THE “bird man of Barnard Castle” has turned off his mitre saw for the last time after raising a phenomenal £2,000 for charity.
Retired joiner Ken Jordan earned the moniker when he started making feeding tables and nesting boxes from his Watson Court home in October last year, which he sold on to raise cash for Marie Curie.
The 74-year-old says he lost count of how many boxes and tables he has made over the past ten months and decided to call it a day after reaching the £2,000 milestone.
He added: “It has been good but it was hard work. People have asked me to make other things as well.
“One asked for a tray to put over a stonewall to feed the birds and I made a gate for the neighbour round the back. It just became too much for me.”
His growing cottage industry was given a surprising boost because of the coronavirus pandemic with his boxes and tables being sold during vaccine clinics at Richardson Community Hospital.
Mr Jordan said: “Everyone who was coming out of the injections was seeing them and they were selling really well.”
His work was given another boost when Teesdale and District Lions gave him £200 to buy materials and the Masons gave him £50 every three months, also for timber.
In addition Mason John Moore came to the rescue early on the project by arranging a fundraiser to buy the him a mitre saw.
Mr Jordan said: “I would cut enough to make six boxes and a table and I would spend the rest of the week putting them together and treating them.”
He is now considering raffling off or selling the mitre saw to make even more cash for Marie Curie.
He said: “To be fair it was brand new. I would use it for an hour and that would be enough for a week’s work.”
