Dispatches

Failing to Repoint the Bricks each Year ~ Calamity Guaranteed

May 2026

We do not always repint with cement

The drystone Cotswold Stone Wall is built by hand, each stone placed as a jigsaw piece, perfectly suited to fit *only* the position it is allocated.
All hold each together. When storm loosens an individual stone, then the task of the stone mason is to perfectly repoint that part.
Here is the very essence of life in Cotswold. And this wall, that I have known almost my entire life, is also an example where repointing conventionally is seen, both ancient disciplines hand-in-glove when we observe the lower foundation of this section four foundation layers, the lower part of the fifth foundation repointed, and the upper part of the same level then neatly dovetailing in what I term *air-pointing*. But that of course is just me. This wall is over four hundred yards long (376 metres) and it is mightily impressive and an incredible windbreak, and rainbreak. Here is just one of the *Signatures* of Cotswold. KW

Introduction

ANY builder will emphasise the importance of regularly repointing the wall. We clear from the cement that holds together our bricks, weeds, and cement afresh any area where old cement is weakening or crumbling. Up and down the country, anywhere in the world, we see the result if this simple principle is not applied.

I apply this useful allegory to everything I am involved in. Things in the garden, books on my desk, work I am writing. I learned this many decades ago, when visiting family and seeing work being done on what looked, to me, to be a very sound corner of my elder sister and brother-in-law’s Nineteenth Century cottage, Roger replying from atop the ladder “… yep, I’ll be down shortly. Repointing the bricks.”

I went inside. Carol, Rog is repointing the bricks. What exactly is that? Carol smiled, and later, over tea, we talked about this phrase “repointing the bricks.” It became from then on, one of the foundation stones for me, and I’ve always used this allegory, in the police force, then the legal profession, and especially so in my RAF VR service. We are always imaginative. And it does not take long to envisage a disregarded wall eventually succumbing to the Elements.

Nature Advances

Nature advances,
When structures magnificent
Unattended,
Ignored,
Not repointed afresh,
Crack, Crumble and Collapse.
Vigilance is our Watchword.
We follow this, and Nature will
Abound in abundance
And *always* to our benefit.

A Whisper…

Remember, I was here before you
And out of me, have you sprung
And to me you will return.

Hearken well. For even if civilisation
Itself Cracks, Crumbles and Collapses,
I, Nature, remain Supreme
And this Planet will move
To our Next Life Phase.

© 11 May 2026 Kenneth Thomas Webb
Wythenshawe and Gloucestershire

One

Now 73, I enjoy research and working on this website. Long hours at the desk are rewarded by long hours out and about, driving the length and breadth of the country, weekly journeys to Cheshire and Lancashire, the occasional slip into my city Liverpool, trains, buses and taxis. All enable me my freedom.

An active retirement brings with it the chance to do some of the things that a very active working life proffered but which I could not maintain, not in full employment. There comes a time when the frame within which I dwell suggests a slower pace, a gentler approach. My friend R.S. in Germany is of like-mind. We have both discovered one physical drawback. I put it like this as a simple way to explain, tongue-in-cheek, because I try not to take life too seriously:

Well, Rita. As you know, once upon a time I rode to Dressage, today yes, I could I think mount my horse, settle into my saddle, yet no sooner am I saying to myself ah, this is good…than I fall promptly off the other side! My horse ~ La Roche ‘Rocka’ a gorgeous Grey, quietly bends her neck, looks back and down… See? I’m right. You cannot just take up where you left off when the gap is three decades! …followed by a snort of approval and sense of comedy, and then that nuzzle that says, come on, get up! But act your age!!

*La Roche in 1973 upon Aggs Hill above Cheltenham on the edge of the Cotswold Escarpment. What days these were. KTW (20)*

Two

It is an extraordinary thing to find, in Britain, that no matter what time of the day or night, to switch on the BBC News 24/7 has the immediate distasteful sight of a fake tan holding court in an oval shaped room, from behind an enormous desk that once upon a time was highly respected, and testimony to a Nation’s uprightness.

But no one has ever done what I’m now doing. No president has ever achieved what I am achieving, you boo-di-fullll peeeple.

