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Goodnight old lady, rest well faithful servant

Goodnight old lady, rest well faithful servant

Jonny Willis19 Jun 2018 - 20:09
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Tears, cheers and toil. Enjoy the summary of proceedings at The Common last weekend.

It has been coming for a long time. Our old pavilion, first erected in the early 1960s and updated at the beginning of the 1980s, saw her last day come and go last Saturday. Condemned some two years ago and judged beyond repair probably twenty years ago, she was finally laid, or more precisely pulled, to rest by a large team of loyal Nutters under the gaze of Parishioners.

Ben Hewson, our heavy weight project manager, has organised and overseen innumerable works parties at The Common during the winter and early Spring to ready ‘the shed’ for her end. Having stripped out the interior, all that remained at the end of last week was to remove the exterior feather board cladding in advance of the WWF take down (World Wrestling Federation), planned for 11am on Saturday.

Rob Keen, Ben and Keith ‘Don’t Panic Mr Mainwaring’ Greenwood worked their socks off through Friday removing panel after panel… until they chanced upon an apparently structurally vital cladding board. The old girl sighed and sagged. However, forgetting Ben’s demeanour, it was apparent that the shed knew what was on the horizon and had begun to give up her ghosts. Another three hours passed whilst the team removed the wheezing right hand end and made the site safe. To bed, for a well earned kip…

Dawn came and the big day began at 9am with the demolition team – all volunteers from the club – further weakening the structure through the removal of the final windows, knock outs of the noggins and clearance of timber to the rugby club.

Just before 11am, the Parishioners began to congregate at the viewing location, sited at a safe distance from the carcass of the shed. Eileen Le Rossignol and her daughter Maya had set up a refuelling station, serving cakes and tea much to the delight of the 50 or so folk who came to cheer us on.

Meanwhile, Jeremy James was completing the rigging of line and tackle, our chosen method to bring the structure to heal. Ben was on hand as ‘overseer’ – imagine the man in ancient Rome chosen to train the gladiators… yes, he is that big.

Club Chair, Kevin Barnes, said a few words and passed on the Committee’s thanks to all those involved and all those from the local community who had supported us over the past five years.

Last rites and formalities concluded, it was now over to Liz Tidy to press the button on the electronic winch and say ‘timber…..!’. Winch engaged and our old girl gracefully keeled over to the right, somewhat reminiscent of Del Boy Trotter falling through the open gap in the bar! It was all over in less that five seconds. Building construction in the 60s is not quite to modern construction standards… how did she stay up in all of those storms?!

For those that wanted it, a modest drop of Prosecco was served and before you could blink the demolition team was back into the site with sledge hammers, crow bars and axes.

The day closed at 4pm, the site in very good condition, albeit with a little more clear up work to be done. Ben had organised for some Seasalter and Arundel ale to be shipped up from the Beer Essentials in Horsham and a few of the team stayed for half an hour to talk through the day and rest up.

In no particular order, our thanks are extended to the eighteen following demolishers:

Ben Hewson, Jeremy James, TC Weston, Keith Greenwood, Rob Keen, Graham Prior, Jonny Willis, Stuart Catterall, Nick Emens, Fiona Williams, Nathan Williams, Trevor Garson, Phil Keen, James Mellor, Dave Boorman, Bob Samways, Tommy Campbell, Charlie South, Samuel Dauncey

Deep thanks too are due to Eileen, Maya and all the contributors of tea, cake and Prosecco. Finally, our thanks to the village and Parish. Your continuing support means so very much to the club.

By Jonny Willis

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