|
 | |  | |
Harold Taylor started off life in the late 1920's in Arundel, shortly moving to Chichester with his family. He attended schools in Chichester then went on to become a plumber's mate, firstly working with his brother, Bill. Harold tells us of one of his interesting jobs whilst working for a firm by the name of Hills.
An interesting discovery was made when I was working on a job at West Stoke House, owned by the Eastwood family.
Arthur Burden was the plumber, nephew of one of the managers of Hills and got the pick of the work. He was known by all as the 'Welsh plumber' - full of leaks. In screwed barrel work he never used jointing paste, but went round afterwards with a hammer and chisel trying to seal all the leaks. Those that he could not, he allowed to rust up so that they were not immediately apparent.
The object of the exercise was to install a mains water service. Up to then their water had come from a dubious source, which was pumped to tanks in the roof. Lately they were complaining that the water had an oily content. In the meantime they were extending the hot water system, and installing an additional bathroom. I had only gone along as a super mate, Ron Clark being our shared mate (cousin of Petula).
The yard outside the kitchen of this house extended back to the garages, which had previously been stables. In the yard was a raised bank with a manhole. The governor turned up one day with a half pint semi-rotary pump on a stand, and instructed me to take off this manhole cover and pump out the chamber. This I commenced doing, but after several hours there was no apparent difference in the water level.
During the afternoon an old country yokel passed by and told me that I would be a long time pumping out that underground tank, as you could get two wagons and horses in it. With that knowledge I contacted my employer, who instructed me to stop.
The following morning I discovered that overnight the A.F.S. from Chichester had been on site, and it took them something like 5 hours with two auxiliary pumps to empty the tanks. The governor, being a town Alderman, had used his influence for the fire brigade to get in some pumping practice. The tanks were left with a foot of sludge in them, which I had to remove with bucket and shovel.
The tanks were each 17 feet deep and 17 feet square, joined by a low arch, and lined with clay roofing tiles. I was instructed to bash a hole in the floor to put my own suction pipe in, to help extract what water was left. I commenced this, although it was a bit of a futile effort, as I could not see where I was working and the tiles and cement were so hard.
Having cleaned out the tanks and washed down the walls as best I could, I tried to trace where the water came from that filled the tanks, which had been used for all domestic purposes, including drinking, from time immemorial. This transpired to be all the rainwater from the house, and the drains from the stables. There no longer being any horses, this meant the entire dirt and washings from the cars and other vehicles.
This summer had been a particularly dry one and obviously the water levels had got low, therefore the oily substances that would normally have been above the draw off level, were being sucked into the domestic supply and created the unpleasantness which had caused this supply to be ceased.
Recently, because of recurrent drought years, I got in touch with the present owners, the Elwes. I think the property belongs to the mother, but her son replied and invited me over. Immediately I saw the place, I realised changes had been made in the past 45 years. He farmed the land, but was not aware that the tanks had been there. The raised ground which would have covered the tanks had disappeared, and I fear that perhaps the tops have been removed and the cavities filled during some project of the father, now deceased.
There is an old bucket pump nearby which I am told is usable. Perhaps it goes to the bottom of the old tanks, although I do not remember its presence before.
Mr Elwes did state that he had been told there were probably three sets of catchment tanks for the house, one being in the garden on the far side. I informed him that the only other one I had known that side was a surface tank, which was used for the laundry once the foul water was discovered. Incidentally, the ancient laundry is still substantially intact, although alterations were made to install a domestic boiler system burning baled straw, which has since been updated in another part of the building.
When I went to work for Hill's, the purpose was to replace an employee who had left to start up on his own. I cannot remember his surname, he was just Bert to me. During the period that I was working at West Stoke House, we heard that he had been arrested for a murder at Brighton. The circumstances seem to have been that he had a girlfriend, although he was married with four children.
He had taken this girl and her child of about 4 away for a 'dirty weekend' to a hotel at the holiday resort. The discovery of the murder was by a window cleaner, when he saw the child crying and in distress. He alerted the management, who, on going to the room, discovered the body.
| |  | |  |
To add a comment you must first login or join for free, up in the top left corner.
|
|
