Despite me being a tiny toddler, I remember his excitement. This was the start of something big. In 1960 we would move to a yet-to-be-completed house in Sandy Bay, Tasmania and clearly he was counting every penny (as it was prior to 1966). He had decided to build all the key furniture in our house, starting with all of our beds, for a family of six, followed by cupboards.
Today, you might consider the bench to be fairly modest.
But, everything was done by hand, with hand tools - no power saws or drills then. It is built of Mountain Ash, Eucalyptus Regnans which is very hard wood. Every cut, and each hole drilled was painstakingly done. Each joint is held through the end of the timber with large iron bolts, and the solid baulks of timber that make the top deck, held with long screws, and a few iron nails.
Almost sixty years later the bench is still in fine form. The decks are marked by a thousand saws, chisels, screwdrivers and sharp knife cuts. Everyone of my family has done their best on it. As I think through the things done, they are many and varied. Dad sharpened tools on it, built furniture, painted odds and ends. Keith and I built billy carts on it, many of them, repaired and repaired. Ian and Kathy did the same, but also built picture frames as Mum did. Mum set up her pottery there, and some film gear too. I also built boats, or repaired and painted them, both model and real racing yachts. We even split shingles and firewood on it. More recently mum cut mattes for her paintings and built frames there too, as it transferred from one home to another.
Now it is in Canberra in my basement shed, home number four. I have re-assembled it after transporting it from Canberra to Sydney then to here, with help of my brothers. Now in its 60th year, it will go back to being the bench, on which motorcycle parts are repaired, rebuilt and put back into use. And probably get used for a hundred other things as well. Long may it reign!
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