begging and had carefully laid it down by the side of his
bicycle ready to take home that evening when he finished
work. Frank had spotted Harry carefully hiding the timber and
decided to play a joke on him. He found some six inch nails
and nailed the timber to the side of the shed where Harry had
left his bicycle. That evening when Harry tried to collect the
timber that he had secreted, the entire staff hid behind the shed
watching him trying to figure out why he could not lift his
cache. We could not keep quiet and when we all came out
from behind the shed laughing Harry was not amused. After
lighting one of his cigars he got on his bicycle and pedalled off
home leaving his timber behind.
Harry remained with us for several years and Frank and
Harry worked together on many jobs covering all aspects of
the landscaping side of the business from decorative stone wall
construction to lawn laying. They were inseparable and always
worked together and became great friends. I learnt a great deal
from both Frank and Harry, especially Frank who taught me to
lay flagstone terraces and patios and to build decorative brick
and stone walls.
Harry, much to the annoyance of my mother who
disagreed with all forms of gambling, eventually got us all
involved with the horses and we all used to have flutter but
only on the big races like the Gold cup, the Derby and the
Grand National. Harry would act as the bookies runner and
would place all the bets for us and collect our winnings. We
often won but it wasn't a lot as we would only place a small bet
usually a shilling or two each way. We continued to play jokes
on poor Harry but in the end he took them in the spirit in
which they were made and we all had a good laugh.

Harry was the person who got me involved with tobacco
and I joined him in smoking. We would compete with each
other to see who could obtain the cheapest, foulest smelling
cigars. Later on, after numerous complaints from my mother
about the terrible smell from the cigars I took up smoking a
pipe and I smoked one for many years until one day I heard
that an old acquaintance had died of lung cancer. I stopped that
day but I guess it was too late, as I was to be diagnosed with
cancer several years later.
Sadly Frank suffered a heart attack one summer and a
short while later he died. We closed the firm down for the
afternoon of his funeral and we all attended. It was never the
same for Harry after Frank died, and although he continued to
work for us for some time after, he eventually left and retired. I
think that he missed his old mate Frank so much that he did not
like to be around where there were so many happy memories.




THE ACTOR



The River Thames was not far from where we lived and along
its banks there were several very large houses and mansions,
one of which had been converted into large self-contained
flats, with the grounds laid out as a communal garden.
The residents had joined together to form a committee to
manage the maintenance of the grounds which covered several
acres. They invited tenders for the maintenance of the grounds
and my father and I were eventually successful in being
awarded the contract. The residents were all successful
wealthy people and included an actor and an advertising
executive. The actor was a tubby bald-headed man and was
well known for his appearances in several major films as well
as television appearances, and in his spare time he was a keen
gardener. The advertising executive was a tall thin man who
sported a huge handle bar moustache and who was constantly
being ribbed by the actor who said he could sell sand to the
Arabs.
Both these men, along with some of the other residents,
were members of the gardening committee. They both lived in
ground floor apartments which looked out over the gardens
and the river to the rear of the house.
Having been awarded the contract for the maintenance of
the grounds, the first thing we did was to attend a meeting of
the garden committee to discuss some modifications they
wanted to the area around the mansion itself. The committee's
requirements were duly noted down and we drew up the plans
and presented them at a further committee meeting. The plans
were duly accepted with some minor modifications and shortly

afterwards the work began. This included the removal of some
shrubs and trees and replanting others in different locations.
Also included in the plans was the provision of some gravel
pathways that were to wind down through the gardens to the
river bank where we were to construct a paved terrace with
provision for the mooring of the residents motor launches.
Well, the work started and the unwanted trees and shrubs
were removed, the ground landscaped and contoured ready for
the planting of the new specimens. The new trees and shrubs
were delivered and planting began and was progressing well.
However, one morning, shortly after our men arrived at the site
we got a telephone call from Frank who was acting as the
foreman for the job. I think you should come round, he said.
Father and I drove to the site and when we arrived we could
not believe our eyes. Several of the newly planted trees and
shrubs had been dug up and were lying on the ground
alongside the now empty holes where they had been planted,
looking as though a family of giant moles had moved in. The
actor and the advertising executive were standing there arguing
with each other, with Frank and one of the lady members of
the gardening committee trying to calm them down. Now,
these two chaps were normally the best of friends but that
morning they looked as though they were about to kill each
other; insults and fists were flying and it was getting quite
violent.
What on earth is going on? asked my father. It's these
trees and things, said the actor. They were planted in a
position where they would block my view of the river. And
he wants to put them where they will block mine said the
advertising executive. Who dug them up? asked my father.
He did they both said simultaneously. Well the argument
went on for quite a while until a compromise was reached and
new locations for the plants were agreed upon.
When all was settled and the two chaps had made friends
again, the actor who was 'resting' as they call it in the business
when they are not working suggested that we should all have a
drink, and he went in to his flat returning shortly with a

