Penwill Properties

England - 1961 to 1964

After 3 or 4 days in London sorting out my passport and other things I had to think about a job. Decided to try around Cambridge where Shirley Bell was living. Collected my bicycle from her parent’s house in Essex. They had kindly stored it for me while I was away. I rode up to Cambridge and within a few days I had a job and a room to live in. The job was in a small joinery shop, working with three other joiners, two machinists and a foreman. Pleasant work and similar to NZ style and so I settled down.

In December, I decided to buy a VW van. I found that buying one without side windows behind the cab, it was classified as a work vehicle and there was a tax concession, so saved me 40 to 50 pounds. Took delivery just before Christmas, which allowed Shirley and I to travel in it to her parents for Xmas break. .

After New Year I proceeded to line the van, then fit in cupboards, a bunk, table and gas cooking to make it into a camping van. Helped fill in the winter weekends.

One Sunday in January I woke to find a peculiar day light and found it was snowing. Looked very pretty, but next day roads had been salted and turned to slush and others had packed down. Made it hard cycling to work. So had to walk. Although it was all gone after a week.

Another event was called “Poppy Day” This was a Saturday and lots of people did weird things to raise money to help returned servicemen. The university students went to town.

On the gable end of one building there was a “Niche” where a statue had stood. One student substituted himself for the statue, he wore period costume and had a string tied to his wrist. At ground level the string was tied to a bucket. He could twitch the string and rattle the bucket, which reminded passers by to put in coins for the collection.

Another stand had a young lady sitting on a seat suspended over a vat of water. For a donation one was allowed to roll a cannon ball down a ramp and if ones aim was good you knocked out a prop and the lady got dunked in the vat of water.

Perhaps the best one was a chap with a string Puppet. Both he and the Puppet were in Elizabethan costume. When people with children came along he would walk the Puppet out in front of them, where it would bow, then, then hold out a cap for a contribution. The kids loved him and he did very well.

Around Easter decided to do a trip to the Lakes District taking Shirley and a friend of hers. Then Shirley couldn’t go, so Eileen and I went. We had a pleasant trip except for a long traffic jam we encountered on the return journey. Shirley and I spent some time together but it was not like our time together in NZ so things faded away. Last I heard from her was an invitation to her engagement to a local chap. I didn’t go to their party

As spring approached I wanted to get out into the fresh air. Asked the company I worked for if I could go on to outside contracts but they said no I was a joiner and that’s where they wanted me to stay.

I began looking about elsewhere and saw an advert for a trainee General Forman with a London firm. I applied and was accepted. So moved to London. After a few days I had obtained lodgings with Norah and Stan Ager at Chiswick.

The first few weeks work was on a renovation job near Sloane Square in an old four-story dwelling which was largely stripped out. On each floor, they built one flat with a kitchen, sitting room and a bedroom and another bedsitter where the bedroom side had a fold out bed for night use, in the lounge area.

There was also a lift shaft under construction. At roof level part of the roof was removed and a penthouse flat was built as caretakers accommodation. The basement was to become a small restaurant.

Then the company got a double contract for adding buildings to a place called “The White Lodge”. This is large building set in the centre of Richmond Road and all belongs to the “Royal Estates”. The “White Lodge” was let to “The Royal Ballet Company” who ran it as a private school. Here they taught curriculum subjects plus dancing and music, to children of 1st form to 7th form. About 140 pupils, mostly girls, and about two to three residential.

Our first job was to built a dormitory block to accommodate boys and a house masters flat, in a sunken garden area.

I was chosen for this job, as they wanted a carpenter foreman and somebody with a licence to drive a van. They had to provide transport as it was 1 ¼ miles from the lodge to the nearest public transport. They provided a van in which I drove around to several underground stations collecting workmen then delivering them to the site. Plus returning in the evening.

I was there from day one. We were setting up builder’s huts and getting things organised when a low loader truck arrived with a “Ruston Bycrust” digger arrived. The general foreman was not pleased, as he had ordered it for one week later. But it was there so we put it to work, creating a ramp down into the garden, clearing the area then digging out the foundations. This brought the building timetable one-week ahead of schedule which we maintained for several weeks. By this time masonry work was up to windowsill level on the upper floor. The exterior walls were brick facing over breezeblocks. (a lightweight block made of cement and clinker from coal furnaces). The internal walls were breezeblocks. Floors were concrete, with pre-cast pots as the vase for the upper floor. Then came a day when several posh suited blokes came and stopped the job. Some legal muck up and all their fault. So tidy up the site and make things secure. Then I was sent to other jobs for small bits of work. Finally, back to the “Lodge” in December doing main fence about the existing buildings.

Go ahead came three days before Christmas and New Year 1963 there was a good fall of snow then freezing which packed the snow and held it for six weeks. Bricklaying is not possible in those conditions, as moisture in the mortar freezes and expands thus breaking the adhesions. So more maintenance jobs.

In one of the builder huts, a small area had been partitioned off then heaters installed to make a drying area for workers clothes.

But some body put his gear too close to a heater and when we came in next day, the hut was just a heap of ashes. Also stacked against the hut was a lot of timber that was intended for roof framing. The fire brigade soaked this well with water but even so quite a lot got damaged. I then had the job of sorting it out, cutting off the no food parts, and determining how much more timber was needed to replace the burnt lot. Nobody else wanted to help.

I had to dress up in two of everything, socks, trousers, shirts etc against the cold. Next I got a spade and prized the timbers apart, laid each length on saw stool, and bashed it to get off the ice off so I could saw off the damaged parts.

Also in January I got sick with stomach pains. Came home from work on the Monday and my landlady insisted I go to see the doctor. I spent the rest of the week in West Middlesex Hospital for removal and recuperation for appendicitis. The two weeks at home before returning to work.

Finally, the job restarted now 12 weeks behind schedule. Also the other contract started. This was adding a two storied area at the other end of the school. The upper floor was two classrooms and five music practice rooms. The ground floor was mostly as garage space and an asphalted yard. All inside a tall carved brick wall. These contracts were completed about May. Nine months of steady work.

I went back there again the next summer to rebuild a “Gazebo” roof where rafters had gone rotten. An octagonal building with temple shaped roof (Curved from vertical at the centre out to about 12 degrees at the eaves) it also had a formed and ornamented plaster ceiling that had to be preserved.

Also during this period I attended Brixton School of building studying and building site management. The first year I did three weeklong day sessions and found that excellent. Except the middle week, there was a bad patch of fog. The company van was a CA Bedford, which had sliding doors to the driving compartment. I found the best means of finding my way was to secure the driver’s door open then travel along keeping an eye on the white line down the centre of the road.

Worked well until I came to an intersection then the lines ceased. I had to be aware of which intersection I was at and what direction to take to find the white line in the next road I wanted to follow. Very interesting.

The second year at Brixton I booked for daytime course again. After a couple of months had heard nothing from them so phoned up. Was told that due to lack of numbers the day courses had been canceled. The never notified me. There was the night school course but this had been going some time. I managed to talk them into letting me start that. With a lot of borrowing notes and hard swotting, I managed to catch up. The exams were held the following May and June. First “Brixton School of Building Certificate in General Foremanship” then the “City and Guild’s Certificate in General Foremanship”. I also found that my studies covered the first stage of “Clerk of Works” Certificate so I sat that. I managed to pass in all three. None of these certificate ever put any more cash into my pay envelope, but I have since realised the help I received in planning and organising building sites and building work, but taking these courses.