Family Heirlooms (2)

 

Watching 'The Repair Shop' on TV last night, an item was brought in for repair.

 

"I recognise that!" I blurted.

 

The item in question was a WW1 compass, of a slightly different type compared with mine, but the general structure, and the cases, looked identical to mine.

 

So I rooted around and found said 'heirloom', which is rather later than the Repair Shop item. Mine is in perfect working order, though it lacks the shoulder strap that Susie Fletcher so ably replaced on last night's programme.

 

Mine is a little odd though as the case seems to pre-date the compass.

 

The lined leather case is imprinted with a large 'A' and is stamped with

 

M.HARVEY & CO LTD

WALSALL

1934



 and the broad arrow of the War Department.

 

It's also inscribed in indelible black ink - 'H. R. Taitt 120128' (the last two digits are hard to discern).

 

I wonder whether Dot might know who H. R. Taitt was?

 

The compass is clearly inscribed:

 

TG.CO LTD
LONDON
No B 301092

1944

MK 111



plus the broad arrow of the War Department. So the case pre-dates the compass by ten years.

 

 

I wonder how much use this compass actually got, as it seems to me to be pretty much in mint condition apart from a bit of wear to the red lining inside the case.

 

Family Heirlooms (1)

 

 

Mike (my son) and Sarah are moving house imminently. Mike has entrusted certain items to his mum and dad to ensure that they aren't damaged in the move.

One of those items, the folding table pictured, was in my bedroom when I lived in the family house. It was the surface upon which my homework was completed.

It followed me to Manchester when I became an Articled Clerk, and it was the surface on which much of my correspondence course training to be an accountant was carried out.

The table travelled easily in my 850cc Mini, and frequently accompanied me to clients for whom provision of facilities for the auditors was just one step too far. In Thatcher's Britain it was often adorned with a Tilley lamp in order for work to continue after the sun had set and the National Grid was turned off.

I remember it being coveted by the managing director of Empire Engineering Limited, a client based in Farnworth. A profitable little business making small valves and the like. Don Gray kept asking me how much I wanted for it, but his large house in Sale never benefited from the precious table.

For the past few years Mike has been the custodian due to space constraints in our house, and French polisher Paul refreshed the worn looking piece of furniture. 

A little job for Dot, when she reads this, will be to jot down the history of this table before it reached my little bedroom at 17 Tidkin Lane, Guisborough.

Reply from Dot:
This table was in the verandah at Parkside in Rugeley, her parents' house; it was acquired by Dot's father (my grandfather) in the early 1900s.