Monday, February 05, 2018

Tooled Up

Today

This morning, while Paul tested the mudguard lights on the model radio-controlled truck he is making, I talked about some modifications I want to make to my workspace to give me easier access to things like ribbons and spools of thread.

"You know", I said "some of the people we know will have fully stocked tool, hobby, craft and sewing kits while others are hard put to it to produce a needle or screwdriver."

In My Day

Mamma and Daddy were definitely of the former variety. While Daddy didn't do any crafts, as such, he did carry out much of the maintenance and repair work at 4BH and his other properties. At the foot of the basement stairs, and partly tucked under them, was his tool cupboard. This sported a dazzling array of paintbrushes, old cans of paint, hammers, screwdrivers, saws of every type, planes, sandpaper and tins and boxes of nails and screws. He had a blowtorch, fuse wire, and pieces and offcuts of metal and wood. He put up wallpaper using a paste made out of plain flour and water. He had trestle tables for laying out the paper and bottles of turps and meths (I rather liked meths beautiful shade of mauve which, I later learnt, was added to put alcoholics off drinking it). In the garage would be sand and cement used for a whole range of garden improvements and repairs. 

In the living room was his desk which housed a Remington typewriter and was a treasure house of paper, card, paperclips, pencils, rubbers, inks, rulers, rubber bands and other treasures. I think we children raided this fairly freely.

Mamma had a sewing machine, a sewing box full of threads, buttons and other notions. She had knitting needles and balls of wool as well as fabric scraps and other bits.

Her kitchen, apart from the usual saucepans, had various mincers and graters, cake and baking tins of every shape and size, cake icing equipment, biscuit cutters, sieves and colanders. And there was a fully stocked larder.

All this suggests a very busy and creative life, and I personally love to look at and use my well-stocked workspace and kitchen. How are you ever to replace a button if the only needle you have resembles a rusty poker and the only thread you have came out of a free sewing kit from a hotel, or hang up a picture if you can't lay your hands on a tack hammer and picture hook?


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