Page 22 - It's a Rum Life Book 3 "Ivy House Tales 1970 to 1984"

What to do......Ruth’s brother had a school friend who was a good reliable young builder.
We asked him to survey the problem quickly and he suggested there was no real long
term solution but re roof the whole house.

He explained that the slates were the originals and now too fragile to mess about with,
they would continue to slide out of place one by one. The cost was to be hundreds of
pounds using the simplest but decent looking cement tiles. Fortunately the house was not
a listed building!

We eventually did a deal with Alan the builder so that in exchange for his work we would
give him a large chunk of the building plot next door to the house. Our sceptic tank was on
this site and Alan agreed to build us a new tank and its drainage system, in a new location
in with the price.

So the house was completely re roofed including the under felt and we lost the land next
door!

Poor Alan eventually built himself a bungalow on this plot, but before he could completely
finish it, he had an accident on one of his journeys down to New Bolingbroke.

Everyone thinks his thermos flask must have fallen off the seat in his van, he was found
drowned in a dyke at the side of the seven mile straight.
The van was upside down in the bottom of the water filled dyke and he must have been
knocked unconscious as his van left the road and turned over. Unfortunately nobody saw
the accident and by the time a passing motorist could come to his aid it was too late.

Eventually Ken Rundle; the middle Rundle brother, the one who drove KEN 45, bought
that bungalow.

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