Slough House Wood with Katie Abbott and friends

May 19th 2021

Well it has been a long time since I was last here. Katie has moved to be nearer her family.  I have visited Will and Sue not too long ago but not seen Nic and Olvin since lock-downs. This group never waste a second of their time.  Always doing new stuff or reinventing different ways of doing it. 

Katie and Sue were busy doing crochet.

Olvin has been busy making himself leather and wood tool bags.

Spaniels bonding amongst the bluebells.

Swarm of bees moving around the wood but settled here.

Nic has some lovely planes - a Stanley bedrock and a Lee Neilson

Always a pleasure to meet up again in the woods. Am experiencing difficulties inserting videos still.

Burwash Group at Heddingham Art Centre

Sunday 13th June

This was the first outside event for the newly relocated Burwash group run by David Owen. 

A very pretty and shaded venue on what was a very hot day. This group were alway very well setup for interaction with the public especially children. Willow work, shavehorse and rounders ,aking the hedgehog. 

Burwash group

Easter weekend meeting at Burwash Manor Cambridge.   3/4th April 2021

The ex Wimpole lathers are now relocated not too far away and closer to the M11. They are set up on the border of the car park which means the public have to walk past them to access the shops. They have created a green woodworking area with shavehorses, a secure storage for tools, kettles etc and a separate pole lathe area. There are plans to expand this area even further. 

This was the first eased lock-down meeting under the rule of six.  There were three separate areas of work, the other was in the car park. Obviously great to catch up with some people I have not seen for a very long time. 

Shane and Jayne were processing chair parts prior to steam bending.

Isaac is a local lad who was doing his own thing, refreshing to meet younger blood who are passionate about traditional skills. This area is normally used for the pole lathes.

David Owen was sporting his Easter Hat, very much in vogue with the egg hunt he was involved with over the holiday period. Assisted by Jon Bailey and Elspeth a very talented young lady who appears to excel at everything (now I wonder where she gets that from?).

These are the plans for the round wood building they plan to erect in the corner of the car park. It will be used to run green woodworking courses.

Jayne on the shavehorse is talking to Mike who has changed his lifestyle and is now an artisan sough-dough bread maker. My birthday present is asleep underneath.

Well this meeting was successful and all bodes well for the future. The driving force is David Owen but it all works so well due to the contribution made by others - Simon Damant, Jim McVittie, Andrew, Jon Bailey, Shane and Jayne O'Reilly.

Cherry Wood Project 19-22nd December 2020

The main car park was full and very wet so opted for a roadway spot, was in good company

Merlin arrived on Saturday and started on our lunch whilst dinner was on the BBQ. Merlin's roast rabbit and rabbit stew! Great to see him again in full health. He injured his shoulder a couple of years ago and found good treatment hard to find!









Tom was busy fueling the many fires - it was cold!

Penty of dogs about.

Nice to see Tim and friends for the last meet for the time being. Tim plans to return in 5 years so we can hope that Cherry Wood Project 2 may come! I have been here for a long time so I will hold my breath. Tim has trained so many apprentices and helped so many getting a start in green woodworking.

Long live the King!

10th October Dowgate Fire Station on the Embankment.

I was invited to attend their open day along with others from city Livery Companies  Happily climate change protests did not impact on my short journey from East London. However I support them 100%. I hope their protests gather strength until our (up to now) useless politicians and broken democratic system changes.

Rant over and now to the great day I had with the amazing public servants in the fire service.

The young lady being dressed in firefighting gear volunteered. The first demonstration was with this investigation officer who showed some domestic appliances and explained how their interventions influenced manufacturers. 

This great dog was part of the equipment used to find clues as to how fires were started. It was also trained to find survivors and bodies after a fire.

This series of photos shows the sequence of events when cutting injured passengers from vehicles. The whole process is about time and injury. They are advised by the LAS (London ambulance service) as to the critical speed required for each incident. Happily the injured person was acting!

They break the windows and remove the glass after protecting the injured and their personnel. Screens are sawn as they are laminated, the rest is smashed as it is zone toughened. 

Bags are used to cover the spread of glass. Whilst this is all going on their is a senior member of the team advises and stands a safe distance with fire fighting equipment to deal with any secondary ignition.










Doors are removed and put at a safe distance

Drones are used to deliver respirators and life jackets to save lives at the scene as well as delivering camera footage and infra red images.

5/6th October Weald & Downland Autumn Countryside Show at Singleton, Sussex

This year the events have changed. The Wood Show became an Historic life event. Happily for the greenwood workers there were more very interested people and less just general public. Gone were most of the commercial stalls and huge eating area. Sales maybe down but the atmosphere was greatly improved.

Well this show was very much along those lines. Interest was much improved and so were the sales. Unfortunately they have now moved the date of the Historic Life event to the end of May. Hopefully we can all make it.

Many thanks to the organisers and especially Julian the curator and Mark Allery.

18^th September Fairlop Woodturners

Graham Pook our new chairman was demonstrating pen making partly as a tribute to our late chairman John Brotherton who made very good pens.

We used the container as a demonstration area which worked out very well.






Dianne Brotherton joined us for lunch.

Our next demonstration is next week 11.00 - 3.00pm with Tony Walton