Little beginnings and family introductions
Bland bland bland….
…I love simplicity but ………….
I like to use quality woods with character – interesting grains or colours or both to create affordable statement pieces …I like to think my work is authentically hand made using skills acquired and learned over many years of working with wood.
My sister, who did the flowers for the Annabel’s group for many years, describes my work as….authentic hand made & interestingly designed - or - statement pieces with personality that are functional as well as decorative - made from good quality woods, showing considerable craftsmanship.
Just to introduce you…I have 2 sisters - twins actually, but its my mother I was always closest to…she was really beautiful in her youth…by the age of 23 earning a good living from modelling clothes..it was different back then, in the 50s..all very upright and sedate…nice long gloves, tailored suits, not such flamboyance as more recently! She was really the inspiration for making furniture..she had antique shops and stalls and used to teach us the different names of the woods, periods of furniture with some of their characteristics, types of legs and feet – pad, bun; types of chests of drawers bow fronted, bombastic (as I call it), point out the different types of decorative ceramics (cloisonne to majolica, Minton to Wedgewood to bohemian glassware)..took us to salerooms, gave us money to buy a piece each..of course as children we probably came back with something hideous!. Just wanted to teach us to use our eyes..that’s what she always said…in fact I did do a short stint working as a porter for Phillips in Lisson Grove..she had a stall in Alfie’s and on Saturdays we packed up what we could and took it to her stall which she shared with her great friend in one of the antique markets on Portobello Road. Of course there was always a great rivalry, and a tinge of jealousy, between them (& the other stallholders) about who sold the most- but they all remained friends!
The perky bride
(as described by one newspaper at the time!)
Another of her great friends had a gallery in Mason’s Yard, (off Duke St St James, ) and she would always try to show us points of interest whilst regaling us with great stories..a very flamboyant larger than life wonderful friend always exciting for us to meet. But not only antiques she was a great lover of literature – loved poetry, .. & Shakespeare, not to mention Le Caree ..Gurdjieff; and the theatre..went to see everything from Hair to Billy - and when we first moved to London in our early teens made a point of taking us to a matinee on Saturday afternoons if she could..we saw fantastic plays with Michal Crawford, Tom Conti, Leonard Rossiter,..amazing actors. And last but not least her love of good food…well not sure if this counts but I have many happy memories of The Wong Kei in Chinatown when it was in Rupert Court..and the infamous rude waters! Finally she became a member of the SES which has many critics now, but she thought of it with great respect; not the sort of person to take some of its teachings too seriously, and encouraged us all to take a course for at least a year...to learn to meditate & to try ‘to be in the present’…& to seek truth. On the Arts side it was fantastic…she took us all to Art in Action where the wooden musical instruments amongst other things were so finely made, I remember them to this day; In those days it was ahead of its time..with artists demonstrating and the finest curated array of quality crafts to be seen anywhere…I don’t think anyone else was doing anything like this at the time…from ceramics, to illustrated books, to glass, jewellery, leatherwork, art…and beautiful wooden pieces. The food was an inspiration to her..vegetarian - all home made from bread to soups to wonderful salads and cheeses..ahead of its time again.
She was born and brought up in Bournmouth, the 7th child of our grandmother, (hardly really knew her tailor father) with 4 brothers and 2 sisters but during the war the Nazi German planes (not wanting to be wasteful) dropped their left over bombs onto the town on their way home from blitzing London - so the family moved away and stayed on a small farm in Upway near Friar Wadden. From an early age she had to compete with her brothers and would sell a piece of her candle to them so they could play pillow fights at night - competative and smart right from the start! She was a great story teller - glorious tales of their times in Upway were recounted..taking the horse drawn milk carts up the steep hill to meet the waggon, churning butter (& of course hiding a small bit of it), bringing back meat from the butchers but sadly not recorded; her 3 elder brothers joined the Navy and Army (and being quite bright were involved in telecommunications). Her education was cut short and she left school at the age of 14 (although she also suffered from bouts of Rheumatic feaver thoughout her life, - though she never complained about it - which didn’t help education-wise) So she made up for the lack of education by reading.. and she wanted to give us the best that she had missed so we were sent to fantastic schools…the twins even ended up in Norfolk (where we lived as children) at a school with Princess Diana..well she was only a Lady back then, but naughty apparently, though nice too – infact gave them the Cup for looking after their Guinea pigs the best! .and even then was interested in the welfare of other people…very concerned about the daily routine of the ‘pets..were they taken out at lunchtime, what did they eat, how often were they cleaned out? Had they done their ‘day’ (swept the pets corner where where the animals were kept..each person had to do it in turn); also that they (the ugly sisters as I called them) had made such strides because the first guinea-pigs became ill and didn’t have a very nice spacious cage (so our stepfather had set about making another…much nicer and roomier hutch for them!) Diana was interested in every detail, even then aged probably only about 11 or 12.
