Table -

Or as my mother would assert …. ‘A family Heirloom’!

Ever wondered what an old piece of furniture could tell?

I’m the last in the line of my family’s ownership of the Table, two weeks ago I finally said goodbye to a large refectory table with seating for eight, originally it came with four carver chairs & four upright matching chairs. The bases & backs of these chairs were woven lattice work & as such subject to aging & breakages, however to be honest they did very well in my parents family home for many years, they were only subject to one overhaul in that time & I would drive them up to the farthest reaches of London, two at a time to have them re-woven & then go into the city to party.

The Table was at the centre of my childhood family, it saw much drama, happiness, terror & tears. Don’t you often look at a beautiful piece of furniture that has lived its life before it met you & wonder what its story is?

The Table, sat centre stage in the purpose built dining room, in my parent’s splendid new home, Dutch Gardens, you can read about it here.

When it first came in to the house, I could barely see over the top of it. It was my job to polish the underside, so I spent many happy hours under the table as well as sat at it. At Christmas the table was extended to accommodate the 27 on my mother’s side of the family & 24 on my father’s side, each side of the family would take it in turns each year to choose to come either on Boxing Day or Christmas Day. They were marathons, my mother cooking, my father disapproving of something or other?

On my birthday, extensions would be applied to the table – My mother delighting in these events & would sit up late into the night plaiting fresh carnation flowers into long strings that were draped over the centre light & attached to the corners of the table. I am not sure that I really appreciated this opulent design feature, but it kept my mother & the lady who grew the carnations for her each year very happy! One year on my brother’s birthday, an uncle bought him a card enclosed in an exploding tin, the instructions on the tin read, ‘stand on table’, to everyone’s surprise my brother got up on the table! These were indeed very happy memories of the Table.

Sunday, was Trevor’s, [my father’s] day, a huge Sunday lunch was prepared always with a Yorkshire pudding for him. No matter what - come hell or high water you had to attend; most often, these lunches would descend into disorder, dispute & dissention. So yes here were happy & sad times at this Table.

We grew up & my parents separated, the Table was dispatched to her designer home on the river in Maidenhead, where it sat in an elaborate glazed roofed conservatory, also designed to specifically house the Table, the maroon padded fitted cushions had been replaced by royal blue & piped. My mother a party animal, had the odd party where the table was used, but in the main, it just sat resplendent in its pretty room for many years, alone.

The next move was when my mother moved to a four floor town house in Bath, the Table was too big, the chairs were in poor condition as the woven lattice work had perished.  To my mother it was an – heirloom, so must be kept. It was dispatched to our property in Somerset. We already had an even larger refractory table, with leather studded upright chairs.

However, we were lucky enough to have a very large property which was once a Tuberculosis hospital, the corridors were wide which meant that the Table could now be used as an occasional table in the long hallway. It looked beautiful & it sat their splendidly taking in the view from the adjacent window, although not used as a family dining table, it was very much part of the family dynamics, not only as a design piece but also part of the Christmas’s & Easter celebrations.

Another move; to a town house in Wells, Somerset, where one again it sat by the front door mascaraing as a hall table, it became the receptacle for the children’s, shoes & boots stored underneath & satchels, bags, school projects & any amount of coats were now thrown on it. It was the welcoming table to our home. I stored the chairs that were still in disrepair with the exception of two carvers that were restored as part of an interior design project & latterly sold on.

On the move for a further time, in this property the Table was given back its true purpose & used as a dining table in our home, the larger refectory table we had was sold & we used the leather bound studded chairs from that table as our dinning chairs. A truly happy family table, here it stayed for ten years, it was again at the hub of the house, used for happy Sunday lunches, Birthdays & Christmas & all other things family related including my Shoe Porn photography!

Finally, it was time for the final goodbye to the Table & wish it a happy future outside of this family. The removal van arrived …. It was a sad moment to say goodbye.. But I know that it will now have many more tales to tell…. Good luck Table …       

How we meet – The Table …

My parent’s local shop, when I was a child was Harrods, London, we drove there every weekend. It was my playground, I knew the layout very well & enjoyed exploring, when the new Egyptian exhibition was built on the ground floor, I would ride up & down the escalators, then muse my way through all the other departments, the wonderful smells of the perfume & make-up areas, the beautiful ceilings in the food halls & the Pets Corner all favourite memories. Not to mention the Way In – I loved it! Back in those days you were allowed to take your dog into the department, this however was stopped as our puppy purchased from Harrods peed on the expensive Egyptian carpet that was the centre piece of the design. Sorry about that everyone! Trevor & I used to visit ‘Pet’s Corner’, you could buy any animal there, all banned now of course, on one occasion Trevor purchased two Porcupine, with my encouragement, however this exciting purchase was blocked once my mother found out! Probably for the best in the long run!

I was doing my usual tour of Harrods, while my parents were concentrating on their many house purchases, I was whizzing through the furniture floor which was my least favourite, it had none of the excitement of the other floors & it was always cold even in the summer. The Table & chairs had been moved from this floor & been placed in one of Harrods exhibitions on another floor, I made my way down to find them; when I arrived my parents were moving the chairs in & out & sitting on them at the Table. There were two carvers & six chairs in the original set. However this is not the design configuration Trevor wanted, he wanted four carvers & four upright chairs, what Trevor wants – Trevor gets! The purchase was made & the Harrods salesman was left to source a carpenter competent enough to copy the original carvers. Some weeks later the table with four carvers & four chairs was delivered to the house, I don’t know what happened to the two matching set chairs? Furniture evolves like people & places. So this was the beginning of our story of the Table … Whoever buys it I hope that it delivers as much pleasure that we have had from it …