DECORATING
By Richard Banks
It was in ’61
soon after Grandpa’s op that my mother and her sister decided that the living
room of their parents’ house should be redecorated and that their husbands
were to be the main component of the unpaid workforce. While it is unlikely
that my father and uncle were part of the decision making process they went
along, willingly enough, with a project that was clearly important to their
wives.
The room was very much in need of
redecoration and as Grandpa was not long out of hospital after the removal of a
kidney stone he was in no condition to do the job himself. Indeed at
eighty-five years of age, kidney stone or no kidney stone, his decorating days
were probably long gone. So, it was that my grandparent’s annual holiday to
Westcliffe became the window of opportunity in which the redecoration was to
take place. They departed on the first Saturday in September, as was their
custom, unaware of what was to take place.
“It will be a surprise,” said my
mother, “they’ll be so pleased.”
The latter statement was said more in
hope than expectation. My grandfather had very definite views on most subjects
and it seemed unlikely to me that he would be entirely approving of his
daughters’ choice of wallpaper and paint. However, he was unlikely to tear the
wallpaper off the wall and, although surprised rather than pleased, would no
doubt be quietly relieved that he did not have to do the job himself. Had he
attempted to do so there was every chance he would have fallen off his rickety,
old stepladder, with another spell in hospital the likely consequence. No doubt
this was very much in the minds of his daughters, as well as their husbands
whom both got on well with their in-law parents.
As both my mother and aunt had keys to
the house there was no problem in gaining entry and the men immediately set to
work removing furniture into other rooms. The woman departed to the shops to
buy the wallpaper and paint, along with myself who had been delegated chief paint
carrier. We returned to find the room stripped of all its fittings except for
the dinner table, which was to become a vital prop in the decorating process.
My grandparent’s Axminster carpet, a gift on their Diamond Wedding anniversary,
had also been taken elsewhere and the linoleum which surrounded it covered with
old sheets and newspapers.
The wallpaper stripping once commenced
was almost immediately abandoned when the first attempt to remove the old ’paper
resulted in the crumbling of the plaster beneath it. To continue on would,
almost certainly, have inflicted further damage requiring much replastering,
but this setback became a positive when the decision was taken to paper over
the existing wallpaper. This was something neither man would have considered
when decorating their own homes but if the job was to be done over the weekend,
which was the plan, it was a necessary shortcut that hopefully would not be too
obvious to those viewing the end result.
Work now shifted to the whitewashing of
the ceiling, both men standing on the dining room table, their broad brushes
splashing paint in all directions, When a blob alighted on my aunt’s face and
another on her blouse everyone not engaged in the painting withdrew into the
back garden where the women discussed a forthcoming shopping trip to the West
End and I read the football news on the back pages of the Daily Herald. Thus
occupied on a warm summer’s day in Grandpa’s well tended garden we were
definitely better off than those inside, but on hearing their cries that they
had finished, the women declared lunch and departed inside to make tea and
unpack the sandwiches they had brought.
However, lunch was not allowed to
significantly slow down the decorating process and having provided their
husbands with the sustenance they would not have expected to provide for
themselves, the women returned indoors to wash down the paintwork on the door,
picture rail and skirting board. They re-emerged an hour later with their own
lunches, and the men, who had been reading the latest news on the Berlin Wall
from the front page of the Herald, dutifully re-entered the house to apply a
second coat of whitewash to the ceiling. Job done they now began the
undercoating of the woodwork, the Berlin Wall still very much in their thoughts.
Both men had served in the armed forces during the war and the idea that they
should now feel sorry for the Germans attempting to flee to the West was one
they had mixed feelings about, even though neither had any liking for the ‘Ruskies’
as my uncle called them. Work was beginning to take second place to politics
when the women, lunch break over, returned to the fray and with all five of us
in action the pace of more rapid progress was resumed.
