Years and years ago, in the late 1970s/early 1980s, Graham and I were furnishing a rather nice house on an ‘executive’ housing development in Copthorne, West Sussex. It was prior to the digital age, just about, so I don’t have too much in the way of photos, and none close to hand. Perhaps some other day, some other story.
Anyway, we had a fairly decent income back then, so our furniture and decorations tended to be very up-to-date, and rather classy. Our living room, for instance, was entirely furnished from the Tapley™ store in Reigate–all very low-line, stylish, and horrendously expensive. And, so it would seem, very, very close to the ’1970s retro’ look that we are using in this house. Anyway, the house in Copthorne was traded for a farmhouse in Derbyshire (Matlock, for the curious) and then for a tiny ‘ty unnos‘ cottage in Westest Wales and, somewhere along the line, the Tapley™ furniture disappeared.
Fast forward to the present.
I was staring at the ceiling in the middle of a sleepless night a couple of weeks ago and had a vision of our old furnishing scheme and, particularly, the Tapley™ that gave it such class and substance.
“That’s exactly what we need now,” I muttered, turned over, punched my pillow, and dropped off back to sleep with the triumph of the eureka moment.
Next day I told Graham of my inspired idea.
“Now that is spooky,” he said. ”I’ve been thinking of exactly the same thing.”
The shame of it is that the company went out of business some years back, their furniture no longer sought after in these days of pack-flat economy.
We don’t give in that easily, though. Oh, no. So we eBayed for it, and yesterday’s trip to England was to pick up a couple of cabinets in ‘pre-loved’ or ‘well-used’ condition.
Two pieces of Tapley furniture
They are horrendously heavy, well-made pieces, and will need all of Graham’s refurbishing skills and energies to restore. But it can be done. It will be done. And we’ll be looking out for another couple of bits to go with them.
“Are you happy with our day’s work,” I asked late in the evening.
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
Well, that’s fair enough, I suppose. You can only expect to float along for a limited time on the strength of a eureka moment.
