I worked  in North Dorset as a thatcher for 25 years. Wear and tear on my hands forced me to slow down and I moved back to the North. I want to show what skills I have to offer in case anyone in the Kendal area is interested in thatching.

Andy Banwell, the then secretary of Dorset Master Thatchers Association first took me on as apprentice in 1987.

Soon after I started working for him, he broke his ankle and had me drive to his house each morning to take him to work. He would sit in the passenger seat of his truck, reading Private Eye while I struggled to teach myself the basics on a long ladder out of the back. Once, when his drawings in the steam of  the windscreen failed to get through to me, he climbed up the ladder on his knee-pads to show me. The penny dropped and after two years of practice, mostly with crooked-on and sparred-on water reed, Andy placed me on a job alone.

I had to carry all my own reed a hundred yards, throw it up and stack it by the ladder before I could even start and I got £1 per square foot, all labour included. But it was a start and from then on I worked on piece rate with Andy and his gang.

I also sub-contracted as a thatcher in Dorset, Ireland and Oxfordshire, working as part of various teams and undertaking individual contracts.

In West Cork we cut our own water reed reed by hand and I helped a couple of people to get going in the trade,

Life was a little too slow for me in West Cork so I returned to England and began to work with Wheat Reed far more regularly. I worked mostly for Andy Banwell until he died suddenly at the start of 2001. He is sadly missed.

I often worked in Oxfordshire for County Thatchers run by Mike Minch and later by Mark Vickers.

Andrew Banwell. Thatcher, cider maker, wit and intellectual.

I started my own business, ‘John Jennings Thatching’. In 2001 I joined the Dorset Master Thatcher’s Association.

Apart from thatching, many other jobs were necessary. From site management to coppicing and spar-making, to training apprentices, roof carpentry, felt and battening, tiling and scaffolding. Along with health, safety and risk assessment, keeping detailed VAT accounts and employing people, I also spent time hunting for reliable suppliers of good quality thatching materials.

I carried on Andy’s work for the Clenston Manor Estate in the Winterbourne valley…

Most of my work was in North Dorset. Over the years I did a lot in Winterbourne Stickland, Okeford Fitzpaine and Milton Abbas, where I was interviewed by Ptolomy Dean for the BBC4 series, A Perfect Village.

Repairs to the timbers are occaisionally needed…

I worked for a few years for the Longleat estate, mostly in the estate village of Horningsham.

And in 2001 I offered Marcus an apprenticeship…

He stuck at it and has become a fine and conscientious craftsman.

And last, but by no means least, thanks to Graeme Coombs for all the coffee and gossip.(And the lovely spars, of course.) (And my treasured ‘knapman’ spar-hook.) I’d always see how many I could do before he came back with the brews.