Our young jobbing forestry contractor welcomes a member of the ruling class onto his team, gets ripped off and invests in some new hardware.

I’VE worked with many characters over the years of varying shapes, sizes and backgrounds. One such character encountered this month needs a mention.

I’ve been working not for, but alongside, a lord, the brother of the Duke of Northumberland, who I think deep down would rather drop the title and just be one of the boys. We’ve been working on a steep hillside on his estate, felling and extracting a giant windblown mess. Much of my time has been spent felling ugly edge trees and trees difficult to access and directing them, wherever possible, towards the machines. And there, in the midst of it all, has been the lord leading us into battle with his digger, cutting access tracks into the hill and, by all accounts, doing a very tidy job. He’s certainly put a few hours into the digger in what appears to be an escape from his gentrified lifestyle. He leaves his Range Rover at home and arrives, like everyone else, in a Hilux – though the vehicle looks very new and shiny and one could be tempted to believe it was bought just for the job.

On arrival he makes the effort to welcome everyone individually, even if it’s just a few shouted words across a gully, and makes you feel you’re working with him and not for him. I’ve worked for many lords through my career in estates, up and down the country, and usually the closest you ever get to them is an email from the estate office or a licking from an escaped labrador.

It’s been refreshing working for a lord who not only gets involved and isn’t scared to get his hands dirty but whose feet are clearly on the ground. Even lunch time brought the revelation that his bait consisted of a fish-finger sandwich in white sliced bread prepared in an air fryer. Unfortunately his striving for commonality was slightly derailed when pressed on what sauce he’d used. “Tartar,” he replied. On the basis that the average forestry worker has probably never heard of the stuff, this quickly dumped him back in his gentry high chair.

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However, the lord took it all in good spirits and I genuinely think that over the course of the job he discovered what it’s like to be part of a team. Especially as he spent the rest of his time in the digger sat in shards of glass, choked by dust and being attacked by midges.

Buying a new vehicle these days comes with certain pros and cons. The pros are that you have a reliable machine with no MOT issues, no unexpected bills and a warranty against future problems. The cons are that every 12 months or 10,000 miles you find the manufacturer has you by the testicles and calls you in for a service so they can then extract vast sums of money from you. In my teenage years, when I was regularly writing off cars in ditches, I did actually maintain them by regularly changing oil and filters. This general maintenance didn’t take me very long and the servicing kit cost roughly the price of a tank of fuel.

I’d booked the truck in for 8 am in the big city and duly arrived at 7.45 am. Nothing stirred – not even a mouse. Fifteen minutes later, a cleaner wandered into the garage, looking somewhat bemused by my presence and general eagerness to get on with the job so I might get back to work. I then observed the staff wander in one by one – slicked-back salesmen drenched in aftershave, mechanics in blue boilersuits fresh from the packet and girls in tight skirts and glossy nails. By now we were two hours in and the car was still where I left it. Rather than abuse them for wasting my time, I went for a wander.

(Image: FJ/DG)

I’m not a fan of cities in daylight and if I hadn’t had a vehicle to drive later in the day I would have taken my solace in a local tavern, but a bit like Forrest Gump I just kept going. I kept walking until I found an environment more suited to my character. When you’re not stopping to plant a tree every three metres you can cover an awful lot of ground and I soon found myself in a woodland park on the edge of the city.

I’m sure the city dwellers thought it was a wonderful haven. However, to the trained eye it was a 20-acre rive-up planted by volunteers in 2006. What would have been agricultural pasture in 2005 was now a swampy area, as the drains had become choked with tree roots. Black, stagnant ponds surrounded by willow and poplar had gradually established themselves, intermingled with thick pockets of brambles. Like many other ‘volunteer projects’ it had been a one-hit wonder – plant the trees and hope for the best. 

After spending so much on hard tracks around the park, a few low-cost ditches for drainage and the removal of stock fences would have created a more healthy and diverse woodland. Instead, they’d created a haven for goat willow enthusiasts and flashers.

I slowly ambled my way back to the dealer’s in the city centre, unaware I may have been starting a new trend in city footwear. On arrival I was greeted by a blonde receptionist who reassured me the vehicle would be ready soon after its complimentary wash and offered me a complimentary mint and seat. £500 certainly buys you a lot of compliments. As I sat and read through the service list (and the eye-watering costs) I attempted to stuff myself with as many complimentary food items as possible in a feeble attempt to level the playing field.

How had they managed to get seven litres of AdBlue into a tank I’d filled to capacity only days earlier? Why did my footwell still contain as many stones and as much sawdust as it did when I arrived despite my complimentary valet? In fact, why were so many things on the sheet which were clearly unnecessary and some of which just hadn’t been carried out? They clearly didn’t want to get the insides of the hoover bags dirty, let alone the blue overalls. Like most of us I can excuse a poor job if that person has tried their best, but when you get slapped with a massive bill for shocking service and clear deception over what’s been done then it’s really not on.

As a young kid – and before it went all politically correct – I was a big fan of Doctor Who. I was fascinated by the Tardis and its ability to travel through time and even had aspirations that one day I might become a scientist and design one myself. While in some senses I’ve never grown up, I never got round to designing the blueprints for a time machine, but I have got round to investing my money in a ‘time-saving’ machine.

For several years I’ve had many late nights at the helm of my Oregon chain grinder, where the demand for fresh, sharp chains has been relentless. Running out of sharp chains has been the bane of my life and is the factor preventing me from getting to bed earlier or ever having a lie in. I’ve decided to empty the piggy bank in the direction of Clark Engineering and purchased and received a Swedish fully automatic Markusson Grindomatic. It’s plugged in, wheels are turning, sparks are flying, time is being saved and it’s doing what I wanted it to do. I’m sure you’re going to hear a lot more about it in articles to come.