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.