Working against the grain

My grandmother died when she was 30, and my mother was 7. After that, my Mum was brought up largely by her grandmother, and owing to the confusion of generations, I thought this person was my own grandmother throughout childhood.

She was an interesting woman, and already ancient when I knew her. She was deeply religious, and gave me a Bible as a birthday present when I was 9. It was a very nicely produced book, but at the time I wanted something more in keeping with being 9. 

Her religion was deeply ingrained in her. One of her favourite words - I loved it as a child - was 'tabernacle'. It always sounded like a part of a crane to me. I could almost feel her anguish at the thought of being resurrected as she was, and having to spend eternity with her wooden leg.

The wooden leg was a late addition. It was at best a little primitive, and while not exactly Long John Silver style, it did have a sort of gearstick arrangement to allow the knew to be bent while sitting. Naturally this was more intriguing than the Bible and 'tabernacle' together.

It always surprised me just how fast she could move, especially when angry, which seemed to be often when I was around.

Before the wooden leg, we often went to see her in her tiny terraced house in Bradford. Her sister had lived in the house for 50 years, and after my grandmother was widowed, they shared it. It was a one-up-one down back-to-back house with a tiny scullery and an outside loo. At the back lived the terrifying Mrs Crabtree who could kill at ten paces. I gave her a wide berth.

My grandmother's house was different from home. Bradford had - and has - unusually wide streets which made the place feel spacious. They were great for playing football or cricket, even though Grandma lived on a hill. There was a chip shop at the bottom of the road, where, as soon as you arrived in the queue, the trick was to yell 'Special !'. By the time you got watch the wrapping-in-newspaper stage at the front, your especially large chunk of fish was done to perfection.

A this stage, pre-wooden leg, the most intriguing thing about Grandma was her front door. 

The door was painted to look like wood grain. You could feel the pattern if you ran your fingers over it. I think the original door must have been in bad shape. Someone had covered it with plywood and then a wood artist had carefully grained it to make it look like an expensive wood. It did not look like any wood I knew, though. It was rather yellow, and finished with a zillion coats of yacht varnish so that it glistened as if permanently wet.

It must have been all the rage as several neighbouring doors were finished in similar style.

What bothered me then - no idea why - was what the wood REALLY looked like underneath all that careful fakery.

Wood fakery is everywhere now. And not just wood fakery, of course, but marble fakery, stone fakery. Wooden wardrobes have a paper wood design fused to the chipboard, and laminate floors have wood grain to mimic no end of timber types. And house doors that look fielded and wooden are moulded and grained all in one process.

I do love wood. I have Aspergers so I am allowed to say that. Yes, I love wood. Real wood, however cheap, however unfigured.

This week I came across some shelves that were from a school originally. To brighten up the children's environment they had been grained a deep, dark brown. The graining had been quickly done with a comb, and it was a bit untidy, especially in the tricky corners.

I stripped them, planing off the grain finish and yellow base coat, to find that the real wood underneath the Sunday-best varnish had its own spectacular grain and character. One shelf was a piece of second-hand oak, straight-grained and clear. The rest of the timber was beautiful redwood with an exuberant and delightful grain. It felt as if all of a sudden, the shelves could breathe again, see daylight, feel the sunshine.

They were never grand, but they had been carefully made with good attention to detail. They were (and are) solid, functional, and by no means plain. They were just lovely, honest, unpretentious and hard-wearing shelves with their own unpainted beauty.

Here's what they looked like when they were done:

Carpenters hate painting things. Not because they are lazy, but because they love wood.

Incidentally, the wooden leg was an attractive shade of matt charcoal.