Norman Haddow is a professional dry stane diker who we Canadian wallers are very fond of. He has been coming to this country for the last 9 years bringing his special brand of good cheer and dry stone walling expertise. Each Rocktoberfest he travels here and helps out by instructing a beginners workshop or working with volunteers on a special festival project. Even the name 'Rocktoberfest' was Norman's suggestion for our annual October walling celebration.
It seems every time he comes here he makes new friends, wallers and non-wallers too, who always look forward getting to meet up with him again at subsequent festivals.
Here he is at the 2008 festival teaching a bunch of happy wallers, just one class of many that I'm sure, when he returns to visit these workshop walls, he treasures and remembers each new friend he made there while making the wall. It was his idea to put a bottle containing the names of all the students on a piece of paper in the wall they were building. I would have to go back and take the stones apart to find it to remember all their names.
Here he is again at the 2007 Rocktoberfest with the Ancient Music Trio standing in front of the 'sheep sheer' installation he oversaw the building of during the three days of this event in Garden Hill. He told me he really enjoys having live music playing while he is working. The trio has played for us almost every festival that we've had since 2003 and will again be playing for us on Sunday during our build sessions at Rocktoberfest at Hart House Farm, so I'm sure Norman will once more enjoy his musical walling holiday experience when he gets here.
If you can make it out to this year's event I'm sure you too will enjoy meeting Norman. The festival is at 15911 Creditview Road near Caledon Ontario and runs from October 7th to the 10th
