A couple of years after the war when I was five or so my uncle, a slater, used to take me around to help with roof repairs. Most of these were cracked slates due to returning AA fragments. Getting the ladders up and over the eaves was a long and fiddly job so my contribution was to assess where the cracked slates were.
Method one was to throw me into the loft where I would stumble amongst the joists and the water tanks assessing where the daylight was invading. In some streets the loft went all the way down the road, there being no partition walls.
Method two was where he knocked on the door of the house opposite and I would be dispatched up to the front bedroom to look along the suspect pitch. Occasionally I would observe from the rear bedroom on the next street.
Some times the front bed was strangely warm.
I would be up the top passing slates and on one occasion we were one short. Instead of sending me off to get another one my uncle leaned over to the next roof, ripped a slate off, and used it with the statement that they would be calling him up next week.
Last edited by Fareastdriver; 23rd Jan 2015 at 13:09.