Will had always loved wood. He loved trees and sawdust and the curls of planed wood. The tools for wood working were endlessly fascinating; sharpened chisels, saws and delicate nails. Even the smells of wood were pleasurable, both timber being worked and wood rotting in country glades.
As his school reports, carefully preserved by his mother, attest Will was a student of broad abilities and his future was an open book that could fall open on a number of different pages. Will’s mother had her own set of expectations and was quietly confident that her son would attain well paid professional status in due course.
She was proud of Will’s school performance apart from his woodwork teacher’s comments which usually read along the lines of, ‘William shows exceptional promise in the design and execution of woodwork projects and has finished several high quality items in class’. This was the wrong kind of promise for Will’s mother. Who needed woodcraft skills as a lawyer or hospital consultant?
Although she was what politicians like to refer to as an ‘ordinary, hard-working person’, (part time, evening shift in a local biscuit factory), Will’s mother was also something of a snob in the Hyacinth Bucket mode. She was therefore beyond upset when Will took his 8 well graded GCSEs and enrolled on a carpentry course at the town’s FE college.
When Will began work, he offered his services as a carpenter and took on tasks (no job too small) such as assembling flat pack furniture and putting up book shelves. He saved hard and in three years, with the help of a loan from his dad, was able to put down a deposit on a tiny flat ‘in need of modernisation’. His first action was to tear out the awful sagging kitchen units and build a beautiful, solid wood replacement.
The kitchen became his sales room and friends asked Will to rebuild their own kitchens to similar quality. Will’s reputation grew and spread by word of mouth. He wasn’t the cheapest but he was the very best. One special friend, Beth, always swore it was Will’s kitchen that she fell for first before getting to know him better.
Things were looking good for Will and Beth and with their joint incomes – Beth was a teacher – they could soon afford to move to a bigger place with a garden and lots of fruit trees. They decided to make their own promise, and have a certificate to prove it. Will built a workshop and worked from his own garden. His dad often dropped by for a chat.
Will’s mother never completely overcame her disappointment at her once-promising son. She could appreciate the kitchens he built but never fully let go of her dreams of being the mother of a ‘professional’. Once the children came along, Beth was mindful that Grandma’s aspirations were not allowed to stifle their enthusiasms. She also saw that the affable Will would never let this happen.
