The Merry Month : Stone the crows!
Robert Merry, is an independent stone consultant and project manager who ran his own company for 17 years. He also acts as an expert witness. Here he presents his view of the stone industry this month.
Did anyone listen to the excellent BBC Radio 4 Open Country about Devon’s Beer limestone quarry caves? It was a late August broadcast and is still available on the BBC website.
It featured John Scott and Master Mason Peter Dare. John fought to keep the Beer Quarry Caves from being demolished in the 1980s. The knowledge these two men have of the stone and John’s ability to weave a tale at every turn brought the quarry to life over the airwaves and was a joy to listen to.
In one section John explained what he thought were the origins of phrase ‘stone deaf’. Demonstrating on radio using a chisel, the thwang of metal on rock convinced me that quarrymen spending up to 14 hours a day subjected to the noise would probably have gone at least partially deaf.
John’s explanation set me thinking about how many different ways we use stone or rock in the English language; how many words and phrases have seeped into everyday usage from the stone industry.
I thought we should start our own lexicon of stone. When I say ‘we’, of course I mean you and me. Because I hope I will have missed enough phrases for you to send in more, perhaps by email or twitter or post.
But not on a Saturday afternoon. On a Saturday afternoon I’m at football… just a stone’s throw from my house. I appreciate some of you will still have your noses to the grindstone on a Saturday afternoon (I’ve started, by the way).
I often find myself between a rock and a hard place. For example: Do I go to the football and take one of the kids (earning many brownie points with my partner) and indulge in an afternoon of sitting down with a drop of the hard stuff at half time; or do I trudge, unwilling, to the DIY shop to sort out the garden and lose a few stones with the exercise this entails (as well as earning slightly more brownie points with my partner)?
Of course, not going to the football would mean I remain stone cold sober. If I did manage to spend some time in the garden I would leave no stone unturned in my efforts to keep fit and lose a few pounds.
I would be rather pleased with myself and perhaps a little gloating over those who went to the football compared with my physical exertions.
But those who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones and one afternoon in the garden does not excuse several seasons worth of sitting down at 3pm for the best part of two hours. Either way, football or DIY, I end up stony broke.
I reach rock bottom when we lose and it rains. Not only is the football poor, but I couldn’t have been in the garden anyway.
On the other hand, when we win, stone me if I don’t feel fantastic, even if we have won unfairly, conned the ref and had half their team sent off.
I respect the stony-faced stare of the opposition’s manager and the impervious granite features of the referee as they pass the jeering supporters.
Back in the garden, during the summer I fight the urge to leave all to grow over and I think I’ve reached a sort of milestone when the cherry tree begins to bare fruit. You have to be careful not to swallow the endocarp of a drupe (that’s a cherry stone to you and me) when you bite into the juicy fruits.
Of course, I’m a complete and utter stone liar, as I don’t have a cherry tree. But I’m not
stony-hearted (Shakespeare, Henry IV Pt 1 – Falstaff) or as cold as stone (Shakespeare, Henry V – Hostess).
But football is this ‘precious stone set in a silver sea’ (Shakespeare – Richard II) and it does set the heart racing faster than a day in the garden. Leastways for me.
Maybe it is some form of exercise: Rocking up (can I have this one?) at a football match and becoming highly excited, with heart thumping, about a small round object being kicked around a field by 22 grown men.
Could it be the bedrock of a new form of exercise? Stone the crows! I think I’ve got it!
But maybe it’s all rock and roll to you.