Dad’s latest project in the Wabi Sabi Workshop has been the construction of a play house for the grandchildren. He drew up the plans himself (see below) and has been building the play house over the winter when not playing golf and it is not too cold in the workshop. Based on the traditional shepherd’s hut or living van design, this tiny house is static, although it does have wheels that were salvaged from some agricultural machinery.

The exterior of the play house is almost finished but the interior still has to be fitted out. The stable-door design has already led to the grandchildren engaging in playing shop (they have already sold Auntie Judi a gin and tonic – I need to check if they need a licence to sell imaginary alcohol!). I gather there are plans for a slide that will be accessible from one of the windows and there will be fold-up benches inside. There is enough space for sleepovers and it is surprisingly roomy, with sufficient height for an adult to stand up inside. Handy for the vegetable patch it won’t just be slugs, mice, voles, pigeons and sparrows raiding Mum’s peas, strawberries, raspberries and crunchy beans - now it will also be small children on a sleepover who fancy a midnight snack!




























Our book Home Carpentry by John Barnard includes advice and guidance on the basics of woodwork and carpentry for absolute beginners. It is set out in a logical order and provides information and plans for constructing the key elements of simple structures like Dad’s play house – windows and doors for example. After discussing the various types of wood, woodwork tools and how to use them, joints, lathe work, etc., the author begins his section on construction, sensibly enough, with a chapter on how to build the most crucial tool for all carpenters – a work bench.

The next chapter covers ‘Simple and Easy Constructional Woodwork’ and includes detailed instructions for making picture frames, roller blinds and curtain poles, a kitchen table, chairs, household steps and ladders, a clothes horse and flower stands and stages. Having mastered these simple items the amateur carpenter can then move on to the construction of a simple building like a garden shed (or a play house). The author focuses on the construction of simple gates, doors and windows and then goes on to describe the construction of more elaborate designs such as panelled doors and casement windows. Also, reflecting the time at which the book was written (1933) the section on windows includes very useful information on repairing that early form of air-conditioning, invented perhaps as early as the sixteenth century, the sash window (the author does not propose that the amateur carpenter actually constructs a sash window). For more information on the origins and value of sash windows for ventilation see 
http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1151,00.html

Tiny homes, garden sheds and other small buildings are very trendy in the USA and UK at the moment – both for living in and as places to pursue hobbies, to work in and, of course, to play in. For those who don’t want to spend what can be a great deal of money on a custom-built tiny home or garden office, there is plenty of inspiration around for those who want to construct their own very individual project in the back garden.
http://www.countryliving.com/home-design/g1887/tiny-house

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/george-clarkes-amazing-spaces

http://thetinylife.com/what-is-the-tiny-house-movement

Our two woodwork titles, Woodwork Tools and How to Use Them and Home Carpentry, provide a wealth of practical advice for those who are also keen to use traditional tools and techniques in the construction of their own extraordinary or even eccentric small spaces. After all, the process of building your tiny home or garden retreat is all part of the fun, and working with natural materials is the Wabi Sabi way to wellbeing.

One of my favourite tasks here at RHE Media is searching for interesting and relevant out-of-copyright titles to add to our Vintage Words of Wisdom list. However, sometimes the books we unearth are not suitable for ebook conversion, often because the illustrations are not of sufficient quality. This is the case with two titles I acquired recently – Needlework and Crafts by Irene Davison, Agnes M. Miall and R.K. & M.I.R. Polkinghorne and Stitch Patterns & Designs for Embroidery by Anne Brandon-Jones. Both of these titles contain a great deal of useful information on embroidery and other crafts. The contents of Needlework and Crafts includes everything from plain sewing and hand embroidery through dressmaking, mending, crochet and knitting, to crafts such as gesso-work, poker-work,  leather work and basketry. Sadly, the illustrations are poor and don’t scan well, which is a shame.

On the upside, there was a nice surprise at the back of the Needlework and Crafts book – an envelope containing 10 gift transfers. These are iron-on transfers of a range of designs that were very popular in the 1920s. The designs are pretty, as you can see from the illustration above and the following example, which is the larger of the two transfers for the Lilac design seen on the cushion cover above.