mountain of booze. Father mentioned something about not
paying for his men to spend time partying and the actor said
that he would pay the days wages for all the men himself. So
we all stopped work and had a great spontaneous party down
by the river bank, where we all got rather tipsy, especially
Father.
When we had finished the work around the house, we
started on the construction of the terracing and mooring
facilities down by the river. Now, the residents really wanted
lights installed along the terrace so they could party down by
the river and telephone points so that they could conduct their
business from the terrace. This of course was before the arrival
of the mobile telephone. This involved us digging a trench all
the way from the house across the grounds down to the river
which was quite a distance.
Well, Frank and his team dug the trench but we had to call
in some specialist tradesmen to install the wiring. The
electricians came and completed the installation of the wiring
for the lights but we had to wait for the men from the GPO as
it was then to come and install the telephone cabling. As the
residents had wanted to be able to connect their boats to the
telephone we had to run the trench right up to the waters edge,
and it would eventually be covered by the flagstone terracing.
Unfortunately, the wash of the river as the pleasure boats went
past gradually washed the soil out from around the hole that
we had left between the concrete walls of the terracing through
one of the drainage holes that we had put in to allow the water
to drain away from the garden beyond the terrace.
Well, the telephone men were a long time in coming to lay
their cables and the hole that we had left was getting bigger
and bigger as the days went by and to stop anyone from falling
in Frank laid a piece of plywood across the hole.
Unfortunately, the piece of plywood he had chosen was not
very strong and would not take the weight of the average man.
One day when we were all on site for a meeting, the actor
came down to the terrace where we stood. He was dressed in a
black blazer, white trousers and wearing a peaked hat with

gold braid around the rim. He strutted around and walked up
and down the terrace inspecting the view, letting everyone
admire him and his outfit. Suddenly he stepped on the plywood
that Frank had placed over the hole left for the telephone men.
There was aloud crack and the plywood broke and down he
went. He sank slowly into the river until just his hat was left
floating on the water. For a moment no one said anything but
then we all burst out laughing and Frank and I raced over and
pulled him out. He stood there on the terrace soaking wet and
covered in mud and bits of weed with water running out from
the bottom of his trousers. After a few minutes the actor
himself saw the funny side of things and laughed as well and
again we all had another impromptu party, compliments of this
most generous man.




THE GARAGE BASE



My father had a long-time friend Bill Adaway; they were both
gardeners and they also were both frequenters of Bills local
watering hole, The Three Bells. Bill had three children, two
boys and a girl. His eldest boy Tom was a bit of a lad and took
a shine to my sister Gillian. The outcome was that Tom and
Gillian married. Tom at that time was working as a lorry driver
for a building firm and they were enjoying life until the firm
went bust. This left Tom without a job and so Gillian asked
Father if he would employ him. Tom and I always got on well
and so I persuaded Father to take on Tom as the landscaping
work was growing steadily.
With Tom, Frank and Harry on board the business grew
steadily and we were able to take on more and more work. In
order that we could have two teams working on two different
jobs at the same time Father decided to buy a second-hand
pickup truck to complement the two vans we already had. He
bought a Jowett Bradford half ton pickup truck from Curly,
one of the local scrap dealers, and Tom and I were given the
task of refurbishing it into working order. We enlisted the help
of Don, a mechanic who lived in the village and in our spare
time we all worked on the old truck until it was serviceable
once more.
The old Bradford was a willing workhorse although it was
only equipped with a small unusual two cylinder horizontally
opposed engine, but we used it for many years and ran it on
tractor vapourising oil mixed fifty/fifty with petrol for a time.
This was not strictly legal, but at this time there was a period
of petrol rationing. It ran quite well on the vapourising mixture

