Profile – David Walmsley
Looking after Letton Hall and running the ministry involves quite a lot of people. The resident team are familiar to many of you as you see them when you visit but there are many others, working in the background, staff, volunteers, trustees and friends, whose commitment and service make your enjoyment of Letton Hall possible. From time to time, we will post a short profile of a member of our team, to introduce them to you and to honour their hard work.
In this blog, we introduce David Walmsley, who first came to work at Letton as a volunteer well over twenty years ago and then was invited to join the staff team. He is now one of our longest serving members of staff! The picture above shows David, fitting a new door frame to the cellars, with our good friend and regular volunteer, John Irwin.
David works at Letton three days a week and his main role is the day to day maintenance of the facilities, making sure everything is working as it should be. On Monday mornings, there is usually a list of repairs to be attended to or problems to solve and, if not, he has plenty of ongoing tasks to work on. On Tuesdays, David often works with our volunteers in the buildings and grounds (there is nothing David likes more than getting out the old grey Ferguson tractor for some work in the woods!) working on a seemingly endless list of projects. A typical Friday would involve helping to set up the buildings and facilities for the enjoyment of our weekend groups.
Although we sometimes have to call in the professionals, there aren’t many tasks that defeat David, who can turn his hands to almost anything and often saves us much unnecessary expense and frustration with his wide experience! Plumbing, woodwork, electrics, motors and machines, drains and gutters, inside and out, all benefit from David’s extensive knowledge and experience. If there are jobs that David is not so keen on doing, it is usually because they involve heights, but he is always happy to hold the ladder for someone else!
David probably knows Letton Hall, inside and out, better than any of us and even turns out on occasions in an emergency to help the resident team prevent a crisis. He is a truly valuable member of our team and always serves willingly and cheerfully. There are not many things that upset David, but we do try to remember to put the tools back where they came from, put the tractor battery back on charge and put two sugars in his tea!
When he is not working at Letton Hall, David is often involved, together with his wife Helen, at Dereham Baptist Church, visiting their growing family or taking care of the grandchildren!
