The Man in the Wood

The man is Keith who owns part of a wood near Scarborough. Martin and Lindsey met him first as a builders assistant when they were having so much work done on their new house. They have become quite friendly with him. Martin spent a long weekend with him at the Woodland Gathering in Wiltshire earlier this year. Keith has let Martin have a small area of his wood for den making etc.

Having now spent most of a day with Keith I can say he is a fascinating man with many interests. He has built a quite amazing camp in the wood and apparently spends many hours there. A former potter he is now semi retired just doing odd jobs on a part time basis.

His camp is spread over  an acre or so. All  the materials apart from timber have been scrounged, largely from discarded items thrown away as worn out or broken.  He has a cabin built from an old box trailer with an extension for sleeping area. This has the sort of kitchen one  might find in an old fashioned gypsy caravan. His one concession to modernity being a camping gas type ring. Just as in gypsy caravans there a lots of nooks and crannies. The cabin is equipped with a wood burning stove with a home built oven attached. The cabin looks out onto a bird table and feeder

We spent most of our time in cabin two which is larger, has rescue furniture such as old conservatory furniture just seating the seven of us. plus an open wood fire. This cabin has a home built fire place ( which backs onto a home built pottery kiln ) but is otherwise made from rescue materials. In this cabin we had a soup and bacon sandwich lunch heated over the fire. The children then toasted marshmallows while we had biscuits as dessert. We also had coffee but cheated by boiling the kettle on the gas ring in cabin one.

Keith also has a converted summer house complete with roof tip viewing area on the edge of the wood looking out over open fields. From this vantage point he can watch various birds and animals including foxes and deer.

 Inevitably there are projects under way. One such is fixing a small circular saw and its stand

This by no means completes his constructions as he has a home built garage housing an old dumper truck and trailer; a shed housing a generator, a very large wood pile and much more. The dumper truck dates from the late fifties/ early sixties judging from its Petter diesel engine. The garage features half open sides and a thatched roof. Among the more bizarre constructions is a platform which apparently houses a concert by a guitarist relative. Apparently they play at the annual party in the wood hosted by Keith. 

This description doesn’t do justice to the wonderful collection of found objects decorating the cabins. This excepts the summerhouse viewer which contains pictures painted by Keith. These are largely forestry and rural scenes and seemed very good. One had pottery leaves.

Alex and Ellen loved the camp. Although cold, windy and showery they spent most of the time roaming around. Keith has an old ride on mower which we didn’t see but apparently Alex likes to drive. My feeling was that this is a paradise for children with even a modest interest in nature. The dumper truck is a bit too fierce for Alex to drive as yet.

There are other camps in the wood although all were unoccupied when we visited. One had a virtually complete small sawmill.

Although Keith is married with a grown up daughter he apparently spends many weekends working on his camp or communing with nature. Despite his annual party I got the impression he enjoyed being solitary or at most having a few folks around.

A level single track led to the site but turning at the end did pose a small problem. On a wet day we only suffered wheelspin once while manoeuvring.