TRIALS OF LIVING UNDER THATCH

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31151, 30 August 1966, Page 2

TRIALS OF LIVING UNDER THATCH

(By

MOYRA BIGELOW)

When an estate agent offered us the choice between a picturesque story-book thatched cottage in an English village or a ticky-tacky box on the outskirts, we made an immediate decision. Given the choice again, we would content ourselves with a colour slide of the thatched cottage.

We moved in one icy day in February. Accustomed to the brazen glare of daylight pouring through picture windows, we found the gloom of the cottage fraught with mystery and historical significance.

Stumbling on the ancient, uneven floor, we expressed delight at the hillocks and bunkers like a miniature golf course; so much more Interesting than flat floors for dinkie trucks and marbles. It was fun to climb the steep, narrow, creaky stairs, remembering where to duck our heads. If we forgot, how merry was the scamper of rats or squirrels across the convex ceiling. The cottage, known as the Thatched Bakery, was still equipped with the original range, with great ovens that had once supplied the whole village with crusty bread. Yeast would head my shopping list. How satisfying to shed the shackles of technology and return to the simple life.

Objected Strenuously

I blew on my hands and decided to pamper myself with a little heat. As I set about poking and prodding the grate, it was obvious that this old Rip Van Winkle range objected strenuously to being roused from his slumber. He coughed, choked, gagged, hissed and belched billows of black smoke into the room until we were forced to open all the tiny windows. Summoning some pioneer real, I gingerly investigated the stove’s clogged flues. Rip Van Winkle was enfuriated by my audacity. He lashed out at me with a great tongue of flame, and poured forth thicker and blacker smoke. Clearly, he required the services of a specialist. S.O.S. telephone calls to all the sweeps in the area failed to convince anyone that our stove’s condition was critical. Vague promises for the dis-

tant future were useless in this emergency. Now I saw a magnificent display of pioneer spirit as my husband, improvising equipment from broomsticks and brushes, tackled the job single-handed. While he did so I kept the children out of the range of soot. and. more important perhaps, out of earshot. We waited a long time in the chill, February fog before we saw a victorious brush emerge from the chimney. We went indoors to confront a triumphant father presiding over four large cartons of soot.

After this major surgery. Rip Van Winkle lapsed into a state of convalescence. In his hey-day, no doubt he had roared and flared, turning out rows of crisp, golden loaves, but now, in his twilight years, he took 10 hours to bake a rice pudding. He refused to co-operate in drying the dripping washing, draped over the clothes-horse (nick-named the Enemy). His appetite for fuel was enormous, but. even when doctored with drastic medicine such as petrol or kerosene, he huddled all the warmth to himself. Insulation

Thatching, we had been assured, provided excellent insulation. It would keep heat in. It would keep cold, or heat out It was difficult to test these admirable qualities. Rip Van Winkle would generate no heat within, and the February sun, like a dying cigarette butt, supplied no heat outside. A steady state of damp chill was maintained. Fortunately, the thick doors, walls and thatch kept the wind out

'Unborough by the locals) is a windy village. Unlike those timid villages, huddling in the protective custody of the hills, it straggles proudly for miles along a high, windy ridge. It is alleged that Charles the First, on marching the length of the village, remarked that it was the longest village in Christendom. My husband corroborated this statement when he had to march the length himself. bringing home a small, but heavy mangle in an effort to improve our inadequate laundry facilities. In my irritable preoccupation with persistent drizzle, a senile stove and interminable quantities of soggy washing, I listened hopefully to the local farmers who foretold the weather by signs and portents. “See them rooks breaknecking? That means a change in the weather.” Always Changing I watched the rooks soaring, then dropping like a stone and suddenly resuming flight. It seemed to a novice like me that the rooks were always break-necking, and the weather was always changing, usually for the worse. Eventually, however, summer arrived. I could dry my washing outside and allow Rip Van Winkle to rest in peace. My troubles were over. Or were they? One hot, windy day, my schoolboy son bounced in, burbling excitedly that the roof was blowing off. I rushed outside to look. The roof was indeed blowing off, billowing up like a great, straw-coloured wave. Seconds later we were choking, enveloped in ancient thatching, birds’ nests, dirt, rats and all. A great, jagged hole gaped in the roof, as if a giant had grabbed a handful of thatch. We discovered that thatchers were even more elusive than sweeps, there being only one to cover a radius of 10 miles. Apparently, the younger generation has no interest

in thatching. The elderly specialist informed me that he had 15 damaged thatches ahead of mine. All we could do was wait, and try to get a message to those tiresome rooks to stop their breaknecking so that the weather would remain settled.

Surprisingly, it stayed dry for weeks until our roof flaunted a clean blond patch. It could rain now. Perversely, however, the drought continued, in spate of the energetic break-necking of the rooks. (No doubt they had advance information on future disturbances).

Thatching, in England, is normally so water-logged that it presents no fire-hazard; but now the Sunday newspapers showed pictures of thatched dwellings ablaze, and when I heard a radio announcement that a cottage had caught fire from the sparks from a passing truck, I rushed outside to look at our thatching shimmering in the heat haze. To my horror, I saw a column of smoke, rising from the chimney. I went indoors to find my children and their friends, feathers in their hair, emitting whoops and lighting a camp fire in the stove. Rip Van Winkle had made an astonishing recovery. Untimely Recovery Completely rejuvenated, he chortled as he burned my fingers on the damper and roared his hilarity up the chimney. Terrified by his untimely recovery, 1 rushed the children outside, expecting a holocaust. The smoke rose vertically in the still air, and I heard a distant rumble of thunder. The rooks were break-necking frantically, and this time, they meant business. Within an hour, a deluge saturated the roof. Rip Van Winkle continued to burn with fiendish glee. The indoor temperature rose into the nineties, and stayed there for 48 hours, giving us an irrefutable example of the marvellous insulating properties of a thatched roof.

Long Hanborough (called