Our aim with the Vintage Words of Wisdom titles is to make wise words from the past more widely available again as ebooks. Therefore, I have selected some useful and interesting content from Needlework and Crafts and Stitch Patterns & Designs for Embroidery, and added this to a section from our edition of Lillie London’s Needlework Book, to create a Vintage Needlework Gift Pack. The Gift Pack includes scans of some of the transfers I found at the back of Needlework and Crafts as well as the section of the book that relates to these transfers.

To request a copy of the free Gift Pack please register with us by completing the Registration Form and click on ‘Craft’ in the list of topics of interest. The Gift Pack PDF will be sent to you by email.

All those who register with us to receive the free Gift Pack will also be entered into a Free Prize Draw to win our office copy of Needlework and Crafts with the 10 iron-on transfers in the back. One lucky winner will be selected on 29th March 2015 (when British Summer Time begins and we can look forward to longer and warmer days). Register soon to be included in this free prize draw.

In the midst of winter gloom and post-Christmas, my thoughts turn to spring and to the next holiday, which is Easter. My family often come to me for lunch on Easter Sunday and there are gifts and an Easter Egg Hunt for the children. This year I am planning to revive a childhood craft skill, inspired by Project 77 and Lillie London Lesson on creating wool toys for children in our edition of Lillie London’s Needlework Book. When I was at primary school there was a craze for making wool pompoms by winding odd bits of multi-coloured wool around cardboard circles. It was a fad that was probably inspired by the children’s TV programme Blue Peter (I think Lesley Judd made Flumps using pompoms - which will mean nothing to our American readers) and we spent hours winding wool and experimenting with different effects by tying in a variety of colours at intervals during the wind.

I was therefore both amused and pleased to find that Lillie London had included a project in her book to create chicks and bunnies for children using these wool pompoms. It hadn’t occurred to me as a child to trim the pompoms into different shapes and use different sizes of pompom together to create animals. It will be fun to create Easter gifts using this technique and I have included the project and lesson from the book in the free Vintage Needlework Gift Pack so you can have a go too.

For a nostalgic indulgence, here is a link to some clips of children’s TV from the 1970s and 1980s, including Blue Peter. Sadly I couldn’t find a video of Lesley Judd making pompom Flumps but there are several episodes of Blue Peter from the 1970s on YouTube. http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/childrens/bbc_a-l.html

Like many house-owners I possess some of the tools essential for sorting out problems and making minor improvements around the house. Although this ‘work’ may not extend much beyond hanging pictures, changing plugs or tightening hinges and catches, the quantity of the equipment is considerable.

There is the ubiquitous power drill plus assorted screwdrivers, hammers, pliers, saws, spanners and Allen keys. And then there are gimlets, spirit levels, a power sander, set squares, gauges, wrenches, a power screwdriver, adjustable spanners, mallets, chisels, files, pincers and planes. Note the use of the plural – it seems one is never enough.

After rummaging through one toolbox yesterday to find an appropriately sized electrical screwdriver I started wondering how and why I had amassed this collection. I’m a typical, average, would-be handyman and like to think I can handle those basic repair jobs, but rarely have I embarked on anything more ambitious. So why all the tools? I concluded that, like many others, I cannot pass an opportunity to acquire another piece of kit even it is a just-in-case purchase. I realised I can justify this too. I remember very clearly as a youngster watching my father at work with a plane – he was quite good at making and fixing things around the house and garden – and how he impressed upon me the importance of having the right tool for the job. So that explains the multiple screwdrivers, hammers, etc. A specific job required a specific instrument. However, perhaps what I failed to pick up from him was that you have also to know how to apply the right tool in the right way if you want to get the right result! But I can work on that.

My collection consists mainly of modern tools of variable quality but I also have acquired hand tools from street markets – there is a particularly good stall in Bridport run by the Dawsons, who also sell vintage tools online at www.secondhandtools.co.uk/about.htmfew. A few tools were handed down through the family. My grandfather was a joiner and a great-grandfather was a skilled machinist. Like many professional artisans they had their own sets of tools, many made by themselves and a few of these, following disbursement, have found their way to me.

Despite my lack of experience and ability there is something special about holding a well-used, hand-crafted and beautiful hand tool. You hold it knowing it is truly unique. Add the family connection and there is a little magic at play. For a moment I am suddenly Grinling Gibbons!

