On Fri, 15 Aug 2014 12:39:05 +0100, Stephen Wolstenholme
wrote:


When I was a lad too, and water had to be hand pumped from a well.

When I was a lad I helped to dig the well!

LOL

It's true. My uncle had a farm with a stream running below ground. My
brother and I helped to dig an hole to the stream

I wonder what the chances are of finding people out of newsgroup land
who have dug a well.
Like you I helped Dad dig one in the 1960's when modern appliances
like washing machines and an new indoor bathroom encouraged cleaner
living and threatened to overwhelm the output of our existing Well in
dry periods. It was a long laborious process chipping through
carboniferous sandstone with an Iron bar and shoveling out the loose
rock.Not a deep well at about 4 yards deep and 1 and a half yards
diameter but big enough,the location was in a small disused quarry so
that gave a few yards start into the water table.
Still in use though about 15 years ago the water got tested in
connection with some grant work and a filter system was required as it
contained too much manganese and Iron though it never seemed to do us
any harm though occasionally you got rusty bath water.
Cycling home from school I popped into Octogenarian lady on route who
still had a hand pump on her well supply and pumped her tank full each
day as it was a task she was no longer strong enough to do, in Winter
also banked her Rayburn and placed some fuel to top it up handy.

G.Harman