The Intelligent Decorator
My father was no mean wielder of a paintbrush, not in an artistic sense, but as a decorator. As he used to drive me to his print works in Wood Green, he’d sometimes tell how when they built the houses in Waterfall Road in Southgate in the 1930s, he had a contract to paint them for just a few pounds a house. He did teach me, but I’ve never been very good at it, although I used to be able to hang wallpaper. My hands probably aren’t good enough now!
My late father-in-law was also a professional painter and decorator in Barnet, working for a firm called Curtis. He would tell tales about how in the richer parts of the area, such as Hadley Wood, how sometimes he’d wallpaper the same house, as many as three times, because the lady of the house or the cat didn’t like the new colour scheme. C used to say he had endless patience, which was why he was in so much demand.
And then there was Terry. He used to do the decorating for us at Debach and when we moved to West Suffolk, we still continued to use him. He was neat and tidy, never smoked and sometimes you never even knew he was in the house. In one case, we’d asked him to paint a bedroom and C phoned him up to ask when he was coming. But he’d already done it!
Sadly Terry died of cancer a couple of years ago. The funeral was one of the best attended, I’ve ever seen, such was the respect he was held in the town of Ipswich.
So when I see good decorators I know what I’m looking at.
My new house was in a terrible state, as the previous owner had rented it to tenants. There were rather hideous constructions in some of the wardrobes, television wires everywhere and all sorts of damage. The builders had also not built some of the details properly either and the house had never been desnagged, as it should have been under its guarantee.
I arrived yesterday about nine and found that the decorator, one Mark from Harlow, had really cracked on and was doing a good job.
My New Living Room Takes Shape
The picture shows the main living area of the house. The walls are being painted ivory and the original specification said that the steel beams were to be black. But the first thing Mark said was that the beams just needed a good clean and the original chocolate colour would be much better. How very Great Western, as it’s almost chocolate and cream!
By the way, notice the blinds in the photo, they may be rather broken, but that was because they’re the wrong size in the first place.
But to return to the colour scheme. I agreed with Mark on the colour of the beams and they will be left, at least for a few years.
Terry, my father and my father-in-law may be long gone, but it seems I’ve found another inteligent decorator.
Throwing a Life Away
In today’s world, there is not the point of keeping anything like there used to be. I’ve just spent an hour shredding bank and credit card statements, as if I need them they are on-line anyway.
Whole boxes of memories end up being compressed into a box a third the size of what you started with. Things that you hoped you would trawl through with your wife in front of your grandchildren, just go straight in the skip. Is it sad! Perhaps! But if I don’t do it now, my son will have to do it in a few or hopefully twenty years time. Even my travels of the previous few months, has ended up in a rather small box. But I will make a collage of the train and football tickets in memory of an adventure.
Ocassionally, you find the odd gem, but most of it is just rubbish. The real memories are in my mind or as photographs on disc or in more boxes.
But hey, I’m only 63 and may have a few years yet, so perhaps this is only throwing half the first half of a life away. In a way I’m going back to where C and I started in that area to the north of the City of London, bordered at the top by the North London Line.
The Problems of Moving
It’s only now, that I’m seeing the sort of problems that I will have with the move.
I already know that a lot of my furniture won’t fit, as although the new house has three bedrooms, it’s got fitted wardrobes and a low ceiling height.
I’ll be getting rid of a classic dresser, a table that seats fourteen and four Victorian wardrobes. One is so awful, you can imagine it being delivered to the house after the wife (or husband for that matter) has bought it at auction and getting a response like “Darling! You actually paid good money for that!” The other three are quite nice, but they are not the sort to put in a modern house.
But it is the mass of paintings and posters, C and I collected over the years. I just won’t have the wall space for them!
I’ve also got enough framed family photographs to cover the outside of the Albert Hall.
I’ll just have to be ruthless.
Thowing Away the Past
I’m having big clear out, prior to moving. The skip arrives today and masses of stuff is going in it. At the moment, I’ve got boxes and boxes of rubbish waiting for it.
Do I find moving stressful? Not as stressful as living in this house without being able to drive!
The Anonymous Widower 