Older hand tools are very collectable and there are numerous dealers and specialists, particularly in the UK and USA, who will buy and sell. I presume the buyers fall into one of two camps. There are those who just like vintage tools for their beauty and distinctiveness and those who see them as a useful, working tool for their workshop. I think it is particularly rewarding to see these tools remain in use and, with appropriate care, their longevity is assured. It is not unlike the perennial debate concerning classic cars – use them or cocoon them? There are those cars maintained in concourse condition but which remain unmoving, parked in an environment where the temperature and humidity is managed carefully and the public, if admitted, stand behind a rope. Of course they are a wonder to the eye and seemingly factory-fresh but there is something missing and it seems almost unfair to leave them there. [Rather like an animal caged in the zoo I believe they long to be given their freedom.] In my opinion the best cars are those that are driven as intended. Of course they are well looked after and maintained but they go out in the rain and the revs are pushed up towards the red when the opportunity arises. This approach recognises that they were built for a purpose and that was certainly not to remain static in a museum or collection.

The same applies to good tools. They deserve to be handled; to carve, gouge, saw, plane and hammer. Whatever your skill level or ambition cherish them, but use them.

If you need more advice then take a look at our Vintage Words of Wisdom title Woodwork Tools and How to Use Them written by William Fairham and first published in 1925. Despite its ninety years it is packed with information on how to use your hand tools and maintain them in peak condition.

As this is the last blog post before the holidays, we would like to wish all our readers a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Visit us in 2015 for more words of wisdom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfSB9Q8Phz8 

Housing is important in maintaining and improving public health, as well as quality of life and wellbeing for all. As well as dangers to physical health such as damp, excessive heat and cold, and hygiene, poor quality housing also impacts on mental health and wellbeing because people need space, light, security, privacy and quiet. The thinking on housing and wellbeing has been developing over the last 100 years. The focus on morality and basic health concerns in the nineteenth century was replaced in the early twentieth century by broader concerns for wellbeing. For example, The Complete House Book of 1937 pointed out that ‘Insufficient lighting was is not only depressing and a strain on the eyes, but can also cause worse trouble; headaches, indigestion, general lassitude and irritation can often be traced to it’.

Once Britain had recovered from the First World War and the depression, there was a boom in house-building in the 1930s and the clearance of slums was a priority. Although the new homes were often smaller than those built before the war, an increase in flat-dwelling promised to bring exciting new developments in modern urban living. In the Victorian era living in a flat was looked down upon because of the association with working-class tenements. However, such prejudices broke down in the inter-war years, so much so that in 1934 the journal Building devoted its August issue to flat design.

Features of privately built flats in the 1930s included things like bay windows – regarded as important to distinguish privately owned flats from council flats, which at the time did not have bay windows. They also made rooms appear larger, gave residents better views and admitted more light to rooms, which was a very important consideration in modern architecture at the time. In the title How to Live in a Flat you will see that Heath Robinson draws his blocks of flats as lovely Art Deco buildings with clean lines and the large steel-framed windows that were popular at the time.

Flat design also took into account the radical transition from living in a house with servants to living without the support system that had been a feature of home life for everyone except the very poorest for centuries. Modern technology helped to make this easier with things like communal hot water systems. As Leslie Hoskins, curator of the Museum of Domestic Design and Architecture, told The Daily Telegraph in 2003:

There was still a notion that the most desirable way to live was in a house with servants. It was to counteract this idea that brochures for 1930s flats all talked up the modern comforts and amenities on offer. Great emphasis was placed on the fact that blocks of flats provided round-the-clock hot water – which was something you'd only get in a house if you had a maid who kept the boiler constantly stoked.

A communal hot water system was also designed to show that living in a flat could represent a move upmarket, something that developers were keen to emphasise to counter the prevailing prejudice against living in a flat.

Serviced flats were common too as a way of providing an alternative to a full coterie of servants. For example, The Isokon building in Hampstead, London, is a concrete block of 34 flats that was designed by architect Wells Coates for Molly and Jack Pritchard and which opened in 1934. The flats were an experiment in minimalist urban living. Most of the flats had very small kitchens as there was a large communal kitchen for the preparation of meals, connected to the residential floors via a dumb waiter. Services, including laundry and shoe-shining, were provided on site.

