The following sequence of photos were taken by Member John Hake at last Saturday's working party and show volunteers at work and at 'rest' I will endeavour to caption those I can, but will save the best 'till last and John's own caption which accompanied the view!

Photo 1.

Shows (L) Gordon Owen & (R) Dave Broomby adding additional security to one of the hatch covers. A masterpiece of improvisation utilising a discarded section of flat bar, an adapted scaffolding connector and David's welding skills.

Sadly these measures were prompted by the theft of some items from the site over the last few days. In actual fact a large number of our 'scrap' boiler fire tubes, which we were in the process of preparing to deliver to the 'scrapman' when somebody beat us to it, the loss amounts to about £200 which would have been very useful to the project. We made sure we disposed of the remainder without delay and so salvaged £150 for the funds, but it still leaves a nasty taste and emphasises the need for extra vigilance.

Photo 2.

Shows volunteers (l) Nigel Farrell and (r) Steve Greenhalgh taking a pause in 'bilge mopping' duties. Owing to the hot weather Nigel and Steve opted to leave off their boilersuits, to keep cool for what we had hoped would be a 'clean job' Well we mean't well but as you can see it didn't turn out quite as clean as we'd intended!

Ever since joining 'DAPS',  Nigel and Steve (amongst our many Manchester based members) have somehow managed to get the dirtiest jobs, or perhaps I should say have managed to get the dirtiest!  So to the ladies in their lives, we really tried to keep them clean this weekend, honestly!!

Photo 3

This horrifying photo shows 'yours truly' atop the boiler, mimicking or so it seems, a not so gracefully ageing 'startled fawn'! In actual fact, desperately engaged in attempts to remove the last few external boiler fittings, in this case one of the pressure gauge cocks which as might have been expected sheared as we gently tried to extricate it from it's mounting!! After a lot of hack-sawing, chiselling and some verbal encouragement we succeeded with the first one only to do it all again with the next. My companion in this exercise, Walter Graham has gone for more hacksaw blades!!

Photo 4

 I can do no better than the words of John Hake who took these photographs, in providing the caption for the last view of Jack Nulty (l) and Pat Brennan (r) as they pause for a chat near the aft peak hold. John's Caption 'Jack Nulty does a pretty convincing impression of 'The Boyhood of Raleigh' 

I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did, for those not familiar with the work of Sir John Everett Millais (1829-1896) please take a look at the following website, which I think you'll agree emphasises the great humour of John's photograph, a much needed alternative to the annoying news of the week's earlier theft!!  http://www.tate.org.uk/servlet/ViewWork?cgroupid=999999961&workid=9515