Keith Sanders the Storyman Podcast

ADMIRAL TAKES A BREAK At 2am they took a break and after everyone had been fed by the caterers they seemed to descend on the pub and leave me taking still photos of the scenes around us. It was about this time that Admiral decided he had endured sufficient and decided to go “walk about”, complete with his heavy iron wheeled Lincolnshire farm cart. I was his minder at that moment and had been distr...

YOU NEED A COSTUME I refused to have my hair cut short so Robert accepted the inevitable! Much to his surprise and I might say delight, he quickly found himself in a caravan filled with attractive ladies. They helped him off with his 20th century garb and fixed him up with a mix of gear to suit the period. They cut his hair short and applied all kinds of make up for the film set. I think he rather...

Hence the reason for trying to protect Admiral. We obtained the information of his whereabouts and borrowed our neighbours small horse box lorry. We raised £900 to buy him…..the price the owner would have received if he had sold him for dog meat!! Admiral’s problem was a “side bone” on one of his front legs where the hoof joins the lower leg. Our vet had told us it was a risk to buy him like that…...

Jacob, or to give him his “proper” name “Park Jacob” came to us at the Northcote Heavy Horse Centre in 1989 as a six month old colt foal. Jacob was a British Percheron Horse.  In an endeavour to illustrate to you something of the Percheron origins and characteristics I will tell you what I know of them. No doubt there will be other Horsemen who have different experiences and perhaps greater knowle...

 Our business was not a registered charity, but we had always declared that our aims were charitable and not profit-making. Who could possibly make a profit when looking after 15 or so aged and helpless Heavy Horses that nobody else would lift a hand to look after. We received not a penny from that hand out because it was decided we were not a proper business! We did know that “profit-making” anim...

The more the stove bounced and rocked, the more burning sticky gloop poured out onto the floor.  The glowing, all consuming river was spreading faster and faster. The closed air vents made no difference whatever, ‘salamander’ had created its own living burning world inside, very much like a modern diesel engine that begins to burn its own engine oil from the sump; it is unstoppable!  Right next to...

Why ‘Angels’?                            Simply because they were ‘Heaven sent’. Our situation was seriously bad. The boat could quite well have been stopped by ice in the middle of nowhere with no chance of help and no safe haven to leave her. Even in the middle of a town, who can say that she would have been safe, moored for goodness knows how many weeks? Thank you for listening to our Buzzsprou...

The boat was unhitched and the mechanic towed it into the mouth of the new A1 road that was to disappear underground at the northernmost end of the bridge. We quickly moved the road works barriers and deposited the boat on the trailer with Jane and Colin in the tunnel mouth to await my return. We were at least 5 hours travelling time from Dundee, and the traffic was building up rapidly by now in t...

My boss Fred had been superseded by a bombastic toilet paper salesman who made his “regional” office in Nottingham. One of his first and perhaps worst decisions was to inform Fred that he would have no further contact with Fossitt and Thorne senior management. “The account is much too important for a mere District manager to handle”, he was told quite bluntly. “Your role will be to have contact wi...

 “When I turn the jib out over the river it will have to extend to reach the boat. That will be the dangerous bit. As soon as I take the strain, the boat has to come up quickly and allow me to swing the jib over the trailer in one quick movement.”  If anything were to go wrong I thought, the dragline would topple over on its tracks and career crazily downwards into the river and crush the boat ben...

The 1950’s saw the very first Citroen ID saloon with its revolutionary new design, their unique hydraulic suspension, long flowing bodies with sweeping smooth panels and no running boards. This was the time in the UK when the first Morris Minor with its split windscreen was becoming popular.  To place the finest modern cruise liner next to “The Ark” would be a similar comparison Nowhere in the Wor...

There were now the three horses and we had moved them onto a long bank of the Medlam Drain, still at Revesby Bridge. This was at the very end of the straight road running past our house and travelling north towards Horncastle. For several years this was reasonable especially in the summer. For the winter though we had to think again.  The land was heavy clay. The slightest wet made it cling to you...

 t was not to be........ As soon as I began to explain what was needed, he obliged by just stopping dead in his tracks. Within a split second, because he had lost his brake chain the wagon kept going and hit Ebony a   huge clout up his bottom,  Horses do not like being hit up the bottom by their cart or wagon and normally retaliate by lashing out with their hind legs. Within a second of receiving...

