Tinkle Tinkle

Victorian hand floated glass, in all of its beauty and fragility, does make a lovely tinkling sound when cascading down a stairwell.

This was the unfortunate consequence of my attempt to ease open the large stained glass skylight hatch, high up in the ceiling, with the clumpy rubber foot of my aluminium ladders. It was a second attempt over the course of 4 days.

The first attempt, was always doomed to failure. It was, after all, the last job of the day on a friday and as everyone knows. but may not admit to it, there is a natural relaxation of endeavour, commitment and energy at such a time. My Father always attributed something of poor quality or reliability to the mentality of a  friday afternoon assembly line, particularly things like a car built by the old State owned British Leyland.

The inspection of a roofspace is always the final stage of my typical survey work on a house. I look forward to it because the roof void cannot lie, or in other terms, it is often the only original part of a property and always has a tale to tell, unless of course it has been converted into living space, a gymnasium, a sauna, a repository for pornographic magazines or a hydroponic paradise for the cultivation of cannabis. It continues to surprise me that when enquiring of a homeowner of any particular tricks or traits of the access to a roofspace they admit to never having been up there. Every hatch, trap door, opening and wriggle space are different. I never take them for granted and approach each carefully in case I am confronted by a shower of granular insulation, the aggressive attack by a sliding loft ladder, a cascade of dead insects or a dense mist of centuries-old dirt and grime. Loft spaces have revealed a lot of interesting things. A cane wheeled bicycle, a few mannequins, a diary documenting a clandestine relationship between a woman and her brother in law, vintage bottles of wine, archived newspapers, the initials of builders etched into the chimney breast and the date when they worked on bomb damage or re-roofing, discarded vinyl records and many an old steamer trunk that I dare not open to reveal its secrets.

I did not hold out for much with this new adversary of a skylight. It had been concealed for perhaps 15 or 20 years by a suspended/false ceiling. It would originally have streamed coloured light onto the otherwise darkened stairwell and landing from a glass slate in the main roof slope giving a mysterious and soporific effect. It was wholly redundant for that purpose. The suspended ceiling was one of those types salvaged from a 1970's office building and so much out of place in a house. A light metal framework, part supported on wall brackets and wire hangers held in place the large rectangular panels of what may have been a thermo-acoustic material but was, to my mind, just above a thick cardboard, Over the years the material had become brittle and corner sections had snapped off, only to be repositioned like a last, forced jigsaw puzzle piece.

I had asked the homeowners if I could move one of the ceiling panels to try to get to the old skylight which was yet another metre or so higher. Although gossamer light the panel was awkward to ease out of the metal runners and had to be carefully slid back over its neighbours. The grating sound was, I subsequently saw, the friction between the fibrous panel and the petrified droppings of many a large rodent which covered the upper surfaces of the ceiling. It resembled the aftermath of an explosion in a raisin packing plant. I regretted not putting on my Miami CSi latex gloves, safety goggles and facemask at this stage.

I had a better, but not clear view now of the old skylight. A typical example being, in old measurements, a yard and a half in length and a yard wide. The stained glass was dull and lifeless with no backlighting but I could make out the cobalt blue, deep reds with Yorkshire Rose etched motif and a myriad of exotic colours. My ladders in hinged step mode were no way high enough to reach the skylight to see if it would move. Extending the ladders to their full 15 foot height was going to be a challenge in the confined space of the landing, amongst a lot of personal effects, under the claustrophobic former high tech false ceiling and now with an audience composed of the house occupants who had been drawn to the noise of my performance so far.

In contempt of the best safety guidance for ladder work I angled them precariously over the deep stairwell and with the top just about making contact with the recess of the skylight opening. I gave a final push to try to dislodge the skylight and there ensued the sickening sound of breaking glass and a shower of sparkling and melodious shards around me and down the stairs. Fortunately, the family gathering had dispersed out of boredom and I escaped a legal action for potential maiming injuries from the lethal shower.

The hatch was hinged and the next critical stage would be as it rose up, over and fell down in the open position. The thickness of loft insulation cushioned potential for more damage. Now fully inserted into the darkness of the loft the ladder developed a worrying wobble. Health magazines made a useful wedge under the slightly higher leg. It was difficult to progress up the inclined rungs especially with a crowbar in one hand and a torch in the other but I made it to the top and made a few mental notes with which to provide comments in my report.

On reflection and although a difficult exercise I was not prepared for what was required to close up the hatch and make good the fairly extensive damage and disarray I had caused so far. The ladders were tight up against the hinged side of the skylight and although in reach their pressure on the woodwork prevented any movement.

I retreated to the landing to take stock and work out what to do to just get out of there. It was turning into something of an audition for the Krypton Factor and I was running out of time. It took me another 30 minutes to finally refix the last of the false panels and in a hot, sweaty and exhausted state I was at last out of the door and into the street. In slight panic I thought that I had left my torch in the roofspace but it was found lurking in my deepest coat pocket. I would be quite happy to have left it there as a warning to others finding themselves in the same horrible situation.