Furniture too was designed specifically to make living in a small space easier. Drop-leaf and gate-leg tables, which date back to the sixteenth-century, are a testament to the historic lack of space in British homes. In the 1930s flat the nest of tables became popular. In fact, this concept of things stacking away or folding up was close to the hearts of 1930s interior designers, as demonstrated by such remarkable gadgets as the 10-way settee, the night-time dressing table which transformed into a daytime desk and the four-seater dining table which could be packed away inside a sideboard.

All of these developments are caricatured by William Heath Robinson and K. R. G. Browne in How to Live in a Flat. Indeed in the Introduction the authors specifically refer to the scarcity of servants, which they give as one reason why people feel they have to move into a flat. However, what Heath Robinson is best known for are his solutions to every-day problems and he is on top form in this book with his contraptions and devices designed to help with life in a very small space. Thus we have the Heath Robinson Dibedroom – a combined dining and bedroom achieved by moving a wall:

Recently there have been several newspaper articles about tiny studio flats being sold and rented for outrageous prices. It seems we are living in ‘rabbit-hutch Britain’. The RIBA says that new-build British homes are the smallest in Europe and the average home is now just 925 square feet – barely half the size they were in the 1920s. One thing that certainly doesn’t help is that Britain is the only country in Europe to sell houses based on the number of bedrooms and not on the square footage. In 1967-9 minimum space standards (the Parker Morris Standard) were introduced but these standards were scrapped by Margaret Thatcher in 1980. Since then there has been increasing concern about the harm that lack of space in the home can cause; small may be beautiful - but not if you have to live in it. Therefore, How to Live in a Flat is surprisingly relevant to life in Britain in 2014. In fact, several of Heath Robinson’s space-economising solutions have been used in practice to maximise the use of space in small flats. We have beds that fold down from wardrobes fully-made and ready to sleep in, communal rubbish shoots, central heating and multipurpose furniture. So Heath Robinson was way ahead of his time and reading How to Live in a Flat may spark other innovative solutions to making life bearable in a tiny twenty-first century home!

RHE Media is very proud to announce the imminent publication of five new titles in the Vintage Words of Wisdom series (keep an eye on our ‘What’s new’ page and the Products page for further details). These are all illustrated by William Heath Robinson with text by KRG Browne:

·         Humours of Golf

·         How to Live in a Flat

·         How to be a Perfect Husband

·         How to Make a Garden Grow

·         How to be a Motorist

Heath Robinson drew simple contraptions that offered solutions to problems that many people encountered in everyday life. You could say that he mostly found solutions for problems that didn’t really exist and created inventions for needs and wants people didn’t know they had. However, even today, who could argue with the challenges faced by those who live in tiny flats, the problems resulting from garden pests and the difficulties encountered by newly-weds setting up life together? Many of the issues addressed by Heath Robinson are surprisingly still relevant and resonant in the twenty-first century. His inventions designed to leap such lifestyle hurdles as learning to drive, choosing a mate or living in a flat with no soundproofing will strike a chord with many living in the modern world. Heath Robinson is also very concerned with recycling and upcycling everyday items when designing his devices – something very familiar to those who love repurposing vintage items today.

Of course, to Heath Robinson the 1920s and 30s period was a very modern world. For example, owning a car was only recently within reach of a large proportion of the population and the Road Traffic Act of 1934 introduced the compulsory driving test for the first time. The 1930s saw a significant increase in the number of flats and apartments built in Britain so living in a flat in a high-rise building was a novel experience for many people. The period after the First World War also saw considerable social change and this too is reflected in the Heath Robinson titles – the changing role of women, the decline in the employment of household servants, an enthusiasm for fresh air and keeping fit and, given the economic depression in the early 1930s, a prevailing obsession with cost-saving and financial prudence are all underlying themes that appear in Heath Robinson’s drawings and K. R. G. Browne’s text.

