Tuesday 9th June

A good turn out of 9 arrived at M&FM for the evening shift, blessed with clear and sunny weather conditions. A brief power cut throughout the village delayed the re-fuelling of a few work weary bodies for a while with the fish and chip shops fryers and the mess kettle being out of action, but these were soon back up and running, and following the much needed sustenance everyone was fit and eager to go.

The Wickham Trolley was duly laden with an assortment of strimmers, hedge cutter, chainsaw, and other tools, and departed down the line towards Alresford. A first stop was made at Northside View hut to drop off Eddie and Martin W, who had volunteered to finish off the strimming of the undergrowth around the hut.

Then it was off to Alreside hut, where Iain and Tony were dropped off to Creocote stain the outside. 

The Wickham then travelled back up the line to Northside crossing, where Keith B and Keith H were left to cut back undergrowth to improve the sightlines to the crossing for the loco crews, leaving Ian J, John, and Adrian C to travel further up the line to continue strimming around the lineside furniture.

They managed to reach the gradient post near The Grove hut before returning down the line to collect the others.

Following the pick up run at around 7.30pm, the Wickham headed back up the line, stopping in Soak cutting to collect some brash and logs, which were then transported to the Brick Kiln Lane bonfire site on the Alton section and M&FM respectively. A very productive evening as usual.