Page 325 - Demo

321safety from that and I often wore a helmet when working. We needed large square stones to finish off the hole at the bottom and they proved difficult to source. Eventually we had to leave it as a bit of a bodge until we were next there when we found a stone mason who cut 4 for us. Without internet and with only my poor French finding things was not easy. Once the doors were in place I built a semicircular step outside. We brought the bricks from Alne Brick Works in Yorkshire as we could not find anything suitable in France. When our neighbours saw it they thought it was all very British.There was a large bread oven in the main room, but it was in poor condition. On one of our holidays, we renovated it and remade the fireplace. Again, we brought the bricks from Alne brickworks in England with us. I made a herringbone pattern fireplace which took a lot of working out. We had a central brick made with a large H on it and 2 smaller ones, one with a C and the other with a G. Thus, our initialswere engraved on it. Of course, the family thought that the H was for Harry and not Hooper. The ceiling of the front room was blackened with the smoke that would have come from the bread oven. It was open at the front but had a metal shutter that closed it off. Later we fitted an electric plug inside and put in a lamp that the Iraqi students had given me. At first I tried to sand the blackened beams but soon realised that would take years. And so, I hired a sand blaster which I towed back to the house. I could only use it for a few minutes at a time before the sand and dust got so thick that I could not see. Sitting outside waiting for it to settle I realised that I needed much better tools to complete the renovations and so steadily built up a very professional collection of them. Once I had discovered the Axminster shop which sold and still sellsquality tools online, I was away.All of the above had taken place during periods of leave while I was still at work usually in the summer but also in the winter. We actually