Red Green Unseen

Red green colour blindness is by far the most common form of colour blindness. Overall colour blindness afflicts around 20% of the male population and of course varies in severity. Its all to  do with the rods and cones in your eyes and you can't pretend you are colour blind or relearn the colours as I have tried to!

   A simple test - an image made up of multi colour dots reads 'color' if you are normal and in my case I read 'onion'. It cost me a job once as a photograper for International Combine Harvesters (although their livery was red and yellow). I passed the interview but failed the medical. 

   Many years later when I photographed over 2,500 colour images for "The Encyclopedia of Woodworking Techniques", when it was voted one of the Top Titles by the UK Booksellers Association, I came clean and admitted to my editor at Headline publishing that I was colour blind. She laughed and said an ex BBC editor friend of hers was also colour blind.

  So what's the fuss about then? None except it is rather irritating but curious that traffic lights, petrol pumps and more importantly the tiny LED charging lights on electronic equipment always use red green. I can always count the traffic lights from top to bottom (only joking) but what is a real nuisance is when i charge up my battery powered musical amplifier when I go busking, I simply cannot tell the red for green.

   Perhaps it is women who design these electronic products!

A Fast Buck

   I always enjoyed shooting rabbits because they were so quick on the run. Even better are hares that are built for speed but we can't mention this here - the thought of going out and hunting for your dinner. Much better its all done in an abbattoire away from sight so a celebrity chef can make a glossy presentation on television.

   Now, making a fast buck is probably more digestable certainly more commonplace and Ed Milliband has recently been accused of being 'anti-industry' implying Britain is a fast buck society. Ask a hundred kids across the board what they would like to do and you wont be far away from a fast buck answer that television and the media provides. 

   But with industry it seems we can't win. If you have nationalised industry it grinds to a halt through bureacratic inefficiency and if you have privatised industry the shareholders run away with the profit and you are left with a diminishing service, well in certain industries. I'm not particularly political but I think its a bit of a nerve the Labour mob coming on so strongly so quickly after messing up so badly so recently! A little bit more time would have given them a little grace and also given this new breed of thirty-something 'puppy' politicians time to grow up. A few more years and perhaps a few grey hairs may lead to a realization we have been a fast buck society for quite a long time. Its nothing new.

  What Ed Milliband was saying I presume is that greed has runaway in our society and he is daring to hint at the most taboo word in living memory - morality! I must admit I was astounded when Mandelson was reported to have once said he was  'intensely relaxed about people getting filfthy rich' not to mention Tony Blair's extraordinary exploits. 'Filthy' rich? Does this mean dirty money?!   

  

My Beautiful Hands

   A few days ago I did a stupid thing and whilst using a portable metal grinder the molegrips slackened, the metal moved and the rotating cutter went quick walkabouts over my hand ripping through a layer of flesh around the base of my thumb. Fortunately no nerves or tendons were severed as this is my right hand used for guitar playing and my thumb is very important. The last time I damaged a hand was also whilst working on a car project in 1989 and I drilled through the bodywork with a half inch drillbit, forgetting I was supporting the material with my fingers the other side. In fact it was the same thumb! Complete stupidity and a reminder how valuable my hands are. 

   I often lie awake at night silhouetting my hands against the moon shining through a skylight above my bed. I still have beautiful hands, strong working man's hands but also well proportioned hands with guitar player's fingers. I don't think its vanity but a sheer appreciation of the wonder of how the hands interpret what the brain commands. I exercise my hands whilst doing my full moon ritual, making the fingers move in every possible way. Learning guitar chords (or any instrument probably) is an excellent workout for hand and brain.

Some guitar chord shapes take tens of hours to master from the initial careful placing of each finger on each string, often awkward to hold the position, then months later the chord shape is executed at speed. I'm lucky, although I used to be able to site read, I play totally by ear and once the muscle memory kicks in the chord sequences are automatic and I can then concentrate on expression. I am amazed at how many jazz players read off the manuscript. I thought jazz was supposed to be free and improvised. I am an improvisor and my wonderful hands are the greatest gift I could ever ask for, linked to a brain that fires on four cylinders most of the time. I am very fortunate, at this moment in time I have no aches and pains in my limbs and in particular my hands and it is surprising I have not worn my hands out. 

