Workmanship

I am not sure when I first became interested in DIY (do it yourself), though I do recall that my father was an avid gardener, and also used to do some basic tasks around the house. My early years were spent either sharing a house with my grandparents, or in rented accommodation, so my family didn't own a house until 1963, when I was 10, and as it was a new build it didn't need much doing to it, though my dad did build me a wardrobe in my bedroom, on the plinth that jutted into my bedroom to give headroom for the stairs!
I am not sure of the exact dates but I know at some stage he bought the Reader's Digest Do-it-yourself manual, which as well as hints and tips for DIY-ers, also had a section on simple projects for the home. I was an avid reader so used to dip into this from time to time, and enjoyed the step-by-step instructions the massive book contained. Years later I bought one for myself, amongst other DIY books, and it became my "bible" for any work I wanted to do. Back then we did not have the luxury of the internet, and endless "how-to" (and "how-not-to"!!) videos on YouTube, nor numerous sites that gave instructions how to do basic tasks around the home, so we had to rely on books if we wanted to do the work ourselves.
Back then, too, specialist tools were not available to the home handyman, or the price was so prohibitive that it was not worth buying something that might only be used for one job. Now the market is flooded with cheap imports (dare I say, mainly from China) and I, along with many others, had a pretty well equipped toolbox, not the best quality, and probably not good enough if you were a serious tradesman, but adequate for occasional basic projects. There are now, at least in the UK, a myriad of Hire Shops, where you can rent specialist equipment for those occasions when your own tools are inadequate. For example, I have in the past hired a floor sander to smooth off old parquet flooring.
But I am getting ahead of myself. By 1976 (when I was 23) I still hadn't really done any DIY, but during a study break from work, when I stayed with some friends near Pietermaritzburg, in South Africa, I helped out with the construction of a concrete shower enclosure in their bathroom. I worked on some of the pipework, and a little of the concreting, and seemed to do OK at it.
Upon my return to the UK in 1978 I joined the family grocery business, and in 1979 we decided to open a bakery in the adjoining property (which we owned but had previously rented to a hairdresser). To convert the shop we needed quite a bit of work to be done, so called in a local builder, who we knew, for a quotation. We needed two sinks installing, a water heater, suitable flooring laying (over floorboards), a 3 metre long work bench with shelving beneath, walls painting, and shelving built in a store-room. He came in took a load of measurements and the following day called back with his quotation - £10,000!! This was more than double the price we were expecting, and in 1979 was very expensive for a fairly simple job for a qualified builder. We got the impression he didn't really want such a small (for him) job, as he was in much demand for house building, so was "trying it on". We rejected his quote and turned to the newspaper adverts, where we came across a man offering his services for "renovations and small building projects", so gave him a call (remember no internet back in those days!). He again took some measurements, and made some notes, but before leaving told us "this job is really too big for me"!
At this stage I decided I would try and do most of the work myself. We needed to have three-phase power installed by the Electricity Board, and they offered to install the water heater (over the sink) at the same time, for little more than the cost of the heater - we just had to chisel out an entry hole for the 3-phase cabling under the exterior wall (which was not as easy as it sounds as the house was over 100 years old and there was a lot of very hard flint to chisel through) and the rest of the installation was free!
(Full details about the bakery are in a separate post Opening a bakery)
We got a company to lay industrial grade flooring over the floorboards, which again was fairly cheap, and I started sourcing the other materials we would need. I bought a pair of stainless steel single drainer sinks (left and right) from a local DIY store, which were on clearance and cost £25 for the pair! I drew up plans for the workbench and calculated how much timber I needed and went to a local timber merchant. When he saw the quantities he asked what it was for, and then offered me 35% trade discount! He also gave me a lot of advice about how to go about doing the job, and suggested some alternatives to those I was planning to use, in all saving me a lot of money.
We painted the walls ourselves, using gloss on the walls in the main bakery area and emulsion on the ceiling, and in the "display" area, and this was a big mistake! The levels of condensation produced by the heat and steam in the bakery soon produced mould spores, and no amount of cleaning would prevent this. Through a trade publication we contacted a specialist paint company, and bought two different types of very expensive specialist paint, but after applying these we never had the problems again!
I also plumbed in the two sinks, having first built a bench to hold them, with shelves underneath, and there were no leaks!
My dad already owned an electric drill, screwdrivers and chisels, and we did buy a mitre joint set, though this was used with hand saws to create all the joints, and by the end of the work I had blisters from screwing the hundreds of countersunk screws manually (realised as I neared the end that we could have bought a cordless screwdriver!)!
The finished product looked amazing, if I say so myself, and soon we were ready to start baking. Aside from my labour cost - I did most of it myself as my dad was working in the grocery shop next door - the total cost of all the materials, the water heater, flooring, paint, etc. came to under £2500, and took under a month to complete. The work had been challenging, though early on I realised that nothing had really been beyond my abilities, and this new-found confidence led me to attempt other projects in the future. Previously I hadn't considered myself to be very adept at manual tasks like this, but as the work progressed I soon came to the realisation that often you restrict yourself in what you do, or even attempt, by not even trying to challenge your abilities!
