One of the frequent questions....

I'm often asked:

"How did you end up doing pest control?"

Well here goes.

At the age of six, we had a minor rat problem in the garden. The Local Authority was called in, and when the 'ratman' arrived, I watched him carefully, fascinated by what he was doing.

When he left, I told my mum: "I want to be a ratcatcher".

Honestly. The age of six!

Anyway, I learnt to trap and snare as a child, and loved every minute of it. Each morning, before setting off for the one and a half mile walk to the school bus, I'd be off with the dog to check my trapline. I became quite proficient at catching squirrels and moles, but I really enjoyed ferretting rats for my terrier.

When the time came to leave school, I was aware that proper pest control wasn't available to me. I plumped for what I thought was the next best thing; gamekeeping.

At seventeen, I left my keepering job (under a bit of a cloud) and decided to become self employed. Pest control was what I really wanted to do, but I really needed money as well, so I went labouring for a builder while I built up the pest control work.

I struck lucky fairly quickly. Because of my shooting connections, I was asked to clear up some rats on the (big) local shoot. I did a good job, and as a result, I was offered the chance to take on the whole estate. I did all the farms for rats, poisoned the moles on a thousand acres of cutting grass and controlled rabbits and squirrels in the forestry.

As the years progressed, the business grew and we also took on 90 acres of farmland on a share farming deal. The two businesses were too much, even for a workaholic, and we left the farm. At the same time, my part time technician came into some money, so we also parted company with the pest control business.

I was then working for MAFF on the wildlife unit. At the end of Foot and Mouth in 2001, I parted company with the government and started looking for something else. Pest control seemed to flow through my veins, so I took a job as a 'Wildlife Technician' with a national pest control company.

A rapid rise through the ranks ended up with my resigning as Regional Manager, in favour of a 'promotion' to General Manager for another much smaller pest control company.

We parted company in February of this year, and the rest, as they say, is history.....

Westcountry Environmental Services was born!

Have Strimmer will travel.........

It's been a busy couple of days for me, as I promised to strim the grounds of our village hall earlier this week.

Unlike many larger villages, we've still got our original hall which was built before WW1, and used as a hospital during the first world war. Although I'm impressed by some of the newer village halls, it is nice to still have the original in our little village.

Around the back of the hall wild garlic is everywhere, with the result that I now smell like a french onion seller!

My old strimmer is back in full working order after a good service; although I was a bit shocked at the £65 bill at first, it's not been serviced for several years, so I suppose it's about right. The old girl is now running like a dream.

The machine itself is quite old. When I was approaching my twenty-first birthday, my old mum asked me what I'd like as a present. "A brushcutter please" was my characteristic reply, and the machine was obtained secondhand. I'm not sure of it's vintage, but it's at least twenty years old, and owes me nothing.

As I stimmed away at the hall, I thought of times past, and wondered how jobs like that were done in the pre-strimmer days. I guess some poor old sod had to hack away with a hook - not a job to be relished. Aren't we lucky to have the machines and gadgets we have now?