Voice from the Woods August 2022: Gunshots, hamlets, and Eddie Stobart

There are so many rules and so many regulators and others just sitting in the wings with clipboards, waiting to pounce. In fact, if you thought about it for too long, you could become quite paranoid. The UK as a whole imports far more than it exports and therefore runs at a constant loss. We import too much and pay for it by selling our key assets to foreign buyers, like football clubs to the oil-rich East, our utilities to the French and heavens-knows-what to the Chinese. Politicians call it foreign investment, but I call it debt-distress payments.

Naturally, these companies need to show a profit such as with our French-owned Tyne Tunnel 2, which has recouped £8 million alone in fines this year and still has the audacity to demand British public funds to cover its own administration costs to refunding money collected in error! So, while the politicians argue over who is to run the country, it would be good to have a government which supported business and promoted manufacturing.

As a small business operating next to a very small hamlet, all in the middle of nowhere, it’s fair to say I’ve had my share of run-ins with the clipboard warriors over the years.

Thankfully, the locals are generally very supportive and I’ve always been careful to tread gently and maintain their support. There’s no doubt a chipper would greatly help productivity by clearing sawmill residue, but they are very noisy and so I have refrained from bringing one in. Elsewhere, machines have been positioned so as to keep noise levels as low as possible. By and large this has all worked well, and approaching the mill one is presented with a dull hum. In 25 years I’ve had no complaints... until now!

For a number of years I’ve put up with a neighbour’s silliness in order to keep the peace.

About a year ago, I took the unusual step of banning him from entering the mill and the even more unusual step of registering what I’d done with the local police. This might have seemed a little melodramatic at the time and maybe over the top, but in hindsight I’m so glad I did. He has recently started a campaign of harassment, like a drunk who gets thrown out of a pub who then returns at a later date to smash the windows.

However, rather than smash windows he has begun contacting any government agency that will listen.

The road down to the mill/hamlet is single track and so he has complained to the highways department over the vehicles using it. His latest complaint is over noise and, in particular, early starts. I find this quite amusing as I no longer have the energy to arrive at 6 am and for at least the last 18 months I’ve been arriving around 8 am. Had he made such complaints 10 years ago, then I would have been visited by coach parties of clipboard warriors, all with their departmental axes to grind. Fast-forward 10 years and the only people who have turned up appeared reluctant to be there and most seemed fed up with truculent little busy-bodies.

However, gunshots are a different issue! After a couple of incidents where I’ve literally heard the projectile whizz through the air close to me, I involved the police. I have been told that if such an incident occurs again then I should ring 999 and an armed response unit would be scrambled. What was interesting was that, when talking to the police, they were well aware of this individual. His aim was clearly to frighten or intimidate me into shutting the business. What was pleasing was the police have turned their attention firmly onto the perpetrator and not the victim and as I speak they have confiscated whatever it was he was shooting and I live to see another day! It just goes to show the lengths that some people will go to and just what some businesses have to endure.

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So, while I’m still alive and kicking there’s a business to run and I really can’t be distracted by vindictive and petty people over trivial issues. While the last two years have been crazy from a production point of view, I’ve had some really tough times over staff absences and I’m currently having a really big push to clear some old orders. These tend to include quite complex demands made up of timber cut at multiple lengths of unusual sizes and take a lot of organising. They tend to go to the bottom of the pile to be returned to at a later date – which is now. Once these are completed, then I’m even looking forward to getting out into the woods for a few days. There’s so much windblown timber lying around the roadsides which, nine months on from Storm Arwen, I’ve yet to get involved with. I should be able to get the old Caterpillar out and go in search of hardwood – oak, in particular. I bought some oak after the storm, but my stocks are now low. Plus, we need the limbs for firewood.

It’s some time since we’ve used the old Caterpillar and it literally had to be dug from the nettles before being brought back to the sawmill for a good service. What is even more remarkable for a machine built in 1973 is that, after fixing a broken wire, every gauge in the cab is now working. After some welding to guards and the replacement of some cracked and aged hydraulic hoses, the old beast is back up and running (not exactly running, but you know what I mean).

This big old Cat can lift about 6–7 tonnes, which is perfect for big old oak trees and will once again save a lot of hassle. The location to which it’s headed has oaks blown down in shelter belts and the access to them is through narrow slip hurdles. I can extract the trees by throwing them over walls and fences with the front loader, thus keeping mess and damage to a minimum. However, before it goes off on this voyage I’ve used it to lift out the sawmill log deck so I can clean out all the accumulated bark and detritus. The Cat may look old and certainly wouldn’t win any beauty contests (in fact, some people don’t believe she still works), but when I need something to do a heavy or extreme task, she’s the one to turn to.

I suppose in a way I feel a little like the old Cat being dragged from the nettles. Having spent years suffering from a bad back I’ve now gone for six weeks pain-free. This coincides with the purchase of a new pair of work boots with fairly thick and springy heels. Suddenly I feel 10 years younger and it’s wonderful to have no pain. It seems quite poignant; one old-timer driving another old-timer into the woods (cue violins and sunsets). I’ll let you know how we get on.

A final thought: those of you out there who are devotees of Eddie Stobart and spend time spotting the wagons are about to be disappointed. They have been bought by a German company called Culina, a name which doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

They’ve also bought a company called Fowler Welch. Suddenly the motorways will be festooned with Culina wagons. I can’t see them providing the same level of interest among the wagon spotters.