BLOOD, TOIL TEARS AND SWEAT

摘要

One quiet Saturday morning in about early 1990,1 was on duty on my own in Braunston Marina's shop, when I was visited by a tall, thin old man, who told me he was moving from the village down to the West Country to be nearer his family. I failed to make a proper note of his name - but the surname Stokes seems to stick in my mind, which I will use here. Stokes asked if I were interested in having his tools that he had used when working as a wooden narrowboat builder in the 1940s to 1962, in what had previously been Barlow's Yard. I said I would be pleased and honoured to have them here, and to add them to the small collection of historical artefacts I had already acquired - mostly found in the old buildings around the yard. He went back to his old car, and returned with a small wooden tray which contained what he told me were his half dozen assorted caulking tools, and his wooden caulking mallet.