   I have made a living from my hands, renovated three houses and made countless pieces of furniture. On my rocking chairs alone I have drilled nearly forty thousand holes through which eight miles of sailing cord has passed to create the upholstery (although many of the chairs were woven by others) but I drilled every hole. 

   Over five decades of using my hands since building my first guitar at school, I reckon this represents between 30,000 and 50,000 hours of creative hand work and still they are almost as agile as when I was 17 years old. This takes into account a fair percentage of my life immobilised by depression. Perhaps the price I pay for such wonderful hands.

  My beautiful hands that survived a stupid accident

The High Backed Rocker has found homes around the world since 1973

Over eight miles of sailing chord and 40,000 holes drilled    

Eleven Plus

   The most important event of my life was sitting the Eleven plus. Father made it absolutely clear he would not face the shame of a son going to a Secondary Modern school. It was bad enough for my older sister Jill to fail, but a son,- unthinkable. At Ivy lane Junior school I seemed to be `above average`. I was fairly comfortably placed in the B stream.

   One day at the age of ten I pinched a girl`s bottom during school assembly. Such an innocent prank very nearly changed the course of my life (and notably a female was involved again). I was immediately demoted from 2B to 3D and got hopelessly behind academically in the run up to the Eleven plus.

   Most of the kids in class 3D could hardly spell their name and out of boredom I competed with another boy to see who could get the cane the most times from the sadistic class teacher. I won by getting 65 strokes in a term from a 2" diameter piece of bamboo. The teacher would get you to bend down and tuck your head under the table with another boy sitting on the table. When he whacked you on the backside the reflex gave you a rabbit punch in the back of the neck at the same time.

   After one school assembly and in front of lots of other children I nervously asked the headmaster what chance I had of getting into the Grammar school. 'Not a chance in cat`s hell` he roared. When I came to sit the Eleven Plus I was in sheer terror. During the exam I panicked and left the room crying after completing about half of the questions. I didn`t tell father. I kept it to myself. I couldn`t bear to look into the future.

   Miraculously I scraped into the Grammar School and was able to wear the green uniform instead of the blue. We were called `Grammar grubs` by former junior school classmates who waited at the school gates from the Secondary modern to beat us up. Kids who were once my pals. This was true English class war at its finest and we were the innocent warriors. Funny how later in life I observed how much better the `failures` from the Secondary modern would often fare against Grammar Grubs who were in the bottom stream, but just demonstrating that human beings develop at different times!


An extract from 'Missing Jean' by Jeremy Broun

Me me me

   Recently one received an email from the most famous furniture maker in England and in it he said he had counted only seven instances of 'I' in an email to him 'which must be a record for you Jeremy' he added. One thought that a little bit rich as the purpose of one's email to him was to promote his current work in a craft documentary one is making called 'Furniture Today' (a self funded single handed project) as if he is not the supreme master of self promotion!  In one's reply one jovially retorted by saying he was beginning to sound like one's late Aunt Whilhemina (who he had met).
   Okay, my feelings were actually somewhat mixed and confused - on the one hand I was grateful he had been blunt and was giving me a little 'fatherly' advice and I am sure without any malice and on the other hand I had feelings of rage thinking 'it's all right for you - you had a father who actually encouraged you and gave you your first commission at the age of ten or whatever, whilst my father beat the shit out of me and banned me from his workshop.  And I then felt a sense of pride that I had been chosen in 1978 to exhibit alongside him and four others at 'Flavour of the Seventies' at Southampton Civic Centre even though today I am not acknowledged and have to confront my ego in this respect.
  I write this for anyone reading to explain why I have created this blog. It is a kind of journey of self expression, a response to the world one was thrown into, a pursuit of truth and justice in a society defined by status and  consumerism and fast changing values.  A diary of thoughts and feelings with flashbacks of my past. Feelings I wasn't allowed to express or even have. So yes, I put hands up clearly in the air and agree it is me, me, me although there is more to me that I hope these blogs reveal which might help human understanding. Whereas I once believed in altruism, a word hardly used today but there are some really good people around with a true generosity of spirit, I also observe a lot of greedy and blinkered people in Britain who are far more 'me me me' than me!

