Life Without Reading

Yes!

We are in the woods. I need a small tree for three bends. We walk brushing past the glossy hazel and dull sycamore coppice, looking for Ash, a straight grey stem. We head deep in where thin Ash saplings grow like giant grass, competing for light. There is die-back here, brittle brown twigs in about a third of what we find, Autumn comes early for those in trouble and there is nothing we can do. We keep going deeper, I am looking for multi-stem Ash, this will be fast-grown, over-grown coppice, no time for branches. Here, you can see I have been here before, harvesting, pruning, tailoring, neat rings look up at us as we scan the branches of the surrounding Ash stools, clumps of fine branches… there, that one. I prune away all the dieback I see on these special trees, old and new, 35cm from any lesions is enough to keep the pathogen from the valued specimens for now, buy them some more time. I can just get my hands around this stem, the pruning saw slices away, white dust scatters upon the thick moss, it is over in a minute. The sun shines through the branches, light dancing white and green. Let’s idle in the woods a while longer, flashing bright saw dishing out the only medicine we know, hopeless really, the air seems so rare today, moreish, I don’t want to return to the dark building, but we must.

The ‘Crux of the Quandary’, what is that? It should be a Sherlock Holmes novel; at the end he will track down a fleeing priest onto a frozen lake. Confronted the priest admits doubts, at which point a crack opens in the ice, a freak accident, he is swallowed.

Back in the workshop we deliver the log straight onto the saw bench, cut cleanly into neat boards, wet sap spraying. Into the steamer and I retreat behind a curtain to make blinding blue light, final welds on the final jigs and then illuminating with iron orange sparks. The bends, clamp, clamp, clamp, an old hand now they are pulled round into shape, the new bare surface of wood bears the marks of our labour as it cools, buckled fibres, round clamp marks, my crayons instructing, noting, referencing. We wait, the newly empty cells set hard, baking crisp as they dry. The seat slats need gentle bends. 10 minutes and they are ready, hot, over a giant gentle form we stretch and squash those fibres, controlled, and then onto the chairs clamped into place to dry. The trio hibernates in the warm. I’ll tidy up then.

Sherlock Holmes walks off the lake carrying the priest’s body in his arms, both are soaked through, their faces white.

Ready, muscle memory elastic, urging tools to work. The new bends released, surface meets surface for the first time, the parts spooned and fitting, these marks to get them perfect. I’ll carve them, the grinder relentless, wood to dust instantly, and the spoke-shave makes quiet elegant spirals that litter the ground. The 5mm holes and then 12mm inserts, as the hours pass, one by one they lock together, I am ecstatic, looking over my shoulder for someone to whisper in my ear ‘stop’.

Time is a burden for the bored, but a real luxury when there is something you want to do. The next stage can take as long or as short as you have, every tiny inch of the chairs worked, pure white Ash-dust like flour. Organic lines defined, considered from every angle and brought together. Square sections are rounded, like dough, and it is only when we have got to the elegant beautiful bones I can stop. After the journey all is in place and all will be fixed forever. Each joint is still just interlocked together with an insert to take the load, no glue, not permanent. We drill through the 5mm holes once more this time going through the inserts too. Next elegant dowels are cleft and made by drawing the wood through a series of holes in a steel plate, they are like solid straws, 4.8mm. The finest Japanese saw trims and then cuts down the length of the dowels at each end, the angles checked and re-checked so the cut will be at right-angles to the grain of the two parts is it about to secure. Two tiny wedges are carved with a sharp chisel and then cocktail sticks laden with glue do their work in the hole and the dowel is in. A tiny chisel turns the dowel like a key until the saw cuts are at the perfect angle, ensuring the wedges will push against the length of the wood, not split it apart. The tiny wedges, dipped in glue, are hammered gently in forcing the ends of the dowels to flare out ensuring they can never ever be removed. All is held, suspended, clamped to keep everything safe until the glue dries.

“My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man could invent. If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outré results, it would make all fiction with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions most stale and unprofitable.”