Chapter 11: From 1992 to the Present Day

2002 also saw the reconstruction of the gulley behind the parapet at the front of the house, a task that was undertaken by Derek Holt. As has already been noted, the original arrangement was of the gulley sloping inwards towards the centre of the house, whence, via an opening that was prone to get blocked, the waste water entered a pipe (probably originally a trough) which went through the roof, turning an angle to reach to the outside wall of the house. What Derek did was to rebuild the gulley on a single, uniform slope so that water in it flowed towards the edge of the house, draining into a hopper there. This works pretty well, though so much water falls on the roof in heavy rain that the hopper is prone to overflow. Just for the record, in 2003 Derek also inserted the gutter in the garage, under the concrete lintel which holds up the front wall of the house: this drains away any water that penetrates and conveys it to near the entrance to the garage. Then, it was in December that year, going into January 2004, that we built the first set of record shelves to house David’s 78s in the (as yet undecorated) music room.