although it smoked a bit, but at least we managed to continue
working during this period. At last the poor old Bradford
showed its age and it became more and more unreliable. When
it finally died we returned it to Curly who had sold it to us and
he broke it up for scrap.
One of the first jobs where we used the pickup was on the
construction of a garage base for a customer in Wraysbury. I
drove the little Ferguson tractor to the site with the hydraulic
bucket attached and Tom drove the Bradford. On the first day
Tom and I dug out the area for the garage base using the Fergie
and bucket and installed the shuttering to contain the concrete.
The next day the ready mixed concrete that Father had ordered
arrived and the lorry driver started to offload it. Luckily we
were able to get the lorry near enough for the driver to offload
the concrete directly into the shuttering. As the driver of the
lorry continued his task Tom and I looked at each other and
thought, `There's too much concrete here'. When the driver
finally finished offloading we were confronted with an
enormous mound of wet concrete that was overflowing the
shuttering of the garage base and steadily covering the
surrounding garden. The old man's ordered too much, said
Tom; the old man was how we reverently referred to my
father. What the devil are we going to do with the excess? I
said to Tom. We'll have to take it back to the yard, said Tom.
What in? I asked. The pickup, replied Tom.
Well, we finished laying the garage base and it didn't look
too bad, but the timber that Father had given us to use was a bit
too thin for the job. He had as usual gone for the cheapest he
could and it just wasn't up to the job, so the base wobbled a bit
here and there where the thin shuttering distorted.
With the garage base laid we loaded up the pickup with the
first load of now not so wet concrete. The poor old pickup was
right down on its rear suspension and we were concerned
about the springs not being able to take the load as we had
much more than half a ton of the stuff. We set off back to the
yard with the first load of concrete, wondering what on earth
we were going to do with it when we got there. The poor old

Bradford was swaying from side to side and by the time we
arrived back at the yard the concrete was already beginning to
firm up. We dashed into the office to find Father. We
explained the problem and Father was convinced that he had
not made a mistake but that the lorry driver had delivered too
much. I don't care who is wrong, I said But I would like to
know what we are going to do with it as it is starting to set and
there are several more loads to bring back yet.
As luck would have it, as we were deciding what to do
with the concrete, Frank and Harry returned early from the job
that they were on and came into the office. Father as usual
came up with the answer. Frank can go back with Tom and
collect the next load, and you and Harry can get the tractor and
dig out the base for those new cold frames that we have been
going to put up.
While Tom and Frank unloaded the concrete and went for
another load, Harry and I started work on the base for the new
cold frames. By the time Tom and Frank returned with the
second load of by now very stiff concrete we had just finished
constructing the shuttering to hold the mix.
Luckily, by spraying the concrete with water, we were able
to soften it sufficiently to allow us to lay it, and by seven
o'clock that evening Tom and Frank had collected all of the
excess and Harry and I had laid the base. Father of course, as
usual, had disappeared long before we finished. Tom and I
often wondered if Father had it planned all along. With the
base for the cold frames finished Frank and Harry left for
home somewhat later than usual and Tom and I were left with
the task of cleaning up the pickup and the tools. It took us until
well into the evening to clean off the concrete from the pickup,
and when we had finished we paid one of our rare visits to our
local pub, the Red Lion, to recover from our hard day's work
and downed a couple of well-earned pints. As luck would have
it we met George in the pub and we had to spend the remainder
of the evening listening to him taking the mickey out of us.
George had been milking the cows that his father kept in a

meadow opposite the pub and afterwards, before going home
he had made a detour for a few jars.
When the landlord finally called time we had downed
more than the couple of pints we had intended to and we all
left for home, George pedalling away very unsteadily on his
rusty old trade bicycle complete with the churn that he used to
transport the milk home. He finally made it home that night
after a couple of excursions into the ditch by the side of the
road where he lost most of the milk that he had collected that
evening.
Tom and I staggered home together holding each other up,
Tom to face his wife, my sister, and me to face the wrath of
my mother who did not agree with drinking; she let us both
know it the next morning.




THE WASPS NEST



My Uncle John was a builder; he was rather tiny like my
mother, about five foot three, but he had a big heart and a grin
like a Cheshire Cat. He had an infectious laugh and loved a
good joke. Uncle Johns passion was trout fishing and he
would often take me with him when I was a lad, and we would
visit some out of the way place and spend a relaxing day
together. We never caught much but we both enjoyed our
outings which usually ended up in some country pub to partake
of the falling down water, another of Uncle Johns loves.
Uncle John was awarded the contract to build a large
Georgian style country house in the village of Wargrave in
Berkshire. The house was to be set in its own grounds of some
five acres and Uncle John asked Father to fence the perimeter
of the site and to landscape the grounds. So Father, Tom and I
set off one day to start work. When we arrived at the site, apart
from where the builders were working, the entire plot was
completely overgrown and we spent the next few weeks
clearing the site and surveying the boundaries to establish
where the fencing would run. It took us about a further three
weeks to complete the fencing and as soon as that was finished
we turned our attention to landscaping the grounds. The first
task was to plough, rotovate, level and then consolidate the
ground so that the turf could be laid down to construct the
lawns. It took a further week to accomplish this and our old
Ferguson tractor found the task too much so Father had to hire
a more powerful machine from one of the local dealers. We
had almost finished levelling the ground when, one morning,
whilst I was ploughing the last strip, the tractor stopped dead

