strength to heft them into place. The only brawny sort of fellow I knew was swinging gently in the breeze high above the oak tree in the neighbour's garden. This neighbour was on the opposite side of the road from the church and is a non-believer. By elevenses, the driver had texted me to say the last time he did this they hired very large fibreglass panels from Speedy Hire of Birmingham and put one under each wheel. I cycled home and had a look on the internet and started ringing all the hire companies. Eventually I found the very things in Bridgend but they wanted me to open an account. The days when you could pay with real money have gone. Eventually I got them to agree to help us, but I had to pay an enormous deposit lest we broke them or forgot to return them from hire.

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Having made these arrangements I needed a large van and driver. Whilst I am very happy to hire and drive a large van, I'm no good at lifting 8' x 4' panels that weigh 33 kg each into a van. Eventually I had two allies in a van and we sped off to Bridgend, and about an hour later we were back. 

We were very pleased to find the recalcitrant hoist has a built in jack, so with a bit of revving up and twiddling levers we lifted the wheels high enough to slip the fibreglass panels under each wheel and the operator was able to inch forward and round a bit to place his boom against the tower. A sigh of great relief came from above and he sank gently to the ground, got out and rushed to the toilet. It was three hours since he'd been raised up and only the freezing cold had kept his bladder in control.

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By this time the architect, builder, contractor and uncle Tom Bobbly Hat had to be winkled out of the local breakfast bar where they were enjoying bacon, eggs, beans and chips. At lunchtime the sun was shining and we had then raised them heavenward, but only one at a time because that was the limit of the basket. I stayed firmly on the ground, resplendent in yellow jacket and hard hat.

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I don't know whether I should recount their findings. It seems the bit that had fallen off was a quick-fix repair from the 1960s, a sort of Poly-filler sand mix that looked like stone from 27 metres below. The debate then revolved round the method of repair. The builder said he could make a similar 'plastic' compound that would last for the next generation, but the architect said we should cut Portland stone and maintain the materials and methods used in 1899 when the church was built. This is a conservation area and the building is known as Grade 2 Listed, which means a lot of salaried experts in offices decide what should be done.

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The question had arisen about getting a grant for remedial work, and another person rushed home to look into that. If it is an emergency repair it comes under one CADW category, but if it is a full repair, then regulations for listed heritage buildings, worship for the use of, would come into play.

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It was at this point that they found the spire is not original. Would you believe it, no one had noticed until that afternoon that the tower was finished, 'topped-off' and sealed with lead prior to the spire being built. Although the town and church thought it was all done in one step in the year of our Lord 1900, it now transpires that when they got to the end, someone noticed St Augustine's was taller. Rumour has it they went down to the docks and found a wealthy Methodist ship owner who paid for the spire out of petty cash, for which no proper records were kept - but there is clear evidence of the transaction by the existence of a very tall spire. This spire was probably knocked up on the side and made of some sandstone and a lot of bricks covered with a render that makes it look a bit like the proper thing. Everyone has been happy with this for 100 years.

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Our architect advised the repair should be made with the correct sandstone as used in the original construction. We were astonished to find a firm in Cardiff who had the right material and the right skills to make this overnight. The surprise, when we collected the stone, was that seven trucks were queuing to load granite, Portland stone and Bathstone that morning. It is astonishing how many memorials, gravestones, carved stone lintels and bits of spires are bought every day of the week.

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The act of embedding the new stone in the surface of the spire was complex. First an aperture had to be cut, greater than the damaged area, the surface prepared and then the new stone lifted into position. Then there was the science of mortar. CADW aren't too keen on Bostick for these jobs and wanted the craftsmen to copy the ingredients used in 1900. It is surprising what you can find on Google and within an hour the essential lime mortar components, with no modern cements, were being mixed with tap water from the church kitchen. An additive was used, under the watchful eye of the architect, to make this 'go-off' quickly.

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I should at this stage point out that it takes 8 minutes for the cherry picker to hydraulically extend itself to 27 metres and indeed 8 minutes to come down again if you've forgotten anything. By the time the stonemason, the mortar, and the wheelbarrow had been lifted on high, the mix had gone solid. So the slow and laborious task of lowering the apparatus, the mortar and the wheelbarrow was repeated and half an hour later a malleable mix reached the spire and the stone was stuck in place. You may ask why use a wheelbarrow; the answer is that the mix has to be mixed somewhere, and the wheelbarrow was the only suitable container available at the time. 

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It was half past four when the architect finally went up to verify the repair had been completed in accordance with the prescribed method and was lowered later to have a hot drink with the workmen.

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We now come to the yoghurt bit. I was sent to the shops to buy a large tub of yoghurt because there is a trick of the trade yet to be revealed. It seems that if you coat freshly cut bright new sandstone with yoghurt it promotes the process of ageing. The culture encourages lichens and other fungal organisms to develop and it is said the patch will blend in faster this way.

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We thought everything was complete and the team went home leaving the operator and me to get the apparatus out onto the road in readiness for the low-loader to collect our huge cherry picker. Herein lay a snag. The boom is half the length of the church grounds and from its position along the wall of the church it has to be turned at right angles and raised over a gate pillar before proceeding across the road. It would no longer rise. Using the hydraulic jacks to remove the large plates supporting the wheels on the grass, we'd sprung a leak and there appeared to be insufficient hydraulic fluid to lift the boom. Much grunting by the operator did little to improve this and it was now dark and dangerous to cross the road at 1 mph. So we abandoned the exercise for the night and called the hire company to say it was off-hire, and please would they collect.

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To this day you can still see the rectangle of new stone, so the yoghurt culture didn't do the trick.