Confessions of a Woodman
Not all townies can adapt to life in the countryside… but there are exceptions.

Late summer, 1972. I was just about to make a move that would change the whole of the rest of my life. As it was such a big move you would imagine I could remember the date more clearly. Well I can’t, so there you go. Anyway, I was leaving Hull, where I had been pursuing a career working in laboratories, to take up a position as trainee woodman on Ganton Estate in North Yorkshire.” Why?” I hear you ask. It was all a bit odd really. I had never been totally happy with the work I was doing, or with living in Hull, when one day while reading the daily local paper I came across an advert for the position I was to take up. Why the advert was in the Hull Daily Mail I shall never understand, but it was one of many times in my career that odd things like that had happened. Anyone believing in fate will understand where I am coming from. Anyway, I left a reasonably comfortable life to move into a small cottage in Ganton. It had no bathroom, no inside toilet, no hot running water, only one open fire and was as draughty as hell. But I loved it!

I was the townie. “He won’t last. How can he adapt to village life? He must be mad.” These were just some of the comments that were being said about me. There was one saviour; otherwise my burgeoning career might have floundered there and then. He came in the form of the Head Woodman and was called Ken Thompson. (At this stage I will explain my style for the rest of this tale. Except for Ken, I have decided to use just first names. This is to protect people from embarrassment if I praise, or slander cases against me if I don’t. If they read this they will all know who they are).Ken was the kindest, most genuine and skilled person I have ever been lucky enough to meet. He lived two houses up from me and on the move into my cottage he had called round to check I was OK and had food and fuel to get me going. Ken suggested that on the Monday morning I should call on him and we would walk up to the yard together. On that fateful day I was all ready in my hob-nail boots, overalls and cloth wrapped
around my ankles. This was the standard uniform for a woodman in those days, PPE not being heard of.

During the short walk through the fields Ken told me the following statement, which I have never forgotten. “Most people who work on the estate and live in the village think you are going to fail. Well, I am telling you that I am going to make sure you prove them wrong.” So began five years of my life during which I absorbed as much as Ken could teach me and developed a close friendship and admiration for him. The estate employed two other woodmen who were both knocking on a bit. Walter and Fred. Times were difficult to start with, as they numbered among the ones thinking I was doomed to failure and would soon be scurrying off back to Hull.

However, quite soon they began to realise I was going to give it my best shot and an amount of respect on both sides grew. Walter used to let me go to his house once a week for a bath – hard to imagine nowadays, but that is how it was. The first task I was put to involved clearing an area, that was to be felled, of all undergrowth. This mainly involved pulling up buttry bushes. I am not even sure if that is the correct spelling and until then I had no clue what a buttry bush was. Well, it is an elderberry bush – my first lesson in country life. It was hard physical work, but not half as hard as understanding just what the others were talking about. The North Yorkshire rural accent is very broad and ancient. When I was told by one of them that it was ower yatso he was going yam at yan, I just stood and looked at him bemused.

What he meant was that it was too hot so he was going home atone. Simple really. We wore beeats (boots), suffered from eed wark(head ache) and ate bait (pack up).I loved it! The reason for clearing all this undergrowth was to make the task of the expert coming to fell the big trees easier. He was some well known tree feller from Driffield and duly he arrived. The wood consisted of big elms, some oak and a few huge beech trees. The hugest of allwas by the path that separated the wood from the old walled garden, and this was left ’til last. One Friday morning nearly the whole of the village turned out to watch the demise of this particular tree.

The area in front of it was all cleared and ready for its fall. The area behind was planted up with a variety of vegetables and flowers for the hall. The gob went in and the expert guy stood back to absorb the tension of his crowd and to demonstrate exactly where the tree would lie in a few minutes. He was using the biggest chainsaw I have ever set eyes on when he started on the back cut. We watched, breath abated. Suddenly the expert guy stood up, shouted an expletive and stepped to one side. The said tree also stood, for a few seconds and then, ever so slowly, began to fall. Backwards! Right into the cabbages. Vegetables were flying every which way and the expert guy was in his van and going yam. The crowd dispersed amongst much grumblings of brass washers and we went to look at the stump. It’s a bit like cricket crowds examining a wicket at lunch. Everybody becomes an expert and much can be gleaned. In this case it didn’t take a genius to see that the main part of the trunk had been rotten.

