Brief History

The early days of Nathandriel are shrouded in the clouds of time, alcohol and the memories of folk long lost.

He was built in a barn at Dark Wood - a collection of buildings near Huddersfield inhabited, at the time, by a collective - and taken to visit the London giant, Gogmagog in Covent Garden sometime in 1984.

Slawit Guise looked after him until the first quarter of the 21st century, providing accommodation, in Marsden, for more than 30 years, until he moved to the South Wales Valleys in 2023.

Nathandriel was taken on many adventures - trains, boats, castles, foreign parts - often in company with  other British giants, and now regularly visits Hastings Traditional Jack in the Green whilst making other small trips as he finds his way out and about from his new home.

Hastings Traditional Jack In The Green 2025

Outings

Saturday - Arrival at All Saints Hall, giant erection, lunch then shake down stroll and meet & greet Tristan Sadones

Sunday - Walk to the net sheds to meet with the Hastings Giants, astound and amaze children and Morris dancers. Dancing on The Stade with the Hastings giants

Monday - Grand Parade, starting at the net sheds and ending at West Hill.

Weather

The Weather in Hastings is always the weather, however this year it was always warm, hardly damp at all with a bit of a breeze on Monday. 

Incidents

Well... we did have one over confident porter trying to spin outside St Clements church - luckily he is a strong lad and managed to catch the near tumble. Memo to all giant porters (whichever giant) don't spin on steep slopes.

Modifications/Repairs

Nathandriel had a fresh coat of paint and a new set of lips before he set off to Hastings. He also had the old vacuum cleaner tubes that join lengths of his frame together replaced with shiny new, thicker, aluminium tube. The last lot endured 40 years of abuse - the new tubes should last a lot longer.

New Lips ‽

Over the first couple of weeks of April 2025 Nathandriel had facial surgery.

His old lips had been damaged when the frame collapsed and because of their construction (body filler over newspaper) could not be repaired.

Kristy modeled a new pair of lips in play-doh and air dry clay, Ben poured latex over them until a cast had been made, then a plaster support block was cast around the outside of the latex. 

Using fine glass fabric and gel coat (from ECF - great company to deal with) a thin shell was laid up (not well - about 4/10 but good enough!), reinforced behind with a dose of P40 to give a little more strength for durability.

Kristy painted the new lips and they are now bolted (brief excitement with a drill, threaded rod and even more P40) on to his head - giving the intriguing possibility of inter-changeable lips depending on the event. It is only a possibility though. Removing them has not been attempted and may prove tricky.

We have attempted to keep with Nathandriel's look and feel - his previous lips were various shades of red over the years, but always a prominent feature of his face despite not being entirely accurate as a model of lips. His new lips are just as prominent and a much more realistic - we feel that his look has been maintained and his Patriarch agrees.

Frame Repairs

 One old connection failed

Which caused a slow(ish) motion tumble causing damage to lips, face and sword.

All 4 tubes have been replaced

because the rest were starting to look ropey... the mashed end of the one on the left is a result of separating it from the Al pole to which it has started to weld itself over time; it was a very tight interference fit to begin with!

BlueSky

All,

I have got a BlueSky handle.... it's @nathandriel.uk...

If you click that link on a device with the BlueSky app installed it may well take you to the main page of BlueSky - that is down to link handling somewhere. 

I will try to sort it out but, I suspect, it is something that happens, by design, at the app end of things.

Welcome One and All

Guys, Gals and Everyone else

Welcome to the blog of Nathandriel the Giant (or Nathandriel to his friends)

In future posts I will paint a brief history of my life, "as it happens" maintenance tasks and links to events that I have been invited to.

Just in case you have arrived at random, here are the links to my website and Facebook page (the former has more information than the latter which is mainly pictures)

Web 

Facebook

For now, that's all folks... See you next time.