and the engine stalled. I restarted the engine and tried to pull
away again but the tractor would not budge. I got down and
found that the plough was entangled with a length of old pipe
which was buried in the soil. Tom came over to see what was
wrong and I explained the problem, I'll get the heavy chain
and we'll pull it out he said. While Tom went to fetch the
chain I disentangled the plough from the obstruction and drove
over to the edge of the site and uncoupled the plough. With the
chain firmly attached to the buried pipe I opened the throttle on
the tractor and slowly let out the clutch and let the tractor take
the strain. At first nothing happened and Tom said Give it a
bit more throttle, I duly obliged and the tractor began to raise
its front wheels off the ground as the strain increased.
Suddenly, the tractor lurched forward and the pipe came out of
the ground and so did wasps. Apparently the old pipe was the
entrance to a large wasp nest that had probably been growing
steadily in size over the years while the site had been
overgrown.
Tom ran for cover with me in close pursuit. I just managed
to switch off the tractor and jump down from the seat and I
think I beat Tom to the shed where the builders kept their
supplies and quickly closed the door behind us. Father and
Uncle John of course thought it was a great joke and stood
there laughing, You can't leave the tractor there, said Father,
We have got to finish off the levelling, the turf is arriving
tomorrow. If you want it you get it, both Tom and I replied
in unison from safely inside the shed.
When we finally ventured outside the shed the wasps were
still angrily buzzing around their now badly damaged nest
showing no sign of calming down. An old chap who had been
leaning on the fence watching the work progress walked down
the drive and introduced himself. It turned out that he was a
retired pest control officer and he still had both his licence and
contacts at the local council where he had worked and offered
to see if he could get something to kill the wasps. The next
morning the old chap came over and said that he had managed
to obtain the poison and would treat the wasp nest that night
when it was all quiet and there was no danger of any one being

stung. The next day we returned to work confident that the
wasps were dead and would not trouble us anymore. I hooked
up the plough to the tractor to finish turning the ground which
hadnt been completed.
All was going well until I came once more to the place
where the wasp nest had been. As soon as the plough dug into
the soil out came the wasps again and once more I dived for
cover; it seemed that the old chap's potion had not done the
job. He had told us where he lived in the village so Tom was
dispatched with great speed to contact him to see if he had any
more ideas on how we could dispose of the wasps. He was
surprised to hear that his first attempt had not worked and told
Tom that the nest must be deep. He suggested that we could try
pouring paraffin down the hole and setting fire to it to burn the
nest. Tom duly reported back and we decided to stay late that
night and try the paraffin. Father as usual went home early and
left Tom and me to sort out the wasps.
When we thought it was all quiet at the nest Tom went to
get the paraffin and found that Father had taken it home with
him in his van and the only thing we had left was two gallons
of petrol. We'll use this he said that should sort them out.
Tom and I carefully poured the two gallons of petrol down the
hole and from what we thought was a safe distance threw a
lighted bundle of rags at the hole. As the lighted rags hit the
hole it erupted with a blinding flash and a loud explosion
which sent earth and burning petrol along with very crisp
wasps high into the air, leaving a large smoking hole in the
ground and Tom and me covered in mud. The flash was so
vivid that it lit up the surrounding area and the explosion was
so loud it sounded like a bomb had gone off. The neighbours
came out from their houses to see what was happening Oh we
were only getting rid of a wasps nest, we said.
The next day we were convinced that we had won and
there would be no more wasps, but as we went over to inspect
the hole there they were still buzzing around very annoyed at
whoever had tried to blast them out of existence the previous
night. Just then the old chap came along and asked us if the

paraffin had worked. We explained that we had used petrol
instead of the paraffin but even that had not worked. You are
lucky you did not get hurt said the old chap and told us that
there was only one other way that the nest could be destroyed;
it would need to be done with cyanide gas and he agreed to
arrange with his old chums at the council to do it for us as it
was rather dangerous.
Well, the men from the council came and gassed the wasps
nest and this time they were killed and we were able to
continue with our work to complete the landscaping of the
grounds. The old chap would often come along for a chat and
we would have a good laugh about our attempt to blow up the
wasp nest.