The front cut had very nearly reached this rot but would have given no clue as to the extent. So the hinge actually was wafer thin. An early lesson learnt. Well, I say learnt. Maybe not. Years later I had a poplar tree of immense proportion go sideways on me, over a yew hedge. The only thing I had learnt was to make sure you didn’t have a crowd watching you. Anyway, I was learning an art form. The estate was equipped with only one chainsaw and most of the small felling was done with axes. These axes were seven pounders and sharp as a razor. But I knew better.

Hanging on the wall was a much lighter axe that, I was informed, was the fencing axe, not a felling axe. On the first morning that I was to be introduced to the skill of tree felling I was to be found busy putting a sharp edge on the fencing axe with a smirk on my face as the others carefully stoned their great big heavy axes. I wasn’t brought up in a city and learnt nothing, you know. By bait time I was bathed in sweat as I was having to take two or three swings to part the branches from the trunk while the others were doing the same procedure with one satisfying swish. The next morning Ken presented me with my own felling axe which had been bought specially for me. To work in the woods at that time with only the sound of a little chatter, and the work of men with axes, was magical, and something that will never return. I loved every minute of it!I learnt such a lot in my time atGanton. I was involved in quite an area of new planting. I always found this agreeable in that you were contributing to the future in some way.

If you drive along the A64 through Ganton and look up on to the Wolds you will see some of my handiwork. I often used to take that route with my kids. As soon as I would start to say, “See them trees…” they would respond with, “Yes Dad, we know.” In the summer these young plantings would be hand mown using scythes. A hard job, but didn’t it look a picture when finished. The worst part was finding the young trees in among the weeds to make sure you didn’t cut them off in their infancy.

I also learned the art of fencing –once again a different task to nowadays. All timber was sourced on the estate, usually larch. Post holes were dug so as much of the gatepost was underground as above, and as much soil as came out of the hole had to be tamped back in. All the stakes were hammered in using a fencing mallet to the measured height of Fred’s belly button. I always found fencing to be a satisfying job when the operation was well done.I was taught how to drive a tractor, reverse a trailer, operate a single drum winch and many more tasks. Reversing a trailer was not easy to grasp. One day I was trying to back a trailer through a gate into the Hall gardens. We had a bucket on the front of the old Ford son tractor which swung out as I was concentrating on the trailer and knocked a massive stone ball from the topof the ornate gatepost.

It hit the ground with a thud, sat for a second and then started to slowly roll across the garden towards the main entrance of the Hall. Everyone was transfixed watching this slow journey. Luckily for me we managed to recover it before anyone realised. You notice I have not mentioned the chainsaw. That is because that learning process was slow and sprung on me as a surprise. After around a couple of years, two major changes occurred. One, I moved next door into a cottage with all mod cons. Well, it had a bathroom with running hot water and an inside toilet. Bliss, and slightly better personal habits. The other happened one sunny day. We had been thinning a small block on the Carr land and Ken was cross cutting to length with the saw. As we sat to eat he looked at me and said that after bait I could use the saw. I looked at him incredulously. “You have been watching me closely for two years so you must have learnt something.

Now I will watch you.” This was very much Ken’s style and it worked. Nervously I began to master the art of chainsaw working. I can hear some saying he never succeeded, but we will ignore that. I spent five years working as a woodman on Ganton Estate and it was as good a grounding for my future as I could have had anywhere. When I left I had also been well accepted into village life. I was captain of the second fives and threes team (a brilliant game of dominoes for those that don’t know) and with a partner had won the Dales fives and threes cup.

I was secretary of the pub’s social club and serving on the Parish Council. I had loved it all. However, I had heard of a position with the Forestry Commission at Low Dalby, over on the North York Moors, that was paying good money for piecework and I couldn’t resist trying for it. Ken Thompson passed away a few years ago and I never took the opportunity to thank him for his input into helping me prove the folk of Ganton wrong. I regret that. His ashes are scattered in an area on the Yorkshire Wolds, which is totally fitting for Ken. Steve Dresser
SO51 6ZL
Telephone 023 8081 4340
Fax 023 8081 2941

“We went to look at the stump. It’s a bit like
cricket crowds examining a wicket at lunch.
Everybody becomes an expert and much can
be gleaned.”