Fact or Fiction? - 39

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The story Here

The story about losing my kids because of taking hayfever tablets was -

TRUE!

I still look back and think we were all so very fortunate that this didn't end in utter catastrophe!

All's well that ends well...

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Not so with this next story.

When we moved into this house, there were fir trees of some sort edging the property. They were too close together and blocked out a lot of light for the neighbour's garden. Over the years, they grew and we decided they needed to go before they were too big to handle.

Rom's nest under one of the trees

At that time, I had my first car, a Triumph Spitfire, sitting on the yard, 'waiting' to be fixed and put back on the road. It had needed a bit of welding and therefore wouldn’t pass the road-worthiness test (MoT).

Trev had a look at it and tried starting it – if it had started, we’d have taken it to a garage to be fixed properly. If it didn’t start, it would need more work than we could afford at the time.

Trev went into the garage to try to start the car.

Turned the key and nothing. He checked the battery, the connections and everything, all seemed fine but the car would not start.

Being the Electrical Engineer he is, he decided to take a hammer to it!

Allegedly, he ‘just tapped it’ and broke something on the starter mechanism. The car was dead as a dodo and would need more money to get it going properly.

I went into the garage to see where he was with his project.

“It won’t start and now I’ve broken something,” he said.

“It won’t start?” I said, getting into my car. “Did you remember the secret engine kill switch?”

I clicked the switch that he’d forgotten but it was too late. He’d already broken something vital.

My car had to be pushed back and out of the garage onto the back yard because we needed the garage space for a car that worked.

I was gutted!

Still, the car had a roof (convertible) and windows, so it would be ok for a couple of months… (and we all know that ‘a couple of months’ really means a decade or so).

The car sat on the garden and the tyres went down over time. The paint dulled and the roof faded and grew moss.

Then the trees grew too big for the garden (couple of months, see?) and the car wouldn’t move on those flat tyres.

We thought we would be able to fell the trees if we used ropes to control where the tree landed - like the lumberjacks do.

Starting from the bottom of the garden, we cleared the tree-line over a number of weeks.

Felling one and getting rid of it before felling the next because piling up so much felled tree in one go would never be manageable. Leaving the trees in situ was a great idea and we took our time.

The tops of the trees were de-branched and the branches gathered up before any major cutting began. Then the top third of the tree came down and the process started again. De-branching, clearing up and felling the next third.

The stumps proved most difficult to dig up, but we had a couple of enthusiastic helpers. Rom (Rottie) especially loved digging and he picked it up that if we pointed to a spot, he’d dig it and receive a treat. Pretty soon, he dug the root area more or less on command (and he didn’t always get a treat). It still took lots of digging and working, so the roots were left – some were still there a year or more after the great lumberjack event.

The one just below where the car lay at rest proved difficult. The rope snapped and the top part of the tree fell onto the concrete coal bunker, bouncing off and missing the fence and the dogs – fence one side, and dogs the other side of where it fell.

Much shouting and panicked gasps ensued…

Lesson learned! We used a newer piece of rope for the next tree.

Because the car was close to the trees, we had to be especially careful because one lump of trunk landing on the roof would ruin any hopes I had of restoration.

The first quarter was taken down without a hitch and we were hopeful that everything was going to go as smoothly as most of the others had.

The second quarter came down and was moved away. The last half of the tree could be chopped and pulled away from the car so it dropped neatly in the space behind the car.

Rope tied securely around the top of the trunk, me pulling on the rope as Trev chopped the bottom of the trunk.

The tree moved every so often once Trev had passed a certain point of chopping. Then he told me to stop pulling and he had a rest.

The tree was going nowhere, it wasn’t chopped through enough yet.

I bet you’re all thinking the tree actually dropped onto the car despite our precautions…

No, that didn’t happen. When Trev and I were carrying one great lump of trunk up the garden path, I stumbled and fell off the side of the path, depositing the trunk we were carrying right onto the back corner of the car’s roof, tearing it badly, taking out the brittle plastic of the rear side window and leaving a gaping slash in the rear window.

After all that effort, it still resulted in too much damage to my car to make it repairable. I sold the car for £50. They’re worth £15,000 now!

So... Truth or Fiction?