Keith Sanders the Storyman Podcast

How would you set about dealing with this "big problem"! Thank you for listening to our Buzzsprout audio stories. You can follow many of these with added film and photographs as videos and slide shows on our YouTube Channel at  "cracker books on youtube". WEB SITE CHANGE:  New Web site at  www.crackerbooks.fr At the same time, Cracker Books have produced 10 complete page turnin...

We had a telephone call from Southern Arabia where the stud manager for Sheik Hamdan al-Maktoum the famous horse owner, to see if Cracker was for sale. Unfortunately, they were not aware that Cracker was a gelding and not a Stallion! We had phone calls from all over and also one from the ITV in London who wanted Cracker to appear on a television programme with one of their celebrities.  We explain...

 She quickly bobbed down behind the counter and shot back up wearing a motor cycle crash helmet…..  “but I’m the little gnome, “ she said with a distinct twinkle in her eye!  So there it was, our own personal little gnome loaded her company quad-bike with our boxes and proceeded down to arrive beside our car. Thank you for listening to our Buzzsprout audio stories. You can follow many of these wit...

Gravity came to my rescue and there must have been almost a litre! When she came back and saw the result, she swiftly tipped it into the toilet and with the single word “good” she disappeared with a satisfied “I knew best” smirk on her face! Thank you for listening to our Buzzsprout audio stories. You can follow many of these with added film and photographs as videos and slide shows on our YouTube...

 In the contract with the TMC was a clause that if my company was to liquidate then we would lose the contract.  The bank would not budge and despite Ed and I traveling the countrywide to find a solution, nothing could be done in time. My final visit to the Midland Bank in Lincoln and dismantling their office desk with my boot did not help, but made me feel much better at the time! One and a half...

A huge catastrophe took place in the years 1993/4 when the UK Government decided to begin the National Lottery and the majority of small animal ‘sanctuaries’ lost most of their income when vast numbers of the general public began gambling their income on pieces of paper and a game of chance! The amount of money taken out of the day-to-day economy of the country was crippling to some and still is....

 This exercise was mind-boggling. They brought the boat to the slipway and attached a cable to a shackle located through a large access hole in the front of the boat’s keel. A number of wide greasy wooden bearers were laid on the slipway and the other end of that cable was attached to a winch drum on the rear of a “track – marshall” logging tractor. On the word, the tractor roared, the winch turne...

It was about this time during the development of the Rabbit farm that the stress of the final two years of ECYB caught up with me.  I woke one night with this immense burning ‘orange’, glowing and engulfing the whole of my chest. The previous day I had felt strange tingling sensations in my left arm but given them no thought. With the orange was a violent heartbeat almost fit to burst. Ruth was co...

 I was making the best use of what was at hand! After all, I felt that our family had gone through hell in the last few months. I was still going through huge difficulties that Ruth did not know about, the demonic farmer who had begun civil proceedings against me for personal spite, was still pressing. We needed some luck! The mortgage went through and we made plans to move.  But how to move the r...

He went over to a cabinet, withdrew a syringe and bottle of liquid.  Filling the syringe, he said quite casually, “this is same stuff that you normally have in tablet form.  Just as they do in the “films”, he pointed the syringe into the air and squirted out a tiny amount of liquid. “This should be enough for you for the rest of the day. You can have it when I have finished with you!” Thank you fo...

Back to the wheelbarrow.....it was very second hand when we bought at « the auction », it previously belonged to the Lee family in New Bolingbroke. Its frame is particularly heavy, no doubt that is why it has stood the test of time ; including over 24 years daily « muck shifting » at the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre before joining me in retirement here in France in 2008. Admittedly it has been wel...

Cracker was born at the Heavy Horse Centre Cricket St Thomas Wildlife Park in Somerset in the early hours of 30th May 1988.   I had been close by for nearly a week in case the mare would need help when she started to foal.  Lady had previously had two foals before Cracker, both had been good sized foals, he was a very big foal.   After his birth he lay in the straw for a while then struggled to hi...

