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Neville John William Day 7 March 1922 - 26 November 1990

Preface Dad and the Cranes
Neville Day The early years Dad and his duty to the Crown. Including the one on the can!
Dad's Dad's Army Dad’s driving lessons (and some)
Help from Neville’s Father John Day Dad and the Mercedes G Wagon
The Day I met Day Dad, four tonnes of concrete and the gravel tsunami
Dad and the Coronation Norfolk is flat (not!)
Neville Day’s admirable tutoring No pheasant in here Charles
Promotion to Chauffeur You can drive when you're eighty!
Dad and THE holiday Dad and the North Sea Gas pipeline
Dad’s pigs and the Onion Dance Dad's Butt pricking
Dad and me and the Farm Fire Dad’s idyllic office and the end of Neville Day Plant Hire Ltd
Fluffy dog meets Steam Engine (fluffy no more) Dad’s little known speech impediment
Helping with the pruning and tree felling Dad and the not a Volkswagen
Neville Day The early years and the final hour Dad’s wheelies
Dad and Fairstead Dad would have laughed!

Dad and the North Sea Gas Pipeline

One day in 1966 a large 12 wheel low loader arrived in the yard. It had travelled all the way from Berlin in West Germany. Onboard was a brand new and enormous red and white tracked excavator, made by a company called O & K (Orenstein & Koppel).

Dad smiled. Mother didn't.

"Who is that for?" Asks Mother. Nervously.

"Us." Replied Dad in his usual eloquent, yet succinct and unambiguous style.

I will spare dear readers the body of the somewhat strained conversation that followed but suffice to say it ended in two further questions.

"What did it cost?"

And

"Why did you buy it?

Answer to the first above was £17,500. About £325,000 in today's money and the price of a typical house in the UK.

Answer to the second question was. "Dunno really. I always wanted one. I suppose we'll find a use for it."

This reply was of course a little mischievous. One might almost say facetious.

What no one knew, not even family, was that Dad had landed a contract to be part of a team of around a dozen 'Subies', that is sub-contractors, laying a 36" diameter steel natural gas pipeline from the north east Norfolk coastal village of Bacton then all the way to Rugby in the Midlands. A trench, sometimes up to five metres deep, across a distance of one hundred and forty miles. Along with of course the occasional river crossing and groundworks for construction of overpasses. A formidable project of national importance.

By the middle of 1968 Neville Day Plant Hire Ltd had purchased another similar machine. Together the two machines worth two thirds of a million Pounds in today's money.

Not bad going for a man who only four years prior, with a near rusted through Ford Consul and only a sad little grey Fergie was stepping out his onion plot on a close to bankrupt rented and no longer viable Fenland smallholding.

Lots of tales to tell about those exciting days and enough to fill another little book. If ever I can get a Round Tuit. As Dad used to say.

spacer_transparent.gifChris Latham-Smith 2022.

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