Deblins Green
Thu, February 25, 2010 
Before coming to the United States in 1979, I had a frameshop just outside Worcester in the West Midlands of England. It was in a little spot known as Deblins Green, near the village of Callow End.
My business was housed in an old WWII Nissen Hut, picture above. During the war this type of structure was only meant to suffice as a temporary building, so by the 1970s some 30 years later, it was in pretty bad shape.
The corrugated iron roof leaked constantly. To repair it I would tie a rock on the end of a piece of rope, and throw it over the roof. Then I would drive a metal stake in the ground and tie one end of the rope to it.
From the opposite side of the building I would walk up the curved side pulling myself up with the rope as I went. When I found the holes, I would patch them with tar and paper. The corrugated metal was so rusty, it was like paper itself, and for every hole I fixed I created several more.
I shared the building with a friend who did auto body repairs. A year or so after I left, the building was torn down and a house built on the spot.
I still have an old note book where I recorded frame numbers; its pages are water stained and the ink has run in places, a reminder of how that old tin roof constantly leaked
Reader Comments (10)
Poignant.
I remember John Brown re-spraying my dad's car in that hut!
Dave,
While I understand why you want to limit the amount of text that shows up in RSS readers, I worry that this will limit the number of people reading your entries. You might want to consider that before using this for every post.
While I still will click through to your posts, there are other blogs that have done the same thing that I have lost interest in, simply because I prefer to read everything in one place.
Just something to think about.
hnc,
Your concerns are noted. This is only an experiment, if it doesn't work, or doesn't make a big difference I'll switch back. You will notice I am only putting the current post in the excerpt format.
The other thing I notice is that you don't see the comments if you stay in RSS. Another issue is this blog and my website actually cost me money, this is slightly offset if occasionally I sell a copy of my book. This will never happen if people stay in RSS and don't come here.
Maybe other's will let me know if this is a problem.
Dave
nice read, dave. good memories are those with artifacts for proof.
Now I totally want a Nissen hut -- for bike storage and a workshop.
Dave,
I, too, will probably click through to read your blog, but for a lot of other blogs I wouldn't. I hate clicking through from the reader. Also, I often read your blog in google reader on my iphone; clicking through is less pleasant there, so I'm more likely to wait until I get home. Unfortunately, this means that if I'm busy I may forget.
So, I have a question: first, why not put the ad for your book into the feed? I don't actually know how to do this, but I believe it must be possible, because ads appear in the reader for other blogs, such as Bike Hugger.
Second, and I apologize if you've discussed this before, why not include google ads or somesuch on your site and in your feed?
re. the comments; I generally skip the comments even if I'm reading on you site directly instead of in the reader. But if I'm in the reader and I want to read the comments, I click through... sometimes after I get home.
Here in the States, they are called Quonset huts.
Someone has a bike shop in one in my town here in Florida.
Nice roof repair technique !!
I once worked in a warehouse with a similar roof. During a severe thunderstorm, the wind got under it and blew half the roof off. Sounded like a freight train.
The look of the owner's face as he stepped out of his office to see what happened - priceless.
Hello Dave,
I believe I met you at Leicester around 1974 / 5 at the National Schoolboy Track Championships which were being held at the Saffron Lane Track. My son Mark was riding and he had brand new smooth tubulars and you showed us how to take the shine off them using a very dilute acid(?) solution. Happy days !
JohnB