RESTORING THE LEADER, FODEN NO. 12630

PART ONE

I returned the following weekend with good friends of mine Barry Lucking and Adrian Herbert to prepare the wagon for transporting back to Kent. The first job was to dig it out of the ground and free up the wheels, the front ones moved quite easily and swivelled, the steering box having been removed many years before, but we failed to get the rear wheels to move. The wagon looked as if it was used as a spares department over the years, as the entire tipping body and mechanism were missing, even the riveted chassis brackets and hinges had gone. The steering box, water pump and drive mechanism, water heater and most of the brass had gone. What was left had rusted or rotted with only the rear offside corner of the cab remaining.

At the end of the day, we had removed anything which was likely to fall off and got it ready to move. While working on it, King’s staff told me I could not damage the quite substantial tree that had grown up in front of it and had to miss the toilet