Tony's Story

"I was trying to repair the sails on the windmill, well, the wind-generator actually.  In a strong wind the very light sails flex back and two of them had hit the body of the mill and broken. These had been repaired and it came to the time when the fine weatjher meant that I could put the sails back on the arms.  The problem always is that the ladder needs to rest on the mill at the top and is not quite long enough when extended.  Instead of getting an even longer ladder I decided to tie a wooden step ladder to the base of the metal ladder. Success!  The combination ladder reached right to the top and I duly cartried the sails up and fexed each one on.  It's a bit involved, when you are by yourself as you have to slacken and pull on different ropes to slowly turn the sweeps to be in the downward position to be able to attach each sail.  Once both new sails were fixed on it came time for the wire restrictors to be fixed.  These are the wires, attached from a central rotation point to each sail to prevent the sail bending backwards in a strong wind. I fixed the first of the two wires successfully but, of course, in order to rotate the sails to the next position I had to remove the ladder and then put it back again for the next sail.  Coming to the last sail, I put the ladder back, perhaps at a slightly less steep angle than on previous occasions.  At first I tried throwing a rope over one of the sails from ground level.  The success of getting the rope over, reminiscent of throwing a heaving line when I was at sea, was short lived as it slid off the sail. I realised the only way I was going to get the rope over was to stand on the lower roof area, the skirt of the mill.  I gathered the rope up in my hands and started to ascend the lower wooden part of the ladder combination.  I was only about a meter off the ground when the wooden ladder collapsed and I came down on my right foot and in great agony.  The metal part of the upper ladder then went into vertical mode and was in danger of falling backwards so I had to hold on to it and shouted for help.  There was no one around so after a few minutes of deciding what I was able to do I had to untie the rope holding the ladder, lift it back into an inclined position and then re-tie it to prevent it falling to do further damage.

"Help!  Help," I shouted again but still no one around.  By this time I was on my knees.  There was only one thing for it; I crawled on hands and knees across the lawn, up the steps, throught the lounge and to the kitchen.  Why I went to the kitchen I don't know, other than it is the hub of farm life and the chances of getting help were better there as well as the fact that there was a telephone there. At this point, Sara, Wendy's daughter came in and I asked her to get Wendy.

Our groom, Wendy is very skilled at dealing with such situations and immediately had me with my swollen foot in a cold bowl of water. There followed a short discussion about going to hospital.  Being a Friday evening we decided to give it a miss as Friday evening was the evening that A&E was inundated with injured drunks.  Instread I decided to go in the morning and, aftyer some ipobrufen, fell fast asleep on the couch downstairs. I was then woken at 5.30 am by the telephone with one of our recent volunteers saying, "I thought I ought to tell you that there is Foot & Mouth disease in Surrey." Not only had this idiot woken me from a deep sleep with such useless information that I already knew but she caused me great pain as I jumped up off the couch in panic that it was an emergency.  Thank heavens that woman is not coming back to help at the Centre.  Even her presence on the farm caused dissention among our helpers.  We are a happy, hard-working band of volunteers and anyone coming in and trying to drive a wedge of dissention within the group is definiely not welcome. Anyway, next morning I was kindly driven to the Hospital where a broken Fibula, part of the ankle was diagnosed.  First I was put in a cvast and then a few days later this was removed and I had a removeable boot fitted.  This allows me to take it off and have a shower..  With a pair of sticks and the boot I shall probably still be like this for the 9th Sept Open Day so any help you can give to get things ready would be much appreciated.

Best wishes to all, and take more care than I did; your support for our work is valuable to us.

Tony

Trustee Brownbread" .