Recently my Dad gave me a dirty, cracked and definitely not working wooden lamp base. Now you might think this wasn't the most thoughtful of presents but I was very pleased with it. You only have to look at this photograph from the early 1960s to see why.
That's Mum and Dad and behind them is the lamp in its youth. It was a wedding present from the Midland Bank where Mum worked before they married in 1956. How do I know that? Because I still have Mum's wedding present list, presumably made to help her in writing thank-you letters.
As you can see, Mum's colleagues also gave them a wooden fruit bowl which my brother now has. The lamp base is shaped like a wine glass and the drum shade was a wine red to match it.
So, back to the present. I didn't think to take a photo before I cleaned it up but here it is, crack mended and polished. The wood was really pale and dry and responded well to lots of polish and elbow grease.
The next thing to do was to replace the cable and bulb holder as it still had the original fittings which were standard in the UK before 1970. Does anyone else remember the days when you could do your ironing by plugging an adaptor into the bulb holder on the ceiling light? Here's a link to more information about plugs than anyone could want - except perhaps Mr Weasley.
I found a very good website called Lamp Spares which had everything I wanted and the lamp was soon fitted with a new lead and bulb holder, complete with safety switch. What a good invention these are; it's impossible to turn the switch on unless a bulb is in the holder - I remember getting a nasty electric shock from a bedside lamp many years ago and it's not an experience I'd like to repeat.
The trickiest part was replacing the green baize on the bottom of the base which had long since perished. I had one piece of green felt that was big enough but the new flex is thicker than the old one so the groove in the base wasn't deep enough for it. Rather than try to make the groove deeper I built up the felt with two layers of thick interfacing so that the lamp would stand flat.
All it needed now was a lampshade and I wanted a big dark red drum shade to match its original one. Luckily, my local branch of B & Q had just what I wanted and they even had a sale on. My son walked there with me to carry things (I can't breath, walk and carry something, however light it is) and to remind me how to pay with my debit card. I think it's the first time I've done that for two years.
And here is my new lamp. It's not a very good photo but the best I could manage.
The colours are much richer in real life but you get the general idea. Do you see what the lamp is sitting on? That's my Mum's old workbox which is even older than the lamp; her Dad made it for her out of old packing boxes, along with the little bookcase that I talked about some time ago in this blog post. If you look back at the black and white picture at the start of today's post, you'll see that the lamp was sitting on the workbox then as well. And that's where it's going to live in its new life too.
