Now you might think this is a little strange but apart from being in the Corrugated Iron appreciation group on Facebook, 45k members and growing believe it or not, I have recently joined the UK Brickworks and Brickworks Past group, and have not regretted either.

Corrugated Iron is of course a favourite subject of mine when it comes to photography, it degrades beautifully and is in my view capable of being part of a fine work of art. I seek it out on my walks and discovering it can make my day, or my week even.

My experience with bricks is slightly different. In the past we had a ‘town garden’, long and narrow and we restored the garden as best we could to its former glory. The bottom half of this garden had been used for parking cars and had a layer of shingle over the bricks that had been a beautiful brick wall. We found these bricks under the shingle when Dave Damsel the Digger Driver came to help us restore the area. Dozens of these what may well have been regency bricks were recovered and I carefully stacked them. I couldn’t use them to rebuild the big garden wall, the brickies who came and did it for us used new bricks. I decided to build low garden walls with my collection with raised beds here and there as well as using quite a few of them for a herringbone garden path. The path was relatively easy to construct, no mortar necessary, but the walls were another question. It took me a while to get it to work properly. Someone said that if I ever built a garage I’d need a rubber car. Straight lines seemed to escape me. I preferred to call it ‘rustic’ which covered a fair few mistakes. A little like when I put up a shelf, it’s visually straight rather than actually straight, I’m not allowed to do it any more.

The resulting garden was, thanks to some fine planting by her ladyship, and Dave the Digger Driver’s handywork, a joy to behold. It even had a ‘Japanese Style’ pond in the middle made from old railway sleepers and cheap paving slabs painted black.

In my enthusiasm for the garden wall building I ran out of my home supply of bricks, but found a place on the edge of Gloucester where they had collections of old bricks ( as well as hundreds of windows and frames) and they let me choose what I wanted. I’d buy a boot full at a time, just enough so that the front wheels of my car stayed on the road, though steering was a little on the light side.

So I’ve experienced good times with bricks. When I joined the group very recently, I started getting the postings. People collect bricks like others collect stamps. I bet you didn’t know that the Accrington Nori is a rare brick? Well you do now. There are over 14 k members of this group, all looking out for and some collecting bricks, there’s nothing quite like the unlikely enthusiasm of looking at old bricks, it’s what made this country. Where on earth do they keep them? Perhaps they build a display wall with them though that’s unlikely as it would hide the name.

I’ve been made very welcome and one message simply said “ Welcome to Brick World” , which I thought would be a great title for a glossy top shelf magazine, just one letter away from porno.

I asked if anyone knew of old factories in the Gloucester area and was advised that there is an existing brick company that had a contract to supply millions of bricks for the restoration of the old Battersea Power Station , now a massive shopping complex. Brick Universe.

Take a look here

And Dimmelsdale Freight? Not a brick, a person, and someone who is a fine member of this laudable group. You could not make it up could you? Or perhaps he did.