The Syndicate

At the age of nine I attended Ivy lane junior school in Chippenham. There were flick knives in the playground, quite a contrast to the private PNEU school I previously attended in Derbyshire. I had a crush on Beverley Roberts though I never kissed her. 
  At the time I was the ringleader of a syndicate that visited Woolworth’s on a regular basis. The operation was highly successful, that is until I fell in love with Beverley. For her eighth birthday I ‘acquired’ an imitation crocodile skin purse worth seven shillings and sixpence. Pocket money at that time was about three old pennies per week so this was a generous gesture for my little sweetheart. So generous in fact that Beverley`s mother paid father a visit. In turn father paid a visit to the headmaster and a rapid chain of events resulted in me instantly confessing to my crimes in the headmaster`s study with father in attendance and then to the manager of Woolworths, who mentioned the word 'Police' if it happened again.
  Our syndicate was perfectly organized. Two or three of us would go into the store with raincoats on. One boy would draw the attention of the shop assistant whilst the other would drop dinky toys or penny calendars down the sleeve of his raincoat and then leave the store scratching his head so the bounty did not fall out.

The chest of drawers in my bedroom was neatly stashed with penny calendars and other merchandise. The calendars were glued to old Christmas cards I had received from relations and landed up as presents for all the family and nobody seemed to notice but the crocodile skin purse for my sweetheart was way over the top and I suppose illustrated clearly again how a woman can lead to a man`s downfall !


A short extract from 'Missing Jean' by Jeremy Broun

E=Mc2 relatively?

E=Mc2

   Scientists think they might have discovered something faster than light and so today we are told that Einstein was wrong. But was he? And if he was then it would follow that everything (and everybody) eventually is wrong and that nobody can be 'right' other than in a passing moment in the life of the Universe!

   Given that the evolution of knowledge and language occurs in a limited context in which theories can be 'proven', it is only a matter of time, as history has shown, that fact becomes modified or replaced. Flat Earthers become Round Earthers. The notion of Gravity has served us well until human experience discovers something that occurs outside the norm of Newton's falling apple and we have to call it something else. A young child perceives water in a puddle, as the human brain develops the concept expands to a pond and then an ocean and then some will understand heavy water.

   Einstein was surely right in his theory of Relativity. All truth is relative! What is constant (but not necessarily absolute) is that humankind since the beginning of civilization loves to prove and then disprove. But, as someone else commented: What has a neutrino got to do with my daughter getting up every morning and being late for school? If scientists are right we won't have to pay for speeding fines. 

Has the cure become the cause?

Apparantly Shakespeare said that 'to be emotional and at times even a bit mad, is to be human'. I wouldn't know because I had an emotional block as a youngster to take in much of what I read or what I heard and certainly most of school Shakespeare went over my head.

   Modern psychiatry with its bed partner the pharmaceuticals has defined what is 'normal' in fairly rigid terms whilst carefully avoiding the label 'mad'! A curious statistic is that fifty years ago bipolar illness (previously called mania) affected one in every five thousand adults. Today it is claimed to affect one in fifty adults and there is now the belief that 'anti-depressant induced mania' is a primary cause (RSA Journal Autumn 2011). We all know the fastest way to get a patient out of a doctor's surgery is to prescribe a pill. In fairness, in my own experience medication has helped as a short term emergency lifeline, albeit zombifying me, but time and time again I asked my doctor 'is it addictive and are there any long term effects?' with a rather unconvincing response.

   My late sister Jill was addicted to Ativan and went on a television talk show campaigning against the widespread use of prescription benzodiazipines (eg Diazepam). I was given them whilst in hospital but was able to throw them down the pan before addiction took hold.  I was offered money on the street for a bottle but I was reluctant to fuel someone else's misery.