Sir George White our great grandfather believer in the Protestant work ethic, who did great work for the city of Norwich
And that brings in our father..because on his side they were great Liberals (one becoming MP of Norwich) again self taught - my Great Grandfather was the first man to build a shoe manufacturing factory (later renamed Norvic Shoes) having started as a clark in the business and worked his way up to become a partner; they became the largest shoe manufacturers in the UK supplying the RAF, Army & Navy during 2 world wars. He believed in adult education and particularly apprenticeships/day release so people could be trained in the skills that business’ needed (so whats new!). He was a member of the Temperance movement..believed that drink ruined peoples lives…think they might turn in their graves at all of us now! So he got up at 5am every morning to teach bible studies..or teach people to read & write (so they could progress further in their jobs) as well as trying to instill into people that they needed to save for moments of unemplyment/sickness/old age; he set up a bank with good interest rates for them…along the lines of many Baptist non-conformist business leaders at the time… & believed in unionised labour as arbitration was better than strikes…. - how things have changed in just over 100 years…..we take alot for granted!
All in all we had an absolutely idyllic childhood, despite going through 2 vicious divorces, our lives were relatively protected by her = playing on the marshes at Brancaster where we lived overlooking them, going to the beach & to Scolt Head in a small boat she had been given, despite breaking down and floating into difficult waters, we were always rescued..very intrepid of her to take 3 children under the age of 5; lots of parties, and laughter; we then moved to Pensthorpe when she remarried - which was a working farm back then and Bill concentrated on soft fruit, as well as arable, sheep, cattle…until his passion for ducks developed more -and eventually he created a nature park, but while we were there he had only just started to build some of the ponds and to collect ducks. My sister used to love to look in on the young chicks and he even persuaded her to help by cleaning out the mini duck ponds dozens of which had been built in varying sizes behind the house to house the baby chicks up to teenagers, before they went to the bigger ponds, the grass of which was kept short by an army of guinae-pigs who slept in hollowed out logs (until the rats got them)! So we had more happy days cycling around Norfolk from there, pick nicking & fishing in the hut by the river, as well as visiting the beach and hut at Brancaster, being taken on the grain trucks and combine harvesters, playing in the hay stacks, along side picking fruit (ugh) and helping to top and tail beans etc for the freezer, feeding chickens…oh & stealing carrots from the huge vegetable patch and tomatoes from the small glasshouse, ….avoiding shooting parties in the winter! I actually only remember summer days - winter has kind of been forgotten! We were given complete freedom which allowed our imaginations to run wild. There was never alot of money, they taught us we would need to work to earn money to spend, there wouldn’t be anyone else to turn to, so we picked fruit from an early age & then had ‘Saturday’/holiday jobs form the age of 14 once we moved to London; and later it was my mother who helped and encouraged us to get onto the London property ladder early as she always recounted a story from our grandfather, when one of the family was selling a house in Chelsea for £4,000 because they thought prices would crash and never be so high again! It was a very ‘can-do’ atmosphere, growing up, everything being built by ourselves or Bill with help, from renovating the hut, to creating incubators for egg collecting out of thermo picknick boxes & large batteries, to mum making our & her own clothes, cutting our hair and selling strawberries on the road side stalls, not to mention renovating some small properties of her own! So we were taught by everyone in our family (mother & her friends, step father, great grand father) that we could achieve anything if we wanted to, by our own hard work…her and our fathers’ great friend Raymond Mays (of BRM fame) must also have had a big influence on her..he wanted to bring the prestige of British Engineering to the fore by building a car that could bring the Grand Prix World Championship title to Britain, so he went cap in hand to many of the great industrialists and engineers in Britain (from Rolls Royce, to Lucas to Alfred Owen) to get support and sponsorship for the cars (as the most successful cars at the time & in earlier days were German & Italian (& given state support - See ‘Split Seconds & BRM by Raymond Mays/Peter Roberts). They created probably the most iconic racing car of all time - V16 amongst others. The first cars took 2 years to build using 300 excellent British suppliers, whereas the mighty Ferrari could build a car from drawing board in 2 weeks, such was their size, organisation & supply chain. The tiny BRM crew worked day and night, sweating blood, from their small workshop in Bourne, Lincs, constantly short of funds and time (& derided by many after delays, set backs and failures), but with the continued support of many loyal sponsors, eventually brought the world championship home in 1962…all the testing and trialling bringing back valuable information to the British manufacturers.
BRM in the 60’s (from the book given to my mother BRM by Raymond Mays & Peter Roberts)
More seriously she kept us all together through thick and thin..…. singing & dancing her way through life, keeping great friendships with a handful of old chums, with pleanty of lovely stories of her early life and the war years particularly – and her modelling life & friends, if only I had written them down..Bridport Lit Fest would have been in for a treat!…and by her own hard work and entrepreneurial spirit.
And just a little on my other sister -she initially worked for Band Aid back in the 80’s..helping out before the Live Aid concert..and then after leaving college helping the team to ensure the money was wisely distributed; and has lived in Dorset for over 15 years now with her husband and children.
So back to the furniture…I really wanted to make my mother proud…so this work is really dedicated to her memory.
A happy grand mother