Rudman's city: Fumbling chimney sweep has brush with danger

By BRIAN RUDMAN

You might have caught sight of the little boy camel racers of Dubai on the box the other night. I sure could have used one up my chimney last Friday.

As anyone with a chimney will know, this is the season when your cheerful sweep rings up to warn of the dire consequences that could descend upon house and hearth if you don't let him up your chimney in a hurry.

The conversation is always the same.

I say it has been only a year since he last did it - maybe I'll leave it until next year. And he goes, "Well, of course, it's up to you," then starts to talk about insurance policy conditions and cold nights.

Before I know it, I'm arranging a visitation. It is usually a 15-minute chore - but not this time.

I first suspected something was amiss when the sweep emerged from the fireplace to ask how he could get on the roof.

Because this is an ancient two-storeyed place, scaling the roof is not a task for the faint-hearted.

I certainly haven't been there for years.

Was it really necessary, I asked, not recalling any other sweep in my 20-plus years in the place making such a request.

"I would really like to," he replied with a sort of steely resolve.

He said he would make the assault from the wet and sloping iron roof of the one-storeyed kitchen extension.

At this stage, I confessed that there was a huge, heavy cedar ladder under the house which reached the roof in one go.

However, it needed two people to lift it - and there lay the problem.

I had what my mother would have called "a shoulder," and didn't really want to risk another month of physio.

I asked again, did he really need to be so thorough? Then he came clean.

His brush had come adrift from the extendable pole and was stuck. He had to go aloft and push it back down.

With that, he clambered atop the kitchen roof and hauled his aluminium ladder up behind him. My contribution was to throw him up some wood to even up the downhill foot.

Hoping against hope that he would chicken out at the last moment, I withdrew inside and pretended it wasn't happening.

I had hardly made it indoors when from above came the awful clatter of tumbling metal.

My visitor from Wellington and I looked at each other aghast, then rushed for the back door.

The garden was free of sweep or ladder. That left the concrete driveway next door.

There, scarred and bent from the fall, lay the ladder. Of the intrepid sweep, there was no sign.

I called nervously after his wellbeing and he stuck his head over the roof parapet to announce the wind had blown his ladder down. Which was rather obvious.

He decided first things first and began probing the chimney from the top while inside our task was to peer skyward for his lost brush.

The probing tool came and went, but of the missing brush, nothing. I even felt around the sooty interior, but still nothing.

Disappointed, he turned his thoughts to getting down.

Calling the fire brigade crossed his mind, but silly me, shoulder and all, volunteered to come to the rescue.

Getting up to the kitchen roof base camp was a doddle. Hauling the ladder up behind me became painful just beyond the point of no return.

Once I had got it up against the main house, its new twists and bends became apparent, especially to the stranded sweep.

For him, coming down suddenly seemed much more perilous than going up.

He had me turn the ladder this way and that, and somehow we both got down. In his relief he promised me a discount.

Me, I was just happy to be down with a shoulder that still worked.

As for the little matter of the lost brush, my man had a last look up the chimney and found its narrow handle propped against the top of the frame of the old metal fire surround.

Was it there all along? It didn't seem the right time to start speculating.