A car pulled up behind me and I thought the driver was under the impression that I had stopped for some obstruction or other despite the fact that I had indicated that I was stopping. The driver introduced himself as a VOSA officer and said he had been following me for some little while and become interested in my vehicle and load. Thus began the “interrogation”! Thank you for listening to our Buz...

Back now to Ruth who had disappeared into the house with blood pouring forth copiously just at the very moment that a young school leaver arrived for work experience. She was a girl of about 15 with her Mother, they were both quite shocked to see the horse writhing on the floor and Ruth departing quickly with pouring blood all over. They did not even stay to hear my explanation, obviously it was a...

Apart from this he was great. He loved being with the other horses and ponies and took to work quickly. Firstly we rode him…….”spirited” could best describe him. A hand full and the rest. He was headstrong and very little in the way of brakes….but had an excellent action and was great to ride. Thank you for listening to our Buzzsprout audio stories. You can follow many of these with added film and...

 To ensure a quick sale the house was to be auctioned in a week’s time; the agent had explained to us that if we wished to buy for the ‘reserved’ price required and avoid the possibility of having to pay more at the auction, then we would have to find and pay double the normal deposit to stop the auction. That would be 20% of the asking price of £5000. We told the Lely family that we loved their h...

 Wednesdays were mid week market days and agricultural machinery dealers brought their wares to town and displayed them along the road sides in Wide Bargate. The spacious and old established livestock market stood tall and proud at the far end with its huge covered sales building and extensive livestock pens. Thank you for listening to our Buzzsprout audio stories. You can follow many of these wit...

 In the south of the square was the Peacock and Royal Hotel; the largest in the town with wide sweeping steps up to classic porticoed frontage. All along this frontage of the hotel was the wide paving of the “corn exchange”. Early every Wednesday morning, Shire horses drew 30 or so ancient wooden cabins on even more ancient tiny iron wheels from their store yard behind the square and lined them up...

I dressed in something old (not unusual) and with an old hat and suitable straw hanging from my mouth...looked the part. The cart was loaded with straw too. It was the exact type of vehicle that smallholders would have used to go to market. Three folk could sit abreast on the main seat and there was room behind for produce or even a pig or two!! Thank you for listening to our Buzzsprout audio stor...

By Sunday lunchtime we had taken over the whole area in front of our home. The old engine was out and new (secondhand) engine hanging suspended over the engine bay. Things had gone remarkably well so far, although the whole project was causing some concern on the estate.  I took great pains to explain to close neighbours that this was really not my new job and the pioneering poles pointing skyward...

Then there were the big ones!  Jack Rundle, the eldest son, bought most of the firm’s second hand machinery stocks at auction. Normally business closures or replacement of old machinery.    We even visited schools where woodwork lessons had ceased and machinery had been sold, to Jack.  On one occasion, a team was sent to RAF College Cranwell to remove some machines from a college workshop. Thank y...

The chap with recent new responsibility of dragging the old laundry into a modern age was called “Dusty” Rhodes. His real Christian name defeats me, I probably never ever did know it but he had come to Boston and been employed by the directors of the laundry to make it profitable and more popular! It was located off West Street at the bottom of the short no through road on the West side of the Reg...

An interview at the Firestone factory was arranged for my next day off.  I managed to get a decent “sales car” for that day, one that could get me to London and back, and off I went.  This seemingly simple task took a great deal of engineering as most cars taken as “trade ins” at Stanwell's, had the tax disc removed and the duty left was reclaimed to help cash flow! I was “on my bike” more of...

“You know France well Keith. Would you like to drive for me in the next “Beaujolais Run”?” The question was put to me in late Spring 1987, I was working for the Skegness News at the time and had spent the previous year as their staff photojournalist. Driving was and still is my main lifelong passion. At home here in France today we have six “older” cars on the road plus a 1980 BMW motor cycle and...