Our ancestral trade, our century-old roots lie in timber.
This is where I would like to stress the fact that this is my story, with my understanding and memories of what has passed. There are as many stories and truths as there are living beings. What is more, these truths are subject to change at each instant.
According to the story that I was told, in the 1940s my grandfather, who was then a farmer, began diversifying his purely agricultural activities to include working not only with the resources of the land through fields and livestock, but with forest resources, too.
That made quite a bit of sense in the tough years that followed World War II, all the more so in the case of the patriarch of a large family (fifteen children) in a small Ardennes village.
As the story goes, my grandfather Georges began his timber business by buying conifers, first from properties near the family farm. The trees were felled by hand, by tree fellers using saws, then delimbed with a barking spade, after which the timber was hauled to the roadside by draught horses.
The first lorries – Ford Canadas – were winch loaded and came on the scene after hay trailers, which I suppose served to transport the wood the first few years.
The tree-length logs were taken to my grandparents’ property in Grandmenil in the beginning, before the place in Manhay – called “the station” because it was the former local light train station – was colonised by Georges and his cronies.
The softwood standards were then crosscut into shortwood of various lengths and sold according to demand.
So, as the eldest of my grandfather’s granddaughters, I inherited the profession of timber merchant after that of farmer.
I never thought that timber would be my life or my calling, nor do I think that that happened by chance. Life may have held the surprise of this speciality, in which I gradually became an expert, in reserve for me.
Having said that, the smell of timber has been a constant companion, accompanying my steps every day from one season to the next.
The stacks of wood were of course off limits to my sisters and me. We were barely allowed to go beyond the fence of the family property, except on Sundays when, in principle, no lorries or what my mother considered to be dangerous machines were operating in the area.
However, even on Sundays, climbing on the stacks of wood, even getting close to them, was explicitly forbidden.
Of course, this only made them even more attractive!
Here I should like to pay tribute to my dear paternal grandmother, Bertha, who passed away this year (2023) on Saint Valentine’s Day. Indeed, this great lady, whom we called “Marraine” (godmother), gave birth to fifteen children in fifteen years and raised them quite alone the best she could, without losing a single one along the way!