With my new-found confidence over the years I attempted even more challenging projects, the most satisfying one being installing an en-suite bathroom! We lived in a Dormer Bungalow (a bungalow that has had a second storey added in the eaves) and the bathroom was downstairs with three bedrooms upstairs (and a fourth downstairs which we converted into a workroom for my wife who ran a cake making business from home). 
The master bedroom was large enough to accommodate a good-sized bathroom, but we didn't have the money for the conversion, though over several years we bought bits and pieces for it when we found them on offer, so matching sink and toilet, shower enclosure, and even tiles were bought and stored away. Finally we decided we had saved enough to make a start, but the big concern was how to get rid of the waste. Our bedroom had a sink in it already in the corner, which had a drain pipe, but this was only around 5cm, so unsuitable for a toilet. We were unsure how to proceed so realised that here we needed expert advice so called in a plumber, with the intention that he would do the plumbing work for us. He wanted to cut channels in the joists to run the waste pipes, and was talking of having to install reinforcements (as the joists were load bearing!) and his quote, just for the plumbing work was more than our total budget! We declined the offer!
Just through the wall from where the en-suite was to be there was a small loft space (housing our central heating header tank also), though it had very restricted headroom, meaning it was more a crawl space, and this was where the electrics were going to come from, as well as where the new water pipes were going to be run. On the outside wall of the house adjacent to this was the vent pipe from the domestic sewer, and this was a 20mm pipe, and during my research I had read that is was perfectly acceptable to join a toilet waste into this, so a new plan started forming - connect the shower and sink to the old sink waste, but the toilet waste would run through the crawl space and into the vent pipe - the biggest worry being whether there would be sufficient "fall" for the waste to run away. The measurements indicated it was just about adequate - without making any further structural alterations - so we went for it!
I am a planner - which means that before undertaking any project I make lots of drawings, take copious measurements, and try to consider all eventualities, and then get all the materials in before I start, so I don't find myself in the embarrassing situation of, say, having cut the electric off and not have the necessary materials to reconnect, and it being Sunday with the shops closed! My wife found that a bit frustrating, as she wanted to jump in and get started, but over the years realised that my way was ultimately quicker and more efficient, as once started we could just crack on until the job was finished! She was also a keen DIY-er so we did much of the work together - she was a dab hand at tiling - and in the end completed it all ourselves, including plumbing and electrical work (nowadays you have to be a certified electrician to do electrics, but since my handiwork is still going strong around 25 years later it bears testament to the workmanship!), and came in well within budget, and only one or two minor problems along the way. One of these was a leaking joint, which took many attempts to resolve, and the second - well, I had a rush of blood to the head while installing the electrics! We were installing three wall lights, as well as an electric shower which got its own wiring and a new circuit breaker, and the idea was that two lights would be linked and the third - over the sink - independent. I planned all the wiring and started running it to the fittings and the switches - to the fittings through the stud wall behind, and to the switches hidden under the coving we were going to attack between wall and ceiling. So I ran the wires to all the locations they were needed, and then we fixed the coving - leaving the electrics to be completed later. When I came to connect the wiring to the switches I had my "moment" - despite all my careful planning beforehand I suddenly though that I could bypass one of the wires I had laid, so removed it and connected the rest up - and flicked the switch! The lights came on - the single one worked fine, but the two linked ones? They came on nice and bright, but when you went to switch them off they just went dim! I realised immediately that I did, after all, need the second wire, which I had pulled out from under the coving, as per my original drawing! Fortunately I managed to replace the wire with the only "damage" being a small square cut into the outside (bedroom-side) stud wall to feed the wire back through, and this was then taped back in place, and wallpapered over (we had not yet done that final piece of the project), and you would never have known there had been a problem!
Now that I am getting older, so am not as physically able as I once was I tend to employ local "craftsmen" to do jobs for me - like exterior house painting, floor tiling, etc. but here in rural Brazil it is very frustrating since most "tradesmen" have no formal training or experience, and the quality of their workmanship leaves a lot to be desired. Paint splashes everywhere - on the floor tiles, across light switches - and even roller strokes on the ceiling where they have over-run, and no attempt to clean up. Irregular gaps between tiles, poorly applied grout, and I have twice had to show "experts" how to measure and cut edge tiles. In many cases, too, I have had to supply the tools as well as the materials - here a "quotation" is just for the labour, you are given a list of what materials are needed, and usually end up with plenty of spares for the next project! In almost all cases I have more experience, and certainly more skill at the work I am paying for, and spend a lot of time "showing " them the right way to do it, but no longer the physical capability, and outdoors no tolerance to the heat and sun.
I am currently waiting for my "man" to finish repainting my two wrought-iron (not as fancy as that sounds!) gates - I supplied him with a wire brush, sandpaper (for metal), paintbrushes, thinners, primer and enamel paint. It took him 3 days - working around 2 hours a day - to prepare and prime the gates, then I didn't see him for 4 days. He then appeared asking if I had any more work for him - so I pointed out the gates needed painting as he had only primed them (he didn't seem to realise that "primer" was an undercoat!), so he spent 2 more hours painting one of the gates - and then disappeared again! It is now 8 days later and he still hasn't returned to top-coat the other gate! Here you have to take what you can get - or suck it up and do it all yourself!

