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 LUCINDA LAMBTON OPENS BROOKING MUSEUM
On a pleasant summer's afternoon in a leafy 1950s housing estate in Cranleigh, as spitfires lazily crashed around the fluffy white clouds, the luminaries of the respectable side of salvage gathered in a large marquee to pay homage to Mr. Respectable Salvage himself, Charles Brooking, the man whose life's work has been collecting salvage, not for sale and reuse, but for giving joy and education to the masses.
After a fine lunch Sir William McAlpine, the chairman of the trustees of the Brooking Collection, opened the proceedings, after which Dr Alan Powers, secretary of the 20th Century Society and now at Greenwich University, gave a speech on the university's behalf. Eventually Lucinda Lambton declared the Charles Brooking Home Study Collection officially open, and Charles presented her with a bouquet of flowers strapped to one of the folding seat tops recently rescued from Wembley Stadium, resulting in her warm appreciation.
Charles, now 50, began collecting fossils in 1962 followed by rescued salvage from demolition sites around Guildford. 'I would get the my parents' au pair to accompany me and make an approach to the demolition men if there was anything I wanted. It usually did the trick,' he said. He left school, pretty well uneducated in a conventional sense, and worked at Sotheby's Belgravia as a porter. As a dyslexic he finds accuracy in writing letters and numbers problematic. 'I used to arrange the lots in the wrong order,' he said, 'so after nine months I got the sack.' He did not get his driving licence until he was 35, so he used to cart most of the stuff home on public transport. This obviously favoured small and interesting collecting. He now has 30,000 different sash window pulleys and can date windows by their hardware. He has advised Downing Street and the National Trust on windows. In 1997 Prince Charles presented Mr. Brooking with a cheque for £5,000 in recognition of services to Britain's national heritage. Until recently Charles had sheds at his Mum's house in Guildford full of windows, but luckily he managed to persuade the likes of McAlpine and Cruickshank to set up a trust, and help the rehousing of the collection in a Dartford backwater of Greenwich University. The Uni has now acquired the old Wren naval college at Greenwich where it is proposed to relocate some of the Collection future, while the rest is in the Siemens building in Greenwich by the Cutty Sark. A small proportion, of which the study collection forms part, is in sheds behind Brooking's house in Cranleigh. The future looks rosier than ever.
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Location : UK > Surrey
Category : WINDOWS & accessories
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ID : sn23516 (9795)
User : Admin ; (Administrator)
Date Created : 05 Sep 2003 14:57:09
Date Modified : 05 Sep 2003 14:57:09
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A LETTER FROM AN OLD PLUMBER TO THE IP
Open letter from Colin Elderfield to the Institute of Plumbers
4th April 2003
SIR,- I have been in the Plumbing Industry for many years, starting in 1959 as an apprentice to a building company. In those days our work covered all aspects of plumbing from below ground to above ground, drainage, roofing in lead, copper, zinc and hot and cold heating and domestic water systems. All of these things were expected of us and with day release (unpaid after 18 years old) and night school four or five nights a week was common to all plumbing students in my year. I represented my colleagues on various occasions in competitions at Olympia. By the time I was 21 years old, City & Guilds (Craft Certificate) from intermediate to final had been passed with first class passes including the Surrey Registered Plumbers Silver Medal for outstanding work in 1963. I went on to work within the industry, later having my own business for many years working on a multitude of jobs in plumbing, heating and leadwork.
I state the above not to bolster my own esteem, but to show what it was like to be called a Plumber and carry out plumbing works, working with hands and brain combined.
Today, it is very different, almost appalling in some circumstances, most people of my age and acquaintances have left the industry either through age or just demoralised by the present climate of anything goes, if it is not in a plastic wrapping from local DIY stores - then forget it! Larger than 22cm - 'not available mate'. Before anyone tells me this is not the case, I know that there are many very experienced tradesmen and women out there carrying out superb work. Unfortunately, they are in the minority and are decreasing daily.
Do not talk to me of training; there is not any of any consequence. I speak here of years of learning, not days or weeks, anyone who believes that plumbing competence can be achieved in the short term is a fool, with their heads in the clouds to put it, politely and mildly.
There is