   Facing your demons sober is difficult and I have been without any kind of medication for over a decade and although my particular depression has been diagnosed as 'chronic' rather than bipolar (I am still bedbound at least one day a week) a bipolar friend of mine says he feels better without medication. I have noticed a difference in him. Perhaps the brain can heal itself but as depression now seems to be as commonplace as migraine is it not reasonable to question whether the cure has become the cause? However, one observation about my friend is that despite various handicaps (he can't hold a job down) he is always helping other people. 'Look out, not in'.

Mums the word!

Tuning into the TV last night at random I caught the actress Kate Winslet jumping out of her seat to pick up an Emmy award and she gushed out that really she is sharing the award with her mum and that she declared she needs her mum more and more. Then again this evening, after a hard days work, I tune into the TV again and this time an interesting documentary about the posh kids trained to kill - Sandhurst and the number of references to their mums leads me to think that just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean the world isn't after me!

   I also did a Sandhurst type training at an Outward bound school in the Lake district and led a patrol on survival rations,  so I am no wimp but I do often cry out at night asking where my mum is, and moreso recently. Perhaps one day I will meet another human being who lost their mum in childbirth and survived a bullying negating father who would not accept one's imperfections. Maybe we can swap notes and perhaps I can learn something, if not forgiveness? But in all my years I have never met anyone sharing this trauma and I have met a lot of people.

   Of course young boys lose their mums and others are adopted and some mums are dominating and controlling,  but they had a mum, someone who is proud of them. On a mums knee a boy learns much about the world. There are support groups for drink and drug addicts but a complete blank in my situation - but with the current crisis regarding the shortage of midwives it was reported on the News for the first time (that I am aware of) recently that a mother in Britain died in childbirth.

   There is an old Red Indian saying that there is no greater punishment than to walk the Earth alone.

Millfield School

'Welcome back to school boys. Now I want carpentry taken more seriously this term, in fact I want the gymnasium finished by Easter'. From 'The Schoolmaster' (1966) courtesy of John Cleese (cartoon by Jeremy Broun).


   I tried to leave the teaching profession several times in my early twenties but somehow (by twist of fate) landed a job at one of Britain’s top schools - Millfield. Renowned for breeding Olympic athletes and educating the children of famous Hollywood stars (such as Elizabeth Taylor), it had more of the atmosphere of a university campus. Any fresher at Millfield would be asked on their first day ‘Who are you?’. It was no ordinary school and catered for the very rich and also very bright and the majority of its 200 or so tutors were ex university dons or ex international sportsmen. David Hemery the Olympic hurdler was a teaching colleague and so too was the grandson of Leo Tolstoy. I shared a chalet on Glastonbury Tor for a brief period with the Great Britain badminton champion Phil Scott. Duncan Goodhew was in the sixth form, so too Sean Connery's daughter and the world golf champion Arnold Palmer's son admitted to me two years later on the day he left that he was not actually Arnold Palmer's son, despite looking the splitting image! This was a unique school, the teaching ratio was six to one and students thanked you after each lesson.

   So where did I fit in? Not very well as I struggled to hold my own in the staffroom amongst so many academics and celebrities and so I escaped to the scruffy workshop where I taught “Carpentry” and a few interested 'loner' students would join me during tea breaks. It was a converted garage belonging to Jack ("Boss") Meyer who founded the school in 1936 and was about to retire. ‘They seem to like you lad’ he muttered in a Yorkshire accent when the school prefect singled me out and led me to his study at the end of my interview ’Do you know who said that? I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Wilfrid Pickles’ he said. Astutely he then said ‘Well have a think about it and let me know withinin a couple of weeks’.    

   Back at the Bristol Secondary Modern where woodwork was top of the school curriculum my colleagues told me I would be mad to turn down a job like this but the truth is 'Carpentry' was a wet weather subject at Millfield. Now few people got to teach there without offering a sport so I bluffed my way for a while coaching trampolining on the bare credential of gaining my college colours at gymnastics. There were only four of us in the Gymnastics club at Shoreditch college!