Going home from Angola

In 1963 my father's three year contract in Luanda, Angola, was up, and though he was offered an extension (and expat terms were very good, as the salary included housing, and schooling costs) it was decided that we would return to the UK. My sister would be 12 later that year and higher education for foreigners meant boarding school in Rhodesia, something that some of the other expats did, but my parents were reluctant to send their daughter to another country for 9 months of the year!
Dad had been offered a very good job back in England with the company he worked for, so we booked a passage by sea back to the UK. We had travelled out in 1960 on a small passenger liner called the Thysville, but our return was to be on an even smaller tramp steamer, the SS Vikaren, which only had 6 passenger cabins, being primarily a freight ship. Tramp steamers are so called as they do not have a fixed schedule, though this one plied the route between Holland and Angola, but varied the stopping ports depending on the cargo.

The SS Vikaren at anchor

When we boarded in Luanda there was another couple on board already, but they disembarked at our first stop, Lobito (also in Angola), so from then on we were the only passengers on board. The ship was Swedish registered and most of the senior crew were Swedish, and with my Mum being Danish she was able to easily converse with them, and once the other passengers left we were invited to dine with the officers from then on. The ship had a small saloon with easy chairs and a record player, and I recall that Doris Day was one of the few English language records.
The main cargo was some kind of animal feed destined for Freetown, in Sierra Leone, but we did stop off at some other places on the way to unload cargo, and our first destination was São Tomé, a small Portuguese island off the coast of Gabon.

The ship anchored offshore 

Being a Portuguese territory we had no problems with language and booked a taxi to take us a short tour of the island.

Central São Tomé, I think

Washing day

Waterfall on the island - taxi guide on the right!

We were only moored for a day or so, then set off again towards Freetown, Sierra Leone, where the majority of the cargo - and, we found later, most of the sailors - were being "unloaded". As it was not a passenger liner there was not a lot to do on board, no organised entertainment (though they did occasionally raise a cargo hatch cover at night and project a film onto this makeshift "screen"), no pool, and so on, but as long as I was careful I was allowed pretty much carte blanche to wander wherever I wanted, and soon came across a group of sailors painting the deck. Apparently each voyage between ports, when there was not much for the deck crew to do, they did some maintenance, and it wasn't long before I was jokingly handed a paint brush and invited to join in - the officer in charge had no objection, and from then until Freetown as soon as I finished breakfast I would go and find the crew and help with the painting!! It made a strange sight - a small (9 year old) English boy working alongside burly African sailors, but I persevered almost every day until lunchtime! When they were being paid off in Freetown, receiving bags of rice, flour and salt as well as their final pay, they spotted me standing with my family - Dad was taking some photos - and they shouted to the quartermaster that he should pay me too for the work I had done!