The keep fit and fresh air craze that emerged post World War One (exemplified by the 1933 song Keep Young and Beautiful by Abe Lyman - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TT2FFfzpzY0 ) is also covered by Heath Robinson in his book Humours of Golf. Geoffrey Beare, Trustee of the William Heath Robinson Trust, has kindly written the forewords for our Heath Robinson titles. Of Humours of Golf he writes:


Heath Robinson’s drawings frequently took the sports that interested the upper classes as their subject – hunting, fishing, tennis, winter sports and most often golf. In 1923 the publisher Methuen proposed that Heath Robinson’s golfing subjects should be collected in a separate volume and the book was published as The Humours of Golf in time for the Christmas market, with an introduction by Bernard Darwin, the leading golf writer of the day. Heath Robinson made a number of small line drawings on golfing subjects that were added at intervals through the book. The fact that he did not play the game himself allowed him to see its more ridiculous aspects.

On the other hand, Heath Robinson reflects aspects of the British character that could be regarded as timeless. After all, an obsession with gadgets, inventions created in sheds from collecting ‘things that might be useful one day’ and ‘sledgehammer to crack a nut’ solutions have appeared time and again throughout British history. The eccentric inventor crops up frequently in both fiction and fact. Heath Robinson himself said: ‘I really have a secret satisfaction in being considered rather mad’. From Caractacus and Grandpa Potts in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to Wallace and Gromit, from ‘Q’ in the Bond films to the bizarre inventions that appeared in the early days of rail and air travel (described beautifully in our titles The Railway Age and The Boys’ Book of Aeroplanes) – we have a proud tradition of ingenuity and problem-solving that, though often apparently potty, is actually widely respected and admired around the world.This is because the drive to invent solutions to problems often does, eventually, produce some impressive and genuinely useful results. Indeed there are many germs of genius in Heath Robinson’s designs. For example, using grey water (i.e. bath water) to water the garden is now incorporated into the design of eco-homes. Other examples include chairs that help you get to your feet, machines for making coffee and contraptions for keeping cats off carefully prepared seed beds. These and many other ideas suggest that, far from being crazy, Heath Robinson was often way ahead of his time!

Many of Heath Robinson’s inventions involve one vital component – string. Indeed, in How to be a Motorist, K. R. G. Browne acknowledges the crucial role string plays where motor cars are concerned:

The reader who has kept his head and reached this point without succumbing to ennui, sleep, or a craving to go to the movies, will have realized, we hope, that the intelligent use of string can do much to improve the appearance and performance of any motor car. Where no string is available, twine, tape, or even plaited bimbo-grass (which grows only on the Patagonian plains in alternate Leap Years) can be utilized instead; but the principle – “a knot here, a knot there, and save what’s left over” – remains the same.

Keen string-fanciers to a man, Mr. Heath Robinson and I hold pretty strong views about this valuable, inexpensive and under-estimated commodity. And if our joint efforts to make Britain thoroughly string conscious meet with only half the success they deserve, we shall feel that we have not half-lived in vain.

I have my own reasons to be thankful for the existence of string. In my early days as a motorist I was the proud owner of a Triumph Toledo. This classic of its kind was named Sybil (because her number plate began SYB and ended with an ‘L’). She served me well as a first car but she did have a distressing tendency to break down at crucial moments. On one occasion the brakes failed as I was approaching a large and busy roundabout, another time the clutch gave out as I was driving along a very icy road, but the most memorable break down occurred on the M5. I was playing a game of tag with a minibus full of rugby players (yes, I was a young and foolish girl!) – they would overtake me with much rowdy glee and then I would overtake them when I could with a cheerful toot on Sybil’s horn. However, all the enthusiastic overtaking was too much for Sybil’s rather matronly workings and the accelerator cable snapped. Luckily I was in the slow lane at the time so I ignominiously limped on to the hard shoulder, much to the amusement of the rugby players who sped past without showing one jot of concern for my plight. At the time I was not a member of the AA or the RAC so I had to walk to the emergency phone and plead with the person on the line to contact a local garage. Luckily someone was willing to come and rescue me and, sometime later, a tow truck arrived.

The garage man started rummaging about in Sybil’s innards and saw immediately that the problem was a broken linkage in the accelerator cable. He popped his head up over the bonnet and asked me if I had a piece of string. Luckily, being a good Girl Guide, I was prepared and I had a piece of string in the glove compartment. I handed it over and a few minutes later the garage man called me over to show me what he had done. Basically, he had used the string to tie the two ends of the accelerator cable together. When I expressed some doubt and concern about his fix, he told me that his solution was good enough to get me off the motorway and the rest of the way home. He was absolutely right – Sybil made it to my parents’ house with no further trouble and Dad and I went to the local junk yard the next day to find a suitable linkage to mend the accelerator cable properly, which we did. So, I had much cause to be thankful for string and I too think it is a much underrated commodity. I like to think that Heath Robinson would have been proud to see string play such an important role in my rescue!

