• I’ve just finished The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: or the Murder at Road Hill House,which my daughter gave me for Father’s Day. I didn’t know anything about it, so I approached it as a who dunnit – which is not what it is, so part of me is feeling a bit let down because I was waiting for the great revelation, which never came and was never intended to come.

    It’s a wonderful, forensic study of a horrible Victorian crime. It shows us that the obsessions of the press, (and their readers) are the same now as they were then. I was surprised by the compassion shown to the guilty party. We have been brought up to believe Dickens was Victorian Britain – Jarndice versus Jardice – lock’em up and let’em rot – but it’s good to know that sympathy could also be added to the mix where justice was concerned.

    Nothing much really changes. We think we are so clever and modern, so different from our ignorant predecessors. While we are still Human, we can always learn from the lessons of the past. there is nothing new under the sun.

  • Tube and Canvas Stacking Chair
    Tube and Canvas Stacking Chair
    My friends, Chris and Charlotte, braved the elements yesterday and went ahead with their barbecue in the orchard. They had a ebay marquee to shelter us from the squally showers, that was in danger of blowing away at any moment, thus adding a frisson of excitement to the afternoon. The poles didn’t quite fit together, so the men, having given their two pennyworth on the subject of lighting barbecues, moved on to the subject of keeping the roof over their heads intact.

    There, for us to sit on, dragged out of the back of the barn were my old school stacking chairs, that Chris said he’d rescued from a village hall when the chairs were being thrown out.

    Architects love chairs. We mostly sit on what is there and do not think about the design. This chair probably has a name and is probably very famous within chair loving circles, but I couldn’t find it through Google. It was a perfect design for an austerity Britain.

    We had lots of coal and steel and strong unions looking after coal and steel workers interests, so the frame is made from tubular steel, which is easy to manipulate and gives a good weight/strength ratio. We also had Cotton mills ramped up to make canvas for the wartime military that was no longer needed. The two materials came together perfectly in this chair.

    I remember as a child, we would have competitions to see how high we could stack the chairs. There was a tipping point at which the wobbling tower of chairs would overbalance and come crashing down, with a very satisfactory effect, leaving chairs strewn across the gymnasium floor.

    I vaguely remember the stacks of chairs up against the wall being used by intrepid children in games of Pirate, a game that was eventually banned. The stack would provide a wonderful hiding place from the marauding pirates until it came time to escape, that’s when the stack would come tumbling down, usually resulting in a broken leg or arm. Were we tougher in those days or more stupid?

    The seat canvas would eventually fray at the front. This would lead to a small tear which grew, almost as if the canvas was being unzipped down the middle. Every now and then during assemblies, a small boy would slowly sink towards the floor as the canvas finally ripped in two. He would be completely trapped within the cage of steel, surrounded by a gaggle of boys, rendered unable to help by fits of giggles.

    Angry looking teachers would then wade into the melée, extract the child and make them stand outside and wait to be punished for the inherent design faults of a post-war classic.

  • I do remember the old days – before we went to the new churches of shopping, namely the malls and garden centres. I actually remember going to real Churches as a child. Then Sundays would drag on forever. Nothing to do but wait for the Top Twenty on the radio. When that was over the evening would drag on interminably until bedtime and the new week ahead.

    Today, Caledonian McBrain were due to start their Sunday ferry services to the islands of Lewis and Harris, upsetting the old Calvanist order of boring Sundays, where even the playground swings used to be chained up for fear of some small child enjoying themselves on the Sabbath.

    But are we any better off in our 24/7 world? Do we need a moment of rest – of peaceful contemplation? I think Sunday should at least be a day free from daytime cash-in-the-attic-flog-my-auction programmes. But then, when I think about it, the grandaddy of them all, namely Antiques Roadshow, was a Sunday Programme. So maybe there is no hope for us at all. No peace for the wicked, eh?