Unloading in Freetown, and loading a new cargo

Berthed in Freetown

Drop net fishing in Freetown

We had noticed a lot of small fish milling around the docks in Freetown, and mentioned it to one of the officers as I was interested in seeing if we could do some fishing, so he dispatched one of the cooks with a drop net, and we caught a lot of small fish, which were then cooked for dinner later!
I had my 10th birthday on board, which I thought would be a very quiet affair as we were the only passengers, but we had a small party thrown by the officers and I received a few gifts, the only one I recall being a stamp catalogue (the Swedish equivalent of Stanley Gibbons!) by the Radio Officer (Sparky!), who was also a stamp collector and we had spent some pleasant hours discussing our collections! It was obviously in Swedish, which I didn't understand, but had a lot of detail about what to look for in "rarer" stamps (missing watermarks or perforations, design not straight, etc.) so was very useful.
Our next - and final stop before Rotterdam - was Dakar, the capital of Senegal - where some more cargo was unloaded. We again anchored offshore and the cargo, and us, was ferried ashore.

Approaching Dakar 

Cargo being taken ashore by barge and tug

Locals paddled out on canoes to sell produce

 As in many ports throughout the world as soon as you anchored or moored a flotilla of canoes would appear and mill round trying to sell, primarily, fresh produce, but here it was mainly souvenirs and local craft goods. They would throw up a rope with a basket attached and you would pull it up, inspect the contents and then haggle over a price - if you were happy you returned the empty basket with your payment in it!! The prices were, to me, ridiculously cheap, and far less than what you would pay in a stall on land!

More vessels, some with sails, unloading cargo

Railway Station in Dakar

We have travelled twice to Africa by ship - in 1960 on the way to Angola, and again in 1967 (though, of course, this was to come later) when we (at least Mum, my sister and I, as Dad had flown out earlier to start his new job) - and on both occasions my sister and I had been really ill with sea-sickness, especially through the Bay of Biscay, which is notorious for high seas. However by the time we reached the Bay this time we were so accustomed to the movement of the ship that we passed through with no problems, though the chairs in the saloon had been chained to the floor, though not before Mum went flying one day! I had also wondered why the mess tables had upstands all round, and the decanters had wide flat bases, and that also became evident in the rougher seas - though they had also placed some non-stick mats on the tables so we didn't lose our plates!
We were given an African Grey Parrot, Jacko, while in Angola and he accompanied us on our journey home. We had to get all the paperwork sorted out prior to leaving, but as he was not leaving the ship until Rotterdam, and then just between the ship and the ferry across to the UK, we were informed that he needed nothing special, but would be quarantined upon arrival in the UK (I do not actually recall if this was the case then, but research implies it was!). We had a large wooden "cage" built with steel bars so he could see out, and he stayed in the same cabin as my sister and I. He was generally a fairly quiet bird, but a good talker, though my father was the only family member who could handle him, but feeding him was not a problem. He chewed his way out of the wooden cage, though, en route and that did become a problem, until the crew managed to make some running repairs!
One thing we hadn't realised though was that when we landed in Rotterdam we had to take a train to The Hague to catch the ferry, and this meant that Jacko was technically imported into Holland, so subject to their strict animal import laws! There followed a long discussion between my parents and the Dutch authorities, and eventually - as long as we kept him in a covered cage at all times - they allowed us to make the train journey to The Hague, where it was quite a rush to catch the ferry. We arrived back in the UK at the end of one of the worst winters on record, and after the warmth of Africa it was bitterly cold for us.
Our first African adventure had been an amazing experience for me, and was probably the start of my love for travel and foreign places.

(Footnote: I may have some of the photos incorrectly captioned - my father took all these on a 35mm slide camera, and I later scanned them all digitally, but most were not labelled, so I have had to try and remember - 55 years later - which belonged where, and, especially the "offshore" ones, may be wrong, but were definitely from that trip!)

Almost at the centre of civil war!

