Jon Lad

So are Workware the manufacturer then or the wholesaler?

He has other businesses though not just tree work, he's a switched on bloke.

Great summer, hard winter, lots of large live elms to climb, awful expensive beer, some v. fit women, branches thick with lichens, climbing ropes freezing so its like climbing on cable, carburettors icing up on 020's, being able to go swimming in the summer right in the centre of Stockholm the waters that clean, friendly people interested in what you do. Good country to work in for change. That was in 97-98, it might be different now, but not that much I bet.

I pass on enquiries from areas I don't cover, but I've been caught out before when I've recommended someone else when I was stacked out and the customer wouldn't wait. The person I put them onto either arranged to go to look at the job and then didn't turn up or did the job and they weren't happy with it. Which left them thinking badly of me when I hadn't even done the bloody job! So I'm more careful now who I recommend. I don't know much about Harrogate firms, I used to do some work years ago for Andrew Cook at Aspect Forestry and he's a good bloke to deal with.

Who makes the tripod ladders you sell?

He was working on Spofforth Hill the other day, one of the lads I was working with that day was in the truck when we drove past. It was a landy and chipper (chip flying everywhere but in the box!) and he said he'd seen them before and that it was some bloke who was was an ambulanceman and did trees on his off days. Where's he based then?

In the area that I cover, there are a number of competitors. Some are local while others are from much further away. Many are like myself and solely do general tree work, some are large firms others small. There are some who are landscapers who do tree work as well, or gardeners who also do trees and hedges to a limited extent. These are the competition and I'm sure other members all over the country have similar competitors as these. All quoting against each other for the work which comes up in their area, but competing on a relatively level playing field. I was wondering if any other members find themselves quoting against policemen; firemen; ambulance personnel or similar, doing tree work on their days off. And how difficult it is to compete with them on price, as effectively their wage / salary subsidises the prices they can give. I know the arguments about convincing people to use qualified arborists, checking that the contractor has adequate insurance etc. But there are many customers, whose sole method of selection for who gets the job is price. Does anyone else come up against this problem?

Yes thats it. They're the ones that had the stand at Tatton. Thanks for that pal.

I would have thought so. I don't think Workware would promote them if they weren't. But I'll have to check that out. The ones I saw at Tatton didn't look like something Billy and his mate had put together up at the farm.

Are they same ones that Workware are advertising?

My missus ordered it at the butchers yesterday. 2lb chicken and ham, topped with stuffing and cranberry jelly. Collect it on Christmas Eve. Vokes Pies from Whixley nr York, not fat or crap meat in them.

I received a leaflet from Workware in Cumbria the other week advertising tripod stepladders. I saw them at the RHS show at Tatton Park 2 years ago and was hoping to have another look at them this year. But the company didn't have a stand there this time round. They were Japanese and seemed really well made, good welding etc, and well designed, independently adjustable legs for uneven ground and were very lightweight. I have a few sets of Ramsay stepladders for smaller hedges etc, but they are getting pretty battered now and need replacing over the next few months, before hedging really kicks off again in the Spring. I was wondering if anyone had a set and how they compared to ordinairy steps.

Felling licences are basically to control the felling of growing trees in quantity. They are not required for the removal of smaller trees or low numbers of large trees. You do not need a felling licence to: fell a tree with a dbh <8cm; fell a tree with a dbh of 10cm or less if the work is carried out to improve the growth of other trees or a tree with a dbh of 15cm or less if it is a coppice stool. A licence is not required when the total volume of timber felled in a calendar quarter by that person is not >5 cubic metres and the total volume sold in any calendar quarter by that person (before or after felling) is not >2 cubic metres. The calendar quarters are the terms beginning Jan 1st, April 1st, July 1st and Oct 1st. You do not need a licence to fell fruit trees or trees standing or growing on land comprised in an orchard; garden; churchyard or public open space. A felling licence is not needed to carry out any felling for the prevention of danger. But you would need good evidence of the danger posed by the trees. You do not need a felling licence for felling which is immediately required to carry out development which has full planning permission. Or to fell an elm which is diseased to the extent that the larger portion of the crown is dead. A felling licence is not needed to fell trees on land owned by a statutory undertaker, where the trees are obstructing construction works needed for the purposes of the undertaker or which are interfering with maintenance or operation of the statutory undertaker. Statutory undertakers are such things as: railways; roads; canals; docks; rivers; gas / electric companies; airports; phone companies etc.

Did it smell as good as it looks in that kitchen Cousin Jack?

The bloke who taught me to climb when I started in tree work, drilled it into me about not leaving pegs or dead stubs. He told me he had been on a job once, where a climber was doing some work in a large spreading oak. He was coming back in from the end of a limb he'd been pruning, fell and swung a hell of a way straight into the main stem. He hadn't been able to turn his body and get his feet up to brace against the impact and impaled himself in his lower back, on one of those short, really strong and sharp bits of deadwood you get on oak. It did a lot of damage internally and the lad never climbed again after that.

What gets me is that most people don't even slow down when they drive past you, no matter how many signs or cones you put out, or how restricted the road is when your working on it with truck, chipper etc.

There are lots in Stockholm I remember, some huge ones. I think the winters there are too cold for the beetle to travel too far up the country.

Now that is funny! Not at the time though I bet.

I wasn't saying that it doesn't need as much as any other trade, I'm sure it's highly skilled. Just that alot of colleges that were traditionally strong on arb have started alot of courses which require alot less staff; equipment; organization etc at the expense of arboricultural courses which do.

A mate of mine went to do a job one morning. The back garden was littered in dog cakka. He knocked on the back door and told the customer they couldn't do the job with all the messages his pooch had left for them. The bloke gets really apologetic and flustered, and comes out in his business suit. He keeps saying sorry and starts picking up all the crap, old and new, off the lawn WITH HIS BARE HANDS and chucking it onto the flower beds! My mate Rich said he almost spewed.

Does anyone else get this. You go to look at / do a job. The customer takes you through into the garden, absolutley riddled with dog eggs everywhere and says something like, "I'm sorry about this, I haven't been out to clean up out here yet" As though it has all appeared overnight. I'm thinking to myself "What since the dog was born you mean?" I just can't believe the number of gardens, sometimes at mega properties, I've been to that were just private dog toilets. And they expect you just to accept it.

I often wonder how many of the people who were on my course at Merrist Wood and left in '97 are in the industry today.

If colleges had better selection processes, you would have smaller numbers enrolled, better staff to student ratios, more practical experience and better trained people coming out the other end. This would mean that the qualification you earned, would be more respected in the industry. What has happened is that higher education has become an industry in itself. Colleges accept as many students as they can on all kinds of mickey mouse courses, dog & cat grooming etc, to get as much money as they can. This means that those students lose out, who are really committed to getting the qualification and learning as much as they can that will be of use to them when they are in tree work for real.

You should have to have worked a minimum of 12 months for a firm, recognized by the college, before you are allowed onto an arb course. This would immediately knock out all the time wasters who think ''it sounds like a cool job'', those who are scared of heights and wait until they are enrolled on a practical arboricultural course to find this out! And those who just aren't cut out for the physically and mentally challenging occupation, in all weathers, that tree work is.

I have read where the ups and downs of elms in this country go back to the Neolithic . There were outbreaks of DED here in the 1830's and 40's and in the 1920's and 30's. However the globalisation of plant diseases may mean that the fungus mutates and becomes a more virulent form which affects elms every few years, rather than every thousand years as it used to. I can't see elms becoming extinct, hedgerows are full of them, but we may lose nearly all the big elms.