The Corrugated Iron Club

I am rescuing a tin shed in the garden. It clearly has military origins. Visitors have commented that it looks like an Anderson Shelter, but the curve of its roof is gentler, more like part of a Nissen Hut. The corrugated iron, which has iron cleats riveted to it, is of such a heavy gauge that it has survived years of neglect and weighs a ton. Wire-brushed and freshly coated with bituminous paint, it looks as good as new.

One of the problems was the redundant holes punched by nails for some previous existence. Then I remembered the stories about pilots repairing bullet holes in their petrol tanks with chewing gum, so I have been standing behind my shed, masticating. The cows chewing ruminatively on the other side of the fence seemed untroubled by this, and I wondered briefly if there weren't some way I could get them to do my gum chewing for me. Anyway, the gum trick works a treat; it moulds to shape, sets like concrete and paints over nicely.

I also had to rebuild the back, because that had the rear end of a WWII ambulance embedded in it, which had mostly rusted away.

One of our other sheds is also corrugated iron. Last summer a pair of elderly ramblers stopped to chat. He was a Welshman, and remarked that it put him in mind of a tin tabernacle or mission hall, and suddenly I knew what it had always reminded me of.

I could become an enthusiast for tin sheds, and I would not be alone. I've just found an old web site belonging to the endearingly named Corrugated Iron Club. Only they wittily write it like this: