Fear of wood

     Many years ago a well known award winning local architect  was tragically killed whilst chainsawing a tree on his land. It fell on top of him and one immediately thought how could this happen to such an intelligent well organised person but it also served as a reminder of the yin and yang of life, that wood is a provider but one could also potentially die from a splinter. 

      For much of my life I was blessed with a wonderful gift of confidence to do anything with wood, I had no fears and nearly twenty years ago when totally re designing and re building the roof of my home I also built timber scaffolding out of two by two which I left up for nearly a decade on the back of my house! 

     In a previous blog I described my near escape from death last November when I clambered onto the roof to do some repairs and found I did not have the strength to pull myself up onto the dormer window roof. Well I found the strength hence I am here to write this but am now faced with the same challenge of sorting the roof out and building a stable platform. The problem is I am terrified of setting foot on the 45 degree roof pitch quite apart from avoiding looking down four storeys. I used to be a rock climber at school and followed the A team up the Derbyshire gritstone Black Rocks in just gym shoes and no ropes. I never experienced this fear before and although I am sketching out designs for a timber scaffolding structure to hook over the ridge I have the fear for the first time in my life that wood will fail me, that however I construct the scaffolding the fibres might tear, the screws might sheer etcetera etcetera. 

     Fear is a dangerous thing! So I am provaricating/procastinating and making extremely slow progress and fearing the very thing that has given me joy and confidence since I was sixteen - wood. So as you go through life, not knowing why you are here or how long you will be here for and stepping outside the social conditioning of leaving the nest and creating your own little nest and following the conveyor belt of life, drinking beer and following football teams on the way what else is there?!

    Some might stop to ponder at how life seems to deal out certain cards at different times and that some of those cards maybe interpreted as lessons. Is it merely a game of Monopoly at the rolling of dice? 'Go to gaol', 'collect a wife' or 'collect diabetes as you pass'? Of course one of the lessons taught is you can't take it with you but obviously not a lesson learned as money is seemingly even more of a God today. The late Paul Getty, richest oilman on the planet in the 70's (whose art foundation once purchased one of my furniture designs) had a deep fear of poverty and brought himself up from the gutter, so fear can be a great motivator as well as energy seeper. Certainly thinking too much can be a serious damper. 

    On my observations even the most clever people appear to think very little about major life events in the sense of cause and effect and just as the 'nature versus nurture' argument persists I also wonder if being master of your destiny or victim of fate is a similar puzzle? Certainly no one I know is in control of their lives but it keeps you sane to think you are. Now, lets get over this silly fear of wood and start thinking positive again. In fact, better than that - get back to the doing.        

Every dog has its day

     I suspect my late sister Jill was right when she once said to me 'every dog has its day'. Certainly in my own field as a furniture designer maker the traditional modesty that goes alongside being talented with your hands is blown apart today by those who are masters at self promotion and become legends in their own lifetime (and curiously behind a personna of enormous modesty!) But will history quickly forget them and who indeed will the future historians write about in a hundred years time? Does it matter to us now and who, then, is the judge, especially as successive historians fall into the journalism trap and make scoops to get noticed?

    Of course, first and foremost you have to be true to yourself and have the inner strength or quiet confidence of commitment that  the path you believe in, and in my own case I guess it is the 'small is beautiful' road, you follow, irrespective of popular fashion or whatever the dominant trend is. The trend  in England is for very expensive exclusive prestigious furniture which for years I have argued has a direct correlation to our antiquated class system. IKEA could not have been born in England and yet paradoxically the north London IKEA store became one of its most successful! When the eighth in line to the British throne visited me circa 1985 with a view to my making his designs that would carry his Royal stamp. I could (should?) have done the intelligent thing and put the price of my own unique work up extraordinarily. I was, after all, earmarked as one of the top 40 makers in the country on this occasion and since then, young makers have appeared from nowhere asking forty five grand for a piece of bespoke furniture.

   I can confidentially and not boastfully say there is nothing in wood I could not make.  After all, at the age of 17 I gained and A grade at A level woodwork and have used my hands ever since. With my training and vast experience working wood and keen eye for precision I could have followed the trend  (in the field I once was a pioneer in) and focussed on extremely expensive woods, gold inlays, immaculate workmanship, prestigious clients, prestigious Guild marks, etc etc, .... but I chose not to. The price I paid was being so quickly forgotten. The lesson I learned was that the media will make and break, create and forget and the questions I continue to ask are how does one deal with ego and is it just ego? In my case it was slightly different. It was the need to overcome seventeen years of abuse and negation from a cruel father. To be noticed and acknowledged is probably every child's right, so it may not be just a question of ego, but a basic human need.

   Wimbledon champions come and go and those who want it badly enough will eventually win the crown. Ageism is certainly rampant in Britain and what is worse is most 'senior citizens' themselves feel on the scrap heap with little to offer. What a dreadful term a senior citizen! As far as I am concerned I'm still on my gap year (another curious commercial construct) and it may continue into my nineties. I haven't started living yet and have a lot of catching up to become even  'normal' if it is ever possible my life could follow a conventional path! But whilst every dog has its day there is also still fight in the dog. Without fight there is no point but the day may yet come to pass.