Jeremy Broun in his early twenties with one of is many minis

   At 23 I was the youngest tutor at Millfield and in retrospect, seeing how good looking I was (I didn't realize it then), it was little wonder the 19 year old South American head girl flirted with me (telling me she was lonely) and she and her equally beautiful friend, the film star Stanley Baker's daughter courted my company in the evenings when I was renovating my workshop to make it fit for teaching. The only power tool was an old Wolf DIY drillstand. This was the most expensive school in Europe and I was passionate about woodwork! 
  The truth is I felt excruciatingly lonely, stirred by these gorgeous young women and felt academically inferior in the staffroom as nobody valued my subject except the students who were taken from me daily to do other more important subjects. It all came to a head in the winter of 1970. 
  I had my first major nervous breakdown and tried to take an overdose. My guardian uncle Patrick immediately flew down from Scotland to see the new headmaster Colin Atkinson, and I mustered up just enough energy to drive up to my 'home', his Scottish estate, to convalesce. My aunt could not understand how this good looking talented young man with everything going for him could suffer like this. But I think it was my 'missing gene' rearing its ugly head. 
  To my surprise Millfield held my job open and paid my salary until the end of the academic year. It was a remarkable gesture as I had only taught a term there. It was nobody's fault. I returned to teach a further year out of appreciation to the school and requested to my doctor in Scotland that a good psychiatrist could be found in Bristol to keep an eye on me and I found lodgings with a vicar and his family in Chewton Mendip, half way between Millfield and Bristol. After the agreed year I threw my cards to the winds and became a self-employed woodworker - or should I say 'carpenter'. I was invited to help set up a nearby Crafts Commune called The Dove Centre of Creativity, the first of its kind in Britain.


A short extract from 'Missing Jean' by Jeremy Broun

Carbeth Huts

My grandfather Allan Barns-Graham (above) and the Carbeth hutters (below) who payed their respects when his ashes were scattered at Carbeth Estate in 1957. Many would have walked the nine mile journey from Glasgow as they would continue to do for the regular swimming galas at Carbeth loch. For much of my youth, enjoying the privilige of staying with my uncle at Carbeth Guthrie and fishing on Carbeth loch, my memories were of a harmonious community of hutters in the 1950's, 1960's and 1970's, effectively self regulated.

   A very sad sign of changing times that since the late 1990's 'Carbeth Huts' has become such a political issue. To my understanding maintenance had been somewhat neglected in my uncle's time (he couldn't do everything) and reasonable improvement (there were previously no access roads or water supply) would inevitably result in rent increases! The issue became embroiled in the centuries old Scottish Land Clearances and my cousin, who I first played with at the age of four, being accused of trying to throw them off the land in order to develop it. I don't recall that discussion and at that time I was in  fairly close contact with my cousin, but I do know that in the south of England if rent is not paid the tenant is evicted. Some folks in Scotland still believe the land is God given, an interesting way to run an economy in the turn of the Millennium!

   The man on the left (in the hutters picture), standing next to my Uncle Patrick, was John Paton, the Carbeth estate manager. He told me many a story about poaching salmon in Scotland, but he also taught me the proper methods and we spent many hours fishing on Loch Lomond and up on the rivers of Lochgoilhead, skilfully bouncing a worm along the river bed!

Great Expectations

I recently read on a 'working class' friend's blog that he had come to realize that posh (public school) people don't choose their birth! I was born into a relatively priviliged family, although my father was a humble schoolmaster and we wore second hand clothes, as to my mother (who died having me), her family were Scottish landowners, people of social status and relatively well to do.

   My mother's older sister Wilhemina Barns-Graham (the artist) put her arm around my shoulder when I was 27, saying she would always look after me. She owned an artist's studio with private beach in St Ives, a country estate called Balmungo near St Andrews and another substantial property in nearby Cupar. My two sisters and I somehow got it into our heads we would be left a property each but the writing was on the wall when the Cupar property, which included salmon fishing rights, was sold. On her death her estate was valued at just over seven million of which I was grateful to receive a legacy of £16,000 which enabled me to clear an overdraft and buy a second hand Smart car.

