The 39 steps ...

The British Film Institute (BFI) survey of the top British films of the twentieth century places The 39 Steps (1935) at number 4. The reason I was looking at the list was because steps have been a feature of the last few days on Cracroft Farm. I recalled reading The 39 Steps, a classic novel by John Buchan, and also seeing a movie version, which it turns out was made in 1959. I was surprised to see that the original Alfred Hitchcock version was made in 1935 and that there are at least three remakes (1959, 1978 and 2008).  This continued remaking of the movie gave me a chill of apprehension.

 

I have mentioned before (see “A reversal of roles …”) that I am usually the agent of destruction in the family firm, so I was a little surprised when Cath dismantled a rather poorly constructed existing set of garden stairs at the front of the cottage leaving a steep slope with no safe access. Of course I should have computed that more work was coming, but I was taken completely by surprise when Cath announced that we were going to construct some garden stairs out of treated pine sleepers. 

 

I was a little apprehensive when we left our local hardware store with 3 massive sleepers in the trailer, but we soon got into the swing of things. The particularly fun parts involved using a hair-raising circular saw (rescued from Cath's dad's tool cupboard) and drilling holes in the sleepers with a super-long auger drill bit. Anyway, after some fancy maths from Cath about vertical rise and horizontal distance we built a very nice set of garden stairs which we finished with a covering of “Tas gold fines” – a finely-crushed rock product that has a distinctive gold colour.

During and after construction

At this stage I was quite prepared to sit and admire the stairs for the next few years over many a cold beer and tell tales of their expert construction to all and sundry.  Alas, no sooner had we finished that Cath announced we were going to build another set of stairs on the island (so named because our driveway does a big loop around it) just above the cottage. It was at this point that I started to obsess about remakes of The 39 Steps.

 

So back we went to the hardware store, trailer in tow, to obtain yet more pine sleepers. Once again the end product looks rather nice. Not only do the stairs serve their intended purpose, but they also stop the banks of the island from eroding in heavy rain. This later function is aided by the rocks which now adorn the stairs on either side. 

During and after construction

The construction of the stairs together with the hauling of the rocks – not just for the stairs but also to finish the wall along the bottom of the island (one of the very first jobs we started after arrival),  left us a little exhausted despite the fact that there are considerably less than 39 steps in our constructions.

Yet another delivery of rocks for the wall

I was just starting to relax with an early evening beer, enjoying some respite for my aching body, when Cath breezed up with a sunny smile and said "I am envisaging another set of stairs onto the island just opposite the back deck." I gave a sigh and reached for the red wine ...