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Our new front room showed up a few other things. For instance, the stairs. The timber in it was soft to the touch, with rot. We had gotten to know each rotten part, walking up and down it diagonally with arms outstretched against the walls to support ourselves. So Dad and I discussed it. "You're the carpenter ! Fix it !" "But Dad, under all that cement filling it's as rotten as a pear." "Well, put some boards across!" "In the middle it needs splicing, the bottom half has had it. It needs a new half." "Make a list of what you want, and I'll get Jones the landlord to get it. He's done nothing since we've been here. Otherwise, you'll have your mother falling through it." About a week later, on arriving home from work, he greeted me with: "Get your coat off, it's out the back garden." "What is?" "A staircase. There's nothing wrong with it, I've checked it," he said confidently. Sure enough, there it was. "Must have come from a good home," I said as I ran a tape measure over it. "Dad, tell him to come and pick it up, unless he's got his own special carpenter that can fit a three-foot-six staircase between a pair of walls three foot apart."
"Oh "Besides, Dad, we couldn't even get the right size through our hallway." "What then?" "Tell him to drop off what I asked for," I replied.
And he did. When
the timber finally arrived, so did the realization that I had never 'set out' a
stairs with my own measurements, or made a staircase in-situ, from scratch. I
was then only in my first year as an apprentice. But I wasn't going to pass up
this challenge. Just looking at the newly
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