   On my father's death when I was seventeen my mother's brother Patrick became my guardian and I lived with his family at Carbeth Guthrie, on the road to Loch Lomond. A few very happy and priviliged years for me, shooting and fishing on the land and loch. His father Allan Barns-Graham had allowed over 200 huts to be built on the neighbouring Carbeth estate for working class people from Glasgow to enjoy the countryside. Sadly his grandson and my first cousin Allan Barns-Graham inherited the 'Carbeth Huts' problem in the 1990's which still lingers on today. Although there was a significant rent increase which sparked the hutters' rent strike it was really all out class war 'about the toff living in the big house' (English Colour Supplement quote), a far cry from our grandfather's socialist gesture in making his land accessible to less priviliged people.  

   As an innovative woodworker it had always been my dream to build a modest timber dwelling and with all the land my family owned it is truly sad it was not to be. At one time my cousin Allan offered me a tiny plot on a  'lease', but this never materialised and was yet another disappointment to me. The first big disappointment was not to inherit the Cupar property with the fishing rights as salmon fishing was also a passion, I even made my own rods and tied my own flies. But who are we to expect anything but just to count our blessings! Perhaps the greatest blessing is to have to make one's own luck.

A short extract from 'Missing Jean' by Jeremy Broun

A slug for a slug

   The butt of the pistol protruded slightly from my jacket as I walked towards the school changing rooms. I had made a leather shoulder holster earlier that day. It was a Webley Mk111 air pistol, which took .22 pellets. It was the most powerful in the Webley range and I had cycled twelve miles to Uttoxeter in the summer of 1958 to blow an entire term`s pocket money of three pounds, seventeen shillings and sixpence on this vital piece of kit. Vital, that is, to my survival at Abbotsholme school. I knew the only way to deal with these bullies was to beat them at their own game. I was a new boy, thirteen years old and removed from Chippenham Grammar school (and away from father) where I was failing abysmally. The fees of £400 a term were paid for by a late aunt's legacy on my mother's side of the family. Father didn't even own a car at that time.
  I entered the changing room and as expected Stross and Bagot were there waiting. `Ugh, new boy, thyupt, thyupt` as barrels were emptied from the bullies` air pistols. The 177 calibre lead pellets stung against my bare legs (we had to wear short trousers). Fortunately these Gat air pistols were limited in power and just grazed my flesh. But it hurt.

`Are you done?' I said as I revealed more of the butt of my pistol. I then drew it and let blast at Stross. It hit him on the leg. He squealed like a pig. It hurt him, that was for sure and he doubled up in pain swearing. I couldn`t see if the pellet had entered his flesh but I suspect matron later dug it out.

   These older boys did not touch me again. Curiously no questions were asked and that was the end of the matter. What sort of person becomes the matron of a boy`s boarding school ? When I reached the sixth form I sold the air pistol to a junior boy in my dormitory but his intention was to use it on a higher form of life - vermin in the school woods. 

An extract from 'Missing  Jean' by Jeremy Broun

My mother Jean

   They say my mother Jean was a gentle and kind person. I would have liked to have known her. My kind of woman, but increasingly hard to find in Britain today! Veronica Jill told me she adored being around `mummy`. Jill was four when she died and I don't think she ever got over it. What a strange word `mummy` is to me, a word that everyone around me seems to take for granted. Apparantly Jean was something of a tomboy in her youth. She enjoyed fishing on the family loch in Dumbartonshire,  often hauling in record-breaking trout on a fragile fly line. Coming from a notable  landowning family and educated at St Leonards School in Fife, she was in her mid-twenties when she eloped with my father who was a dashing handsome man and part of the Edinburgh university elite.