That is a paraphrase of a man of limited vocabulary, an absence of national and international history, a man who has in just 339 days

· hollowed out the American Constitution

· put to flight the principle of the Rule of Law

· waged war when there has been no cause to wage war

· allied himself to a man intent upon destroying the international rules based order in place since the end of the Second World War

· denigrated NATO

· denigrated his European Allies

· denigrated the sovereign nation of Ukraine

· withdrawn military support for Ukraine

· done everything in his power to give Russia the advantage, despite being the aggressor

· reminded everyone in that horrid little room that American presidents have confirmed that they’re in full support of his war in Iran

· reminding them also that this is the view of King Charles III

· reminding them too that ‘luverly Cuba’ is next on his list ~ I might take it over myself…

And so he prattles on.

The greatest generation has gone. Can one imagine President Eisenhower dealing with this five times draft dodger? No. And I can remember President Eisenhower. My parents made sure that I knew I was looking at the former Supreme Allied Commander Europe in the War they had just come through.

Can one imagine Churchill’s former military aide during six years of war, General Lord Hastings Ismay and first NATO Secretary-General calling President Truman “daddy”?

President Dwight D Eisenhower

34th President of the USA serving two terms between 20 January 1953-20 January 1961

When Grandad chauffered General Ismay in 1943 in Cheltenham - a frequent visitor to his Canadian Cousin Miss Bellhouse at Cotswold Grange to whom my family were in service, my father reminded me several times over a lifetime of Ismay’s words to his father …

“Horace, I’m so sorry to learn about the loss of your son Ken. How’s Mrs Webb? And how are Arthur and Desmond fairing up?”

— As quoted by my father Desmond Webb

General Hastings Ismay, 1st Baron and First NATO Secretary General **KG, GCB, CH, DSO, PC, DL**

In uniform, this is how my Grandfather Horace Webb would have most often seen General Ismay. KW

These are the measures of leadership. It has nothing to do with TV celebrity status or how many social media hits one can claim, or how many things have “gone viral”.

Only the American people can resolve the situation. Do the majority of them measure up to the greatest generation? If they do, they will. If not, then America will slide further down an ever steepening gradient, and recovery - and recover they will - will take the remainder of the twenty-first century.

And at Home? Here, in the United Kingdom?

Well, this is our immediate task. Let us follow wise counsel. Let us step back from the fray. Let us not be persuaded by angry politicians, news presenters and media authorities. Listen, of course. But hold counsel to oneself. Remain silent. Keep one’s counsel. Let us show the generation who must shoulder the burden of this twenty-first century from hereon right through to it rolling into the twenty-second century. What did He say? Let your right hand know not what your left hand is doing. And in another place, When you pray, go to that most secret place.

We can do it. Our young people can do it. Let us hold fast to that which is good. Let us recall that wonderful but all-too-brief encounter on the road to Emmaus. When they were suddenly alone and the reality of Whom they had been having an extremely heated debate… But did not our hearts burn within us? Come! We must go to Jerusalem, now. And report that we have seen Him. He IS alive.

Three

An important Footnote in the words of Edith Brill, that amazing Cotsaller writing Cotswold for the Curious (formerly published as Minor Pleasures of Cotswold in 1971).

DRYSTONE WALLING

It would be absurd to say that one poor stone could ruin a wall but careful choice of the stones to be used is essential.

After a few inches of soil have been dug to make a bed a foundation of large blocks is laid. Then comes the gradual building up as each stone is roughly shaped with a heavy boat-shaped hammer - a tool made specially for the job - and then fitted into place, with larger stones at intervals to assist the locking-in process which keeps the wall together. The stone should be quarried in the right season and then laid on the wall in the same way as it was laid down in the quarry, otherwise it will flake and crumble after frost, as many an amateur building terrace walls for his garden has discovered.

Different districts show variations in the pattern of their walls and the walls around gardens of big houses are sometimes dressed more neatly and laid in even courses. The traditional finish is by toppers, that is large stones laid on edge, often slanting a little, but sometimes dressed stones would be laid flat, so this requires more time in selecting and handling and is seldom used for field walls. Where a wall comes to a gate the stones have to be chosen and shaped so as to fit tightly into each other to give an extra stability and a neat finish that will leave no gaps between wall and gate-post.

The modern finish is a rounded coping of mortar along the top or the toppers inserted in a bed of cement to prevent vandals pushing the stones out of place. In the old days this kind of useless destruction was rarely seen.

One of the pleasures of a good piece of dry stonewalling is the way the grey stone makes a background for the wayside wild flowers that flourish in a limestone root-hold.