2:04 - Great little scene here; the bodger (Arthur Randall ?) expertly flipping the stave and giving a friendly nod to posterity. I don't think he would have expected that green-wood and hand tool woodworking would have a renaissance 100 years later. Shaving horses are again being built and top quality hand tools are again produced. Long Live the 'Luddites' !
Fantastic! The beauty of this is that the legs were of split stock - nothing cross grained or spliced together. I imagine most of the chairs shown here still are in service!
About 25 years ago I met Bill Cotton, (and his wife, who was as enthusiastic as him about their adventures), the chap who wrote "The English Regional Chair" and I'm sure it was his collection which started The Chair Museum in High Wycombe, I'm sure I'll be told if I'm wrong! Very interesting and well used reference book by many restorers and dealers. Windsor Chairs are in my opinion one of the most comfortable wooden chairs anywhere on the world, and their variety, colour, style is a real treat to enjoy. Buy one now, they are often unbelievably cheap, and have been for a number of years, yet they will last another hundred if treated nicely! So! "Are you sitting Comfortably?" Edit or delete this
I had a great-uncle, Frank West, who lived at Stokenchurch. Yesterday I found a newspaper clipping, from when he was old, but still plying his craft (late 1940s? 1950s? early 1960s?), saying that a permanent feature was soon to be staged at High Wycombe Public Museum. It says " Two of the last surviving chair bodgers, Mr Frank West, of Water End, Stokenchurch, and Mr White of Beacons Bottom ...". It seems they donated almost a complete set of tools, pole-lathe, shave-horse, etc. I wonder whether the exhibition still exists?
A mate of mine told me his grandad was the last working bodger in the area. I don't know what year it would have been but he was called Ridgeley and from Widmer End.
@@gerrijacobs8426 frank lived by me my mother used to cook and do his washing he had a small holding with a cherry orchard my mother used to go picking for him i used to give him a lift to the pub when i could drive my grandfather was bert white there tools went to wycombe chair museum
@@neilturner2924 Oh wow! Small world! Thank you for replying. I think I clicked on your message accidentally. I remember going into the orchard (wasn’t aware - or have forgotten - it was cherries). And I remember the inglenook fire and how rustic the house was. I guess it was the early 1960s when I visited. I remember Frank stayed with us briefly, when ill or convalescing. It’s good to hear he had your mother looking after him and you took him to the pub. As far as I know it is only my brother and I who are left. I don’t recall hearing that Frank had any offspring. Thank you for everything. I’m now 66 and live in Hampshire.