Thus, if you live in a flat, are a keen gardener, play golf, drive a car and/or are married (and many of us are and do) you will find that Heath Robinson and K. R. G. Browne have many valuable and relevant words of wisdom for you, even though their books were written nearly 100 years ago. Heath Robinson’s drawings are, of course, also very funny and K. R. G. Browne’s text is an amusing accompaniment; they obviously worked extremely well together. For further useful advice you might also turn to our titles on Room and Window Gardening (ideal if you live in a flat), Poultry Keeping (also, according to Heath Robinson in How to Live in a Flat, useful for flat-dwellers!), and Ferns and Fern Culture if you are a keen gardener. For more on Heath Robinson I can recommend this BBC programme https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SMqjyynNYaM

I received my National Trust magazine on Saturday and I opened it to find an article about a quilt made by volunteers at Killerton House in Devon. This gorgeous work of art, known as the Pride of Killerton, took two years to make and was created by volunteers. The Pride of Killerton quilt is decorated with images of apple trees as Killerton has its own orchards and makes cider from its apples (see our blog posts on cider-making and apple varieties). For more information on the quilt visit http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/article-1355854006193 

I was delighted to see the article because I volunteered at Killerton as a room steward several years ago and I loved spending time in the vintage clothing exhibition they have at the house. Many of the dresses on display were decorated with intricate and beautiful embroidery, representing many hours of painstaking work. For more on the Killerton fashion exhibition visit http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/killerton/things-to-see-and-do/events/exhibitions

Killerton House also has lovely gardens and serves excellent food so a visit to the house, and to other National Trust properties, is a great way to restore one’s feelings of wellbeing. October is the perfect time to visit as the trees are dressed in their autumn colours and there is nothing more restorative than a walk through woodland on bright and chilly day followed by afternoon tea. I have always felt thankful that the creation of the National Trust has provided access to this country’s most beautiful houses and gardens for everyone – a most civilised and British form of common ownership. In 1944 Sir Richard Acland (who was a socialist who believed in common ownership) donated Killerton House and gardens to the Trust. Sir Richard also sold some of the surrounding land to the Trust to raise money for the Common Wealth Party that he founded. I think that, perhaps, the National Trust today offers us Common Wellbeing – the opportunity to appreciate beauty both natural and man-made, to take exercise in the fresh air, to enjoy good food in attractive surroundings with our friends and to take time out from busy and stressful lives. It is also focal point for community activities, environmental conservation and volunteering – all of which are key aspects of wellbeing.

Creative hobbies also contribute to our wellbeing. Several of the embroidery techniques employed in making the Killerton quilt are described in our new book – Lillie London’s Needlework Book. The book includes lessons on embroidery, cutwork, appliqué and quilting, as well as over 80 projects from the 1930s. My grandmother (who was a skilled tailor and dressmaker) and my great-grandmother (who made some of the items in the photographs below) would have made the cushions, tablecloths, chairbacks, etc. from pre-stamped fabric kits that they bought by mail order. However, this is not to detract from the needlework skills they had to employ to produce such high quality results. The slideshow below shows examples of vintage embroidery created using the skills that are described in Lillie London’s Needlework Book.

By the way, the chairbacks were earlier known as antimacassars. Oiled hair was fashionable in Victorian and Edwardian times for both men and women and Macassar oil was often used to achieve the desired look.  It was so named because it was reputed to have been manufactured from ingredients (such as coconut or palm oil and ylang ylang oil to make it smell nice) purchased in the port of Makassar in Indonesia. However, it left nasty greasy marks on the back of chairs and sofas. Therefore, an antimacassar was used to protect upholstery as it was easier to remove the antimacassar and wash it than it was to clean your chair and sofa fabric. Antimacassars are still used on trains, planes and coaches today to preserve the life of the upholstery and for reasons of hygiene.