Gently does it: the crane that put a hot tub over a house

Every job starts with a phone call and a drive across town. Pick where to set the crane up (the near spot is often soft grass, the firm one further away), then put her legs down: the beams slide out, and on soft ground you lay a timber mat under each foot or she sinks and leans. Hold to jack her up and let go just as the tyres leave the ground. Then the counterweight: turn the wheel until the load chart’s dial is happy, but no more, because every block costs hire.

Then the lift itself. Drag the hook over the load and lower it, and Sunny the banksman hooks it on. Wind it up, drag it over the roof (the crane slews, luffs and runs its boom out for you, heavily and slowly, like the real thing) and watch the load moment dial: reach out too far and the needle swings into the red, the alarm beeps, and she simply refuses to go any further. The load swings on its rope in the breeze, so hold Steady to have the lads on the tag lines calm it, then lower it onto the yellow marks, easing off at the bottom for a soft landing.

And every lift is different: a hot tub over a house, a statue onto the Town Hall roof (of someone very familiar), the church bell back down its tower, a piano in through the top-floor doors, a boat onto the slipway, a treehouse into an old oak, a whole café roof with Pat on her old crane at the other end, the town’s big tree at night under the work lights, and a giant steel hare onto an island by tower crane. Each one ends with a splash, a BONG, or a cheer.