Mozambique was a Portuguese colony until 1975, when the country was handed over to the Frelimo (Front for the Liberation of Mozambique) following capitulation by Portugal after almost 10 years of a terrorist war. Frelimo had been relatively ineffective during the war, based outside the country and receiving support mainly from Russia, but in April 1974 a coup in Portugal overthrew the government and the new regime decided against supporting the expensive war against Frelimo, so in September 1974 it was decreed that the army would n longer fight against Frelimo, and that power would be handed over in 1975 with the granting of Independence.
This move was not very popular in Mozambique, and there was much dissent among the population, who felt that at the very least elections should be held, not simply a handover to a foreign-based terrorist organisation, of which, it was rumoured, many of the leaders were not even Mozambican or Portuguese-speaking. It was believed that Portugal had sold out the people of Mozambique, many of whom, myself included (as I had lived there since 1967), had not seen any real evidence of the terrorist war! Despite this the army was being recalled to the city bases, and some were even being sent back to Portugal.
There was a major incident in Lourenço Marques, Mozambique's capital, which almost spiralled out into civil war. According to legend a group of recalled Marines were having coffee in the city centre and a shoe-shine boy approached, sporting a t-shirt with the Frelimo flag on it. He pointed to this shirt and told the Marines that soon they would be honouring this flag, not the flag of Portugal, and so one of the Marines gave him a slap and told him to be on his way. The boy called the Police, and when the officer remonstrated with the soldiers all hell broke loose. The Marines were armed and a gunfight ensued resulting in a few civilian casualties, before their General managed to calm things down and they were arrested and taken back to base.
This disturbance spurred the disgruntled public to start a movement in Beira for a free independent Mozambique, with elections to decide on the future. The main square - in front of the office block I worked in! - was renamed (unofficially) Independence Square, and a lorry was parked there, equipped with loudspeakers, with a variety of people, some local politicians, speaking for a free multi-racial (Mozambique was one of the few sub-Saharan countries that didn't have a racist agenda prior to Independence) independence, rather than the capitulation proposed by Portugal. There were large, not huge, crowds in attendance, and the whole thing was incredibly peaceful and civilised.
I had a small one-bedroomed apartment not far from the city centre and my sister had travelled down from Luabo, in Zambézia province, with my nephew who was only 4 at the time. The unrest caused by the troubles in Lourenço Marques had unnerved some people on the British-run Sugar Estate on the banks of the Zambezi, which was felt to be a serious target for Frelimo as it provided around 10% of the country's foreign revenue, so, like my sister, had come to the city for a few days while the situation was tense.
The demonstration had started on the Saturday, and on Sunday many of the expats had met at the golf club and discussed the situation. There was talk of a local strike on the Monday to support the movement, and as the company I worked for was a South African owned one, it was felt that we should comply to show support, but my boss asked that we all turned up for work and a decision would be taken if the demonstration was still in place in front of our office.
My sister was hoping to do some shopping while in Beira, and as it was only a short walk to the centre it was agreed that if I didn't come home by 09.00 (we started at 07.00, so a decision on work would have been made very early) then it was safe for her to make her way in.
I arrived at work and there was a crowd of a few hundred around the truck, all chanting and waving placards, but still peacefully demonstrating - so I parked round the back of the building and made my way inside. Everyone was at the front window overlooking the square, which apart from the demonstration on one corner, pretty much looked like any other day with people walking through on their daily business, but it was soon decided that we would also close since many of our clients would be closed, and therefore it was a prudent decision. 
Before anyone could leave, however, army trucks started pouring into the square opposite the demonstrators and armed troops dismounted. They formed up across the square and told the demonstrators to disperse, but then charged across the square towards the demonstrators! We saw innocent people simply walking through the square being hit with batons, and when an elderly couple were knocked down just below us our office manager (a Scot) ran down, against advice, to offer assistance. There were a few gunshots, and as the crowd ran out of the square behind our building, where my car was parked, there were a couple of grenade blasts too!
We were trapped in our building as the army were all milling about in the square and the streets surrounding us, and there was no way I could warn my sister what was going on, and expected at any moment to see her wander into the square with my nephew in tow! By 10.00 all was quiet again, though there was still an army presence, and it was decided that it was safe enough for us all to leave, and stay away until at least Wednesday when things hopefully would have calmed down.
I quickly drove home to find that my sister was safely at home, my domestic help (part-time) had warned her that the streets were not safe, and she had waited to hear from me! We headed out of town to the beach for the rest of the day, and it went without incident - apart from getting two punctures, and having to drive slowly on the second flat tyre to a repair place to get them both fixed as it was deemed unsafe to leave the car and walk with 2 tyres.
It turned out the the government in Lourenço Marques had ordered the army to put down any resistance to the handover the following year, which further enraged many - the army were no longer going to fight against the terrorists, but were going to fight against its own people who were simply exercising their right to protest peacefully!
I found out later in the year, before leaving for South Africa in January 1975, that following the decree in September that Frelimo would be given power in 1975, a powerful organisation, funded by many wealthy Mozambicans who stood to lose a lot upon Independence, and with some serious military firepower, had been planning to mount a coup late in 1975 to take power and thwart the proposed Independence. They had hoped that by then the Portuguese military forces would have been severely depleted, and that Portugal would not have had the stomach to oppose the coup, who had numbers and weapons, so they could have easily taken over. The premature demonstrations had resulted in the army being ordered to stand against any threats to the Independence process, effectively stymieing their coup ambitions.
By Wednesday life had returned to normal, so I went back to work, my sister and nephew returned to Luabo, and it was as though nothing had ever happened!