Mission accomplished!

Old straw being emptied onto the 'modern waggon'

Yesterday I went out on a mission to take some photos of our local thatchers at work; and I succeeded. As my mother said, thatching is obviously one of those rare 'outside' building trades that doesn't mind being done in the damp! It also seems to be one of the few trades to have changed little since Milly-Molly-Mandy's day,  back in the 1920's. 
The ladders are metal now of course, and the 'wagon' in which the fresh straw arrives, and the old is taken away, is also metal and powered by an engine not a horse; but other than that, the differences are few...

"And then they put one ladder so that they could climb up to the roof, and another ladder with hooks on the end so that they could climb up on the roof... and [Father] and Uncle set to work busily to mend the hole in the thatch as well as they could, till Mr Critch the Thatcher could come."

        -  From 'Milly-Molly-Mandy Helps to Thatch a Roof' by Joyce Lankester Brisley