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Wow Joey, my Grandad worked as a gaffer for the then Liverpool Corporation parks and gards all his life. Seing him with the scythe fascinated me, a lost art and more powerful than a big Sthil strimmer.Working in Parks departments over the UK all my life - they were always considered an easy target, the Cinderella department of any Council - volunteers look after some parkland now - hey are a dying art of training young Horticulturist ..... I was lucky .....
Huyton UDC had close links with Liverpool Cooperation Parks Department 2nd only to Edinburgh Parks department - I worked under 3 former Parks Supervisors from the Liverpool Cooperation - What skills they had learning there - I owed them a lot - firm but fair & knowledge was top class - I achieved my qualifications in Horticulture with distinction City & Guilds - I learnt my trade-off them though ..... as a top propagator I moved all over the UK & with hard work became a council Nursery Superintendent -Wow Joey, my Grandad worked as a gaffer for the then Liverpool Corporation parks and gards all his life. Seing him with the scythe fascinated me, a lost art and more powerful than a big Sthil strimmer.
His garden was a delight too and a huge part of my childhood memories.
Fantastic story Joey and believe it or not I still have my Grandads old Mattock which it still use. And his branch loppers. Woodwork on them is nothing you'd buy today.Huyton UDC had close links with Liverpool Cooperation Parks Department 2nd only to Edinburgh Parks department - I worked under 3 former Parks Supervisors from the Liverpool Cooperation - What skills they had learning there - I owed them a lot - firm but fair & knowledge was top class - I achieved my qualifications in Horticulture with distinction City & Guilds - I learnt my trade-off them though ..... as a top propagator I moved all over the UK & with hard work became a council Nursery Superintendent -
Yes, they had scythes when I started - & a fantastic tool called a mattock ... which I borrowed when I left lol
10 Gardeners just in Court hey Park & three plant nurseries under Huyton UDC - Court Hey Park was in Liverpool - Bowering Park was in Huyton in those days it had a small nursery there too....
It was a hard career - did you know that when councils originated - it was the skilled private estates of Victorian head gardeners who got the key jobs on the then local councils hence the high starting skill levels - I was given that mattock in the late 1970s - my son recently renewed the wooden shaft on it - The jobs I did with it when a householder - laying flags etc = invaluable to me - cant see me using it now though -Fantastic story Joey and believe it or not I still have my Grandads old Mattock which it still use. And his branch loppers. Woodwork on them is nothing you'd buy today.
Times which are lost forever, I remember my grandad going to and from work on his black Raleigh pushbike. Hands like shovels and the strength of an ox. Yet so skilled with the smaller plants and veg he grew at home for his hobby.It was a hard career - did you know that when councils originated - it was the skilled private estates of Victorian head gardeners who got the key jobs on the then local councils hence the high starting skill levels - I was given that mattock in the late 1970s - my son recently renewed the wooden shaft on it - The jobs I did with it when a householder - laying flags etc = invaluable to me - cant see me using it now though -
As you stated class tools of English make - collectables now -
Many trades have been lost- try getting a good one nowadays- a dying been sadly.....Times which are lost forever, I remember my grandad going to and from work on his black Raleigh pushbike. Hands like shovels and the strength of an ox. Yet so skilled with the smaller plants and veg he grew at home for his hobby.