And so we did that and then I had to say, over the years I collected books on my particular subject which was sailing ship rigging, old sailing ships and some of them were quite, you know quite expensive and the sort of horror you have is that if you die and nobody knows then somebody could have picked those up in a boot sale or some dealer’s going to come on a house clearance and whip the lot away and give [my wife] about £50.00 for them you know, so I took a bag full of those up to Bath and sold them, they didn’t give me much for them as it happens but I said I’d rather that I know that they were going to back to people who needed them, because they were quite rare books some of them. I’d rather know that they were going to be re-circulated to people who were interested rather than wind up on a barrow somewhere you know.
And the next thing was I thought well I’ll never be able to fire a twelve-bore shotgun again because if I shake any of my surgery loose I’ll get into trouble [laugh] so I sold my twelve-bore guns, now I want one again, I don’t want the twelve-bore I’ll get a smaller one but I could use it, I can drive my jeep now occasionally but at the time I couldn’t envisage being able to drive it, even just climbing up into the seat was hard work and the clutch peddle is very heavy, so yes, we did that but apart from going just to see my brother once, we haven’t done anything else, I’ve been too busy working round here.
So when you were told it was six months you thought I’ve got to make all these decisions?
Yes, I just wanted to tidy things up, yes, as I say the last thing really, I got some of [my wife’s] brother’s tools, when he died with the same thing, I inherited them and that was my thought again that you don’t, if you don't see that somebody gets them whose going to use them or make use of them or appreciates them then they’re going to wind up with the house clearance bloke or on a car boot sale.
What other decisions did you think you needed to take, did you think for example about a Will?
Well we’ve got a Will, pretty straight forward really, I leave it to my wife and then to my children after but, no I didn’t really, it had been done a long time ago so no I wasn’t worried about that, I got on a better footing with my son, we had been at loggerheads a bit lately and not speaking a lot of the time so that improved, otherwise I don’t really, apart from as I say trying to get everything squared off, you know, while I could, that was really my main motive you know.
You got everything tidied up then?
Yes, I’m nearly done, but I mean there’s a lot to do, I mean the day, the day I was sent to hospital in the morning, that hoard of timber came for that decking out and it stayed under the tarpaulin there for nearly six months till you know last summer and then I got a carpenter with me for a week and we put it up, well I was determined to do it and I thought actually that would probably be the last, you know that would be my project, once that was done I’d probably fall off the perch but I didn’t so the next thing I, well not the next thing but I did several things I’ve never done before, repaired windows and door frames, renewed them and stuff like that, I’m not a carpenter you know but I’ve done a lot of that sort of work round here.
