Robert Merry, an independent stone consultant and project manager who ran his own company for 17 years and now also runs training courses on project management, gives his personal slant on the stone industry this month.

Once upon a time there was a fishmonger, a fisherman, a merchant seaman, a butcher, a victualler, a couple of policemen and a stonemason.

Let me explain. I was contacted by Mike, who is researching and writing a ‘History of the Buckinghamshire Police Constabulary’. As my grandfather was a police inspector and my dad was a police constable in Buckinghamshire, Mike wanted to know as much about their lives as I could remember.

My Grandad, William, suffered from TB as a teenager. His father, James, had an aunt and uncle who had just returned from New Zealand and intended to move back there to live. They took William with them, as the doctors advised “the air might speed his recovery”.

I was contacted by the relations of my great grandfather’s aunt and uncle in New Zealand, who had been in contact with Mike, and we all exchanged information via email. Grandpa William settled in New Zealand, joined the army and fought in the First World War at the Somme, was injured and then demobbed in the UK and married my grandmother in 1929. They had my Dad, who begat me.

When I visited my Mum, she dug up memories and musty, yellowing photographs of my Grandad, my Dad and her and her family – my Grandpa Fred, a Butcher from Bletchley, who fascinated his small grandson with Saturday morning visits to his butcher’s shop on Buckingham Road and half a thumb. The other half disappeared in the sausage maker in 1964… ”You should have seen the blood when he came home!”. Not a good year for sausages in Bucks.

Among the photos were birth, marriage and death certificates. My Grandma Florence’s father was described as a licensed victualler. He ran a pub.

My great Grandad, James Merry, was variously described as a ‘Fisherman’ on his 1891 marriage certificate to Emma in Grimsby; a ‘Seaman – Merchant Service’ on the 1895 birth certificate of William, my Grandad; a ‘Fishmonger’ on the 1929 marriage certificate of William and Florence; and finally a ‘Farm Labourer’ on his 1918 death certificate, issued in the

‘sub-district of Brackley, in the counties of Northants, Oxon and Bucks’.

It transpires that this side of the Merry family was from Westbury, Buckinghamshire. I assume Brackley was the nearest town with any kind of registrar. I was born and bred in Buckinghamshire, a policeman’s son who accidentally found himself pursuing a career in stone. Much like James, perhaps – my great Grandpa, who started with fish in Grimsby and ended up with pigs in Bucks.

Or so I thought…

In James Merry’s 1918 death certificate, under ‘Fathers Rank or Profession’ it says ‘Stone Mason’.

My great, great Grandpa was a stone man! William Merry, stonemason.

When I told the distant relations in New Zealand, they remembered that several members of their family were stone workers as well. We’re everywhere. The Merry masons. A world-wide brand.

So, on the male side, I am half a policeman, a quarter a butcher, an eighth a fisherman, sailor, fishmonger, a sixteenth a pub landlord (that will be the fondness for alcohol) and one very proud sixteenth a stonemason.

We are what we know, what we’ve learnt, the total of our experiences and our history – until you discover that your history isn’t what you thought it was. I believed I had arrived in this profession by chance. I wonder now which part of me is the stonemason? If my great, great grandfather had been a carpenter the answer would have been simple: the sawdust between the ears!

Robert Merry, MCIOB, ran his own stone company for 17 years and is now an independent Stone Consultant and Project Manager. He also delivers training programmes on all aspects of Estimating and Project Management – details and dates are on his website.

Tel: 0207 502 6353 / 07771 997621