After a 3 year indentured, Advanced Craft, City And Guilds apprenticeship, I spent a few years 'House Bashing' on site, Roof joinery first and second fix kitchen fitting etc, moving then onto large Civil Engineering jobs such as The Pyramids — no not those ones, the shopping centre in Birkenhead. I spent a few years at Sizewell B helping build the nuclear reactor, as you do. A stint in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall was at times very interesting where my C GCSE German came in very handy — in the land of the blind etc, we were entrusted to build shopping Malls, Bridges and even a Dam in Saxony. 20 Years of running timber frame erecting teams and the occasional foray into on-site timber frame manufacture followed. Nowadays I'm more than happy to be in a position to take on smaller more local domestic work. Dams, Nuclear reactors or boxing in a Boiler, it all gets the same respect and care.

Neil Walker