Ian McMillan: The shed that demolished my high hopes

THE brightness of my wife's voice intended to fool me into a false sense of security. "It won't take very long. It'll probably fall down anyway if we push it..."

I recognised the tone; it was the same one doctors use when they

approach you with something that looks like a meat cleaver in their hands and say, "You may feel a small scratch..."

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

My wife was, of course, referring to The Shed. The Shed in her parents' allotment that had stood there, apparently about to blow down in the slightest breeze, for decades. My mother-in-law was vacating the allotment and The Shed had to come down, and my wife led me to believe that the demolition of the shed would be like pushing over a house of cards.

So, always willing to indulge in a bit of light physical work to help to develop my sixpack, I changed into a pair of artisan's cords and a workman's jumper and joined her and her sister and her sister's two lads in the allotment.

As we approached, I could see the lads heaving on a washing line which was attached to the biggest, most solid shed you've ever seen. It looked built to last. It looked like the Parthenon or the Great Pyramid

of Cheops in that it didn't look like it was going to come down anytime soon. It was a shed in the same way that Buckingham Palace is a compact family home.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The Shed had actually been brought in sections from Cleethorpes many years before, where it had been a holiday bungalow, and it had been transported from the pavement to the allotment on several pairs of roller skates. I pulled on the washing line with the lads. The Shed

moved ever so slightly on its axis, like a water buffalo turning very slowly in a lake. We tried to rock The Shed but it refused, steadfastly, to budge. I sensed that it was laughing at us. "They made things to last in those days," my wife said, helpfully.

We stood looking at it for a while. I don't know about the lads but I was trying to demolish it with the power of my thought waves, to no discernible effect. My wife, ever practical, began to clear stuff from around The Shed in preparation from when it eventually gave up and sat down in pieces.

Before we'd got to the allotment, I'd played a little film in my head of what the demise of The Shed would be like: me and the lads would shove, very slightly, against The Shed's Western Wall, and I would feel my nascent sixpack tighten and sculpt and then someone would shout, like a shantyman or an extra in Titanic: "She's going! I tell you she's going!"

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

We'd step back and The Shed would fold earthwards in a decorous and not-too-mucky cloud of dust. Then it would be cups of tea and biscuits at my mother in law's and the satisfaction of a job well done. Music would swell and my wife and I would exchange a smile. As so often happens, life wasn't the same as a film.

One of the lads picked up a lumphammer and began to batter the side of The Shed. Well, it was a start: if we can't pull it over we'll shatter it. I picked up a smaller hammer and bashed the other wall as hard as I could. Bits flew off and, encouraged, I battered harder until the end of the hammer flew off and described a slow arc in the air and just missed my foot. Still, The Shed was starting to look the worse for wear, as though it had been in a fight. My wife repeated her phrase

about them making things to last in those days and I smiled though lips that were much tighter than my sixpack.

As the afternoon progressed, we gradually wore The Shed down, like a piece of soap wears down in a bathroom. With the aid of the washing line (which my mother-in-law kept referring to as a "rope", perhaps thinking this would strengthen it) and the lumphammer and the hammer with the loose head we chipped away. A wall fell, tumbling like a drunk. Spiders as big as hedgehogs blinked in the unexpected light. I was given a go with the lumphammer and I shattered board after board into firewood. At times, parts of The Shed refused to fall because one long nail was holding the edifice together and then, once the nail had been pulled away or hammered out the falling would be slow and almost sarcastic.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

By the end of the afternoon, though, The Shed was, like the parrot in the Monty Python sketch, a deceased shed. It was no more. It was reduced to its component parts. We sat with our cups of tea and our biscuits, smiling through dusty lips.

And my stomach was killing me. Must have strained it picking up the lumphammer.