Stig of The Dump.

Sixteen years ago when we moved here, we had to travel four miles to the nearest coup to dispose of any waste material or rubbish we didn't want. Having lived for almost twenty years in our previous home, and bearing in mind I was a bit of a squirrel, we had accumulated a fair amount of items we no longer required. On my husband's first visit to the coup he was met by a posse of unofficial coup-rakers, who led interesting lives re-arranging the waste material into various areas...household furniture, clothing, toys and tools etc. Anyone who came to the coup to dump their waste was asked if they were interested in any of the "finds". In effect, these men were like an original recycling group.

Our twenty-year-old suite badly needed a face-lift, but after doing our homework we discovered it was actually cheaper to buy a new one, than foot the bill for re-upholstery. When my husband, unshaven, wearing his shabby, filthy garden clothes and looking none too clean having been down the crater for most of the morning, delivered our old suite to the coup, he was met by the head of the coup-rakers, who delegated two underlings to carry it over to the furniture pile. Taking one look at my husband and the state he was in, and having just seen him deliver a very old, tatty suite, the head man obviously thought him to be some kind of tramp, and asked my husband if he could interest him in some decent-looking carpets. After slipping a few pounds to the gaffer, my husband, pleased with his "find", drove towards Barleycorn with the roof-rack and the boot piled high with smelly old carpets.