During my earlier years with this unit, they had held a Summer camp at the Gloucestershire County Scout Camp site at Cranham.  This beautiful village was set in a deep quiet secluded valley about 10 miles East of Gloucester. A small single track road passed through, dropping steeply to the valley floor from high hills on each side. The centre of the village comprised the County Scout HQ itself. An...

It was during the time that I was looking for some other ways of making a living in preparation for the time when the Firestone Company would be no more. ECYB had begun and then been put into “cold storage” after losing the Magyar contract.  I was told that close to the old East Kirkby airfield about 14 miles north of Boston was a huge number of ex American air force wing tip auxiliary fuel tanks....

 We both loved the activity and heard at the Club that “Bamboozle” was for sale. Only having heard about the boat second-hand, we did not know what to expect. It was love at first sight. In fact we both liked the boat so much we still have her  40 plus years later. “Bamboozle” is a 14 foot Merlin Rocket class racing dinghy. Rocket by name and Rocket by nature, beautifully built in clinker ply cons...

For some time we had been driving horses for pleasure and a few years previously paid a visit to the British Driving Society Annual Show at Smith’s Lawn Windsor Great Park. We had seen a carriage dog actually at work. A Dalmatian. It all started here................. Thank you for listening to our Buzzsprout audio stories. You can follow many of these with added film and photographs as videos and...

Tyres had been my life then for almost 20 years and I had developed some very good trade contacts. After much research and discussion within the trade locally, I earnestly believed that there was an opening for a specialist truck tyre remould operation within our counties or Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire. The market was certainly there and I initially discussed the idea with the main local inde...

 The Town Hall committee comprised most of the ‘worthies’ of the village.  John Rundle, our neighbour living at Globe House was now running the family engineering business and iron foundry, it was his father “Jack” who was Chairman of the committee.  Local plumber and neighbour across the road from Ivy House was Les Langstaff, it was his father who was the secretary.  Then there was Ivor Bush and...

I have only just remembered this story while posting items on our facebook pages about  45  Woodside,  London Road, Boston, Lincolnshire UK....our first real home.  It all began evidently not long after we had moved to Ivy House New Bolingbroke. You need to listen to  "Buying Ivy House"  ideally to get the real feel of what is going on! Neverthless, this incident happened a few years dow...

The Rundle family ran and to this day still run a thriving agricultural engineering business. It all began with grandfather who was an agricultural contractor and used traction engines to propel his machines from farm to farm. (Those traction engines are still in the family ownership and form the nucleus of their fabulous collection). The business developed over the years into manufacturing machin...

As if we were not in enough trouble already............ I must ask you to picture the situation, we are in a small town in "centralish" France. My younger sister was moving house after a very messy third divorce in the UK!!! She had ended up with some funds but not a lot, hence the move to France where property is very reasonably priced.............listen on! Thank you for listening to o...

RESPONSIBILITY I also took on the role of ‘cellar man’ due to my father still keeping his 9 to 5 job with GPO telephones.  September 1955, I was 11 and had started at the Grammar School at Boston. The school bus started and finished in our pub yard, I left home at about 7.45 am and arrived home just before 6 pm. Every day after school I stacked all the shelves behind the bar with bottled beer and...

I soon learned that if I was quick enough at the bus station I could catch a different bus from town to school.  Normally all the local buses were run by the West Yorkshire company but on just one route between Harrogate and Bradford,  the Samuel Ledgards company ran double-deckers, the route which passed my school. I could save a halfpenny on each journey if I could catch the Ledgards bus. It lef...

 Back to travel, so you see we had to go to Scarborough every month to see Grandfather Munford.  At that time my passion was for going over the “Transporter Bridge” at Middlesborough over the river Tees.  It was very unusual and moved...every small boy’s dream. It had little railway crossing-type gates to stop your car from falling off the end of the moving deck!   As far as I can remember it did...

 The second option was far more interesting…..if a little more expensive cash-wise.  The cost was actually a little higher than the all-road route, as remember petrol was still cheap.  The ferry route was far quicker though, probably cut at least an hour off the journey time each way.   Much more if there were any roadworks hold-ups.  It was also much more exciting, not just the ferry trip but get...