At 4pm work came to a halt while we
waited for the undercoat to dry. An early tea was had and the radio turned on
for second half commentary of a First Division football match involving
Tottenham Hotspur, my uncle’s team. As soon as the match was over the men were
iching to get back to work but the instructions on the undercoat specified a
drying time of four hours before the top coat could be applied. However, the
men eager to make progress insisted that it would be time enough when the
undercoat was touch dry. At a quarter to six it was duly touched and work
restarted. This, the final task of the day, was completed with the house lights
on and the last pale strands of daylight dropping down behind the roof of the
garage that backed on to my grandparents’ house. We returned home weary but
well satisfied with our day’s work; my aunt and uncle by bus to their two bed
semi in Chingford and my parents and me on foot to our first floor maisonette a
mile away, along Leyton High Road.
On
Sunday morning we returned to the fray to find ourselves first on the scene. This
was not entirely a surprise as my aunt was notorious for her late entrances. As
their presence was not essential for the wallpapering to begin, my parents
wasted little time in getting started. This was something they did well
together. Indeed their subtle, well rehearsed interactions would not have been
out of place on the dance floor. Dad would do the pasting of each strip,
carefully placing it against the wall, and with my mother’s help, ensuring that
the pattern coincided precisely with that of the previous strip. Mother would
then trim the top and bottom of each strip so that it precisely met with the
picture rail and wainscot while my father stood ready to wipe dry the cutting
edges of the large scissors she used. Her skill in this department was no more
than to be expected; as a trained dressmaker she was well practiced in the
precise cutting of dress materials.
At a
quarter to eleven, my aunt and uncle arrived, forty-five minutes late, due - so
they said - to the late running of the Sunday bus service. Excuses proffered
and accepted with good-natured resignation they soon set to, my uncle standing
on Grandpa’s tool chest in order to reach up the wall. My aunt was also a
dressmaker so she too was well suited to the trimming process. However, as a
wallpapering combo they did not have the smooth, almost seamless cohesion of my
parents who I regarded as the doyens of paper hanging.
A
development that the hangers were unprepared for was that the pink roses on
the otherwise white wallpaper were far from colour fast. When the paste was
applied only to the reverse side of each strip all was well, but if the rose
side inadvertently came into direct contact with even a small amount of paste
the red colouring smeared. The problem was mainly a consequence of the repeated
pasting of strips on my grandparents’ table which inevitably caused the
newspapers covering it to become damp and then wet. Problem identified, it was
largely resolved by the addition of a new layer of newspaper after each paste,
slowing progress but reducing usage of our dwindling supply of wallpaper.
In the
late afternoon, the wallpapering teams who had started from opposite corners of
the room converged on each other and my father ascended the stepladder to hang
the last strip of ’paper. This moment of triumph was, to his horror and all
those watching, snatched from him when yet another pink rose smeared beyond
recognition. My father snorted in frustration and was about to wrench the strip
from the wall when it was pointed out to him that this was the last one left.
After a necessarily brief discussion, the decision was taken to go ahead with
the hanging of it. By doing so the job would be brought to an end and the room’s
furniture restored to its normal positioning before we left for home. The temptation
to do this rather than buy a new role of wallpaper and finish off on a weekday
evening proved too much for the tired decorators whose faces nonetheless
indicated that their consciences were not entirely at ease with the decision
taken.
My
father, red faced with annoyance, vented his irritation by stamping on the
floor only to find his heel plunging through a floor board and coming to rest
on the concrete foundations some six inches below. Despite falling over
backwards and landing with a bang that shook the room father was uninjured,
which could not be said for the floor which now sported a hole the size of tea
plate.
My aunt
wisely chose this moment to declare a tea break during which the errant hole
was ruefully observed and diagnosed as suffering from dry rot. This was not the
first time it had been discovered in the house and the same can of ‘Rot Kill’
that had been used before now came in useful a second time. My uncle was about
to apply brush to wood when he caught sight of a dark shape a few inches from
the hole resting on the concrete base. He thrust in an arm and pulled towards
him an oblong metal box in which was a much corroded key in an equally corroded
lock. While thoughts of buried treasure were, I suspect, not confined to
myself, the grown-ups in the room took the pragmatic decision to disregard this
distraction and concentrate on the job at hand. The ‘Rot Kill’ was liberally
applied, the hole covered with grandma’s breadboard and the room’s carpet and
furniture put back as before, including their radiogram, its wheeled feet
conveniently straddling the breadboard and hole beneath.