   However, he was regarded as socially inferior by Jean's landowning family, being a humble schoolmaster, despite coming from a Church background. Curiously his father, a priest had turned down the offer of a Bishopric in order to help the poor in Edinburgh. Class snobbery is a strange thing. Jean's father, the laird of Carbeth, apparantly told her not to darken his door again 'if you marry this man'.
   I don't really know much about my mother. I can't remember anyone ever talking about her except Jill on rare occasions. I suspect there was too much pain and guilt. Certainly my father must have felt guilty as the doctor warned them not to have any more children because of her weak constitution. He really  wanted a son. This is hard for me to understand as I felt strongly resented by him throughout my childhood.
   It was only around the time of my my sister Jill's death in 2010 that I set eyes on copies of letters from Jean to my father (they were very much in love). This was the first time I saw her handwriting. In one letter she wrote just before going into hospital to give birth to me, she intimated quite strongly that she thought she might not survive and mentioned provisions for caring for my sisters. She was right, she died.

                                                                Jean Barns-Graham

   An extract from 'Missing Jean' by Jeremy Broun

Free Range Kids

   Bluebell wood was just beyond our cottage on a hill near Matlock. Father was teaching there at a girl`s boarding school. While Veronica (Jill) and Rachael were picking flowers I would collect spent shotgun cartridges from behind the haystacks in the field where the farmer used to shoot pigeons. I used to love the smell of spent shotgun cartridges. Pigeon pie with peas was one of my favourite meals and we used to sink our teeth gently into the meat for fear of crunching against the lead pellets.
   Growing up as a small boy in the Derbyshire countryside etched deep into my consciousness.  Inge cottage was remote on a hill. We had paraffin lamps, open coal fires and wore second hand clothes. This was rural England in the nineteen fifties.
   'Come on` Veronica shouted as father wandered outside to tend to the beehives one summer`s day. `Let`s go down to our ship`. My two sisters and I would play down by the river Dove as it forged its way through the undulating countryside. We had this ship on the river which was a clump of trees on an island surrounded by rapids. The girls would carry me across and we would all take up stations at the helm. The roar of the current allowed our ship to thunder through the white water at ferocious speed on our journey to distant foreign lands. I would hug the mast looking out for pirates as Veronica gave the orders. `Land ahoy` she called and we climbed down the tree stumps to disembark.  
    `Quickly` Veronica repeated as we rushed up the hill to get home in time for lunch, daring not to be a minute late.  Life was a curious mixture of rural freedom and brutal domestic discipline imposed by father.

   An extract from 'Missing Jean' by Jeremy Broun

Ken the Pole

   Ken was a gentle-natured Polish wartime refugee who stoked the boiler at the laundry behind our big house in Chippenham. Well, it was referred to as the big posh house by other kids at Ivy Lane junior school just a short distance beyond the laundry. Ken let me use his workshop at the laundry and I have vivid memories of drilling through scraps of metal with a large bench mounted hand drill and he would show me how to bend and twist metal by heating it up with a blow torch until it was bright orange, or was it green?  I wasn't sure because at around this age of nine or ten it was revealed to the world that I was colourblind (well they made such a big fuss about it at school). 

   School was hell because normal working class kids - who all had mums, regularly picked fights with me just because I had a posh accent and when I got home I got a beating with garden canes from father for speaking with a Wiltshire accent. At Ken's laundry workshop I would escape the domestic brutality of my father who banned me from entering his scruffy home workshop for fear of my messing up his tools. Ken was always kind and encouraging and just let me play with the tools and scraps of metal while he stoked the boilers - and helping when I needed it. 

   Who would ever guess that twenty or so years on I would be considered amongst 'the top rank of innovative (British) craftsmen' exhibiting my furniture designs alongside the cream of the Royal College of Art, winning awards, travel scholarships and prominent teaching jobs. 

   Perhaps it was a deep rage that drove me from the abyss of utter failure. Ken would never know but he had introduced me to a wonderful world of making things and that time and time again in my troubled adult life using my hands would relieve the anguish and eventually rescue me from the depths of paralysing cyclic depression. A foreigner who spoke little English and uttered few words, torn from his family roots by war, and with an unusual kindness and generosity of spirit.  

    
   An extract from 'Missing Jean' by Jeremy Broun

The Woodworker magazine 1984 

The Caterpillar Rocker 'as original as Saarinen's four into one chair legs'

(from The Encyclopedia of Chairs)