CHISELS & BEN

Norman bought the land because of the oak tree. Any fallen branches were used, sculpted into rabbits, drawer handles and magazine racks. Everything in the house was made from solid oak. Each piece, from the stairs to the grandfather clock to the small animals he carved, bore the intertwined initials N and E. He’d proposed to Liz just a month after meeting her. They met at work where she taught English and he taught technical drawing. Norman kept the best work from ‘his boys’. After his retirement, his eyebrows growing into increasingly unruly caterpillars that he perpetually stroked, he passed the ‘bits of old paper that had faded and smelt funny’ to Ben. In 2010 Norman died and Liz gave Ben his tools. Ben is making a box for them, to keep them as ship shape and sharp as his Great Uncle kept them. And the wood Ben is using? Oak.

14 Apr 2013