Job
done we returned home beneath a harvest moon that seemed to be smiling down on
us with a benevolence I was not sure we deserved. But at least we had the box
with the intriguing prospect of treasure within, a box I couldn’t wait to open.
But wait I had to. It was school next day and once supper was over I was
hurried off to bed, half an hour later than my normal time.
No
doubt my parents were as curious as I was to find out what was inside but to
their credit they delayed opening it until I was home from school the following
day. The lid was soon levered off by father and its contents revealed.
Disappointingly there were no gold or diamonds within, nothing but ten
unremarkable items and a letter from one Ivy Bembridge, the soon-to-be wife of
Henry Potts, a builder, who was building a terrace of six houses, one of which
was to be their first home together. Indeed Ivy had already decided which one
she wanted and to assert her claim had placed a time capsule beneath the floor
boards that were then being laid.
Her
letter, dated 23rd June 1886,
addressed to those, ‘in centuries yet to come,’ says little about
her past life beyond the fact that she was now twenty-one years of age and ‘free
to marry who she pleased.’ From this we might infer that her parents
had opposed her union with young Henry. If so, there was no stopping her now,
and Mr and Mrs Bembridge had evidently bowed to the inevitable by announcing
their daughter’s engagement in the Leyton Gazette. Whatever doubts they still
had were not shared by Ivy who declared herself, ‘the happiest person
in London or
any other place’.
The
objects she enclosed were: a lock of fair hair intertwined with one of brown; a
pressed flower from the meadow on which the house was being built; a postcard
of Buckingham Palace; a china plate commemorating General Gordon’s death at
Khartoum; a theatre ticket for the Adelpi; a silver watch chain belonging to
her father; a ribbon that was once her mothers;
a calling card from Henry; the newspaper cutting announcing their
engagement and a picture of themselves taken on the promenade of a yet to be
identified seaside resort.
*****
My
grandparents returned from their week in Southend and were, so they assured us,
delighted at the changed appearance of their living room. Grandma proclaimed
that professional decorators could not have done a better job, which, of
course, was far from the truth. My grandfather was less fulsome in his praise.
No doubt he saw much that was not quite as it should have been but one defect
he may never have noticed was the smeared rose above his armchair that was now
hidden beneath a framed photograph of Ivy and Henry Potts, the first occupants
of number 11 Newland Road
in 1886.
Ivy’s
letter and the other items in her treasure trove were delivered into the care
of my grandmother who had her own box of keepsakes. On her passing, we gave them
all to the Vestry Museum in Walthamstow (now part of Waltham Forest)
where some of them can still be seen today.
If
anyone reading this is wondering whether the hole and the breadboard covering
it were ever discovered the answer is no, at least not while my grandparents
were in residence. Needless to say Grandma was much puzzled by the
disappearance of her breadboard which my aunt eventually felt obliged to
explain by saying she had, “lost it out shopping.” While this raised more
questions than answers she purchased them a new board, and no more was said
about it, although I’m sure much was thought.
The
house that Harry Potts built still stands, although much has changed; central
heating has now been installed along with an indoor loo; a satellite aerial
juts out from the wall and the front garden, once home to Grandpa’s hedge and
flowers, is now paved over and used as a car park. One thing that hasn’t
changed is the name on the stone lintel above the door, ‘Ivy Lodge.’
There
can be little doubt that Ivy had many fond memories of the house in which she
and Henry lived until their deaths within a few months of each other in 1934.
The house had three more owners before the arrival of my grandparents and after
them another six. All of them will have told tales of good times and bad, most
of which are lost in time. But this one is written down and will, I hope, last
longer than most. It deserves to. Good memories should never die with those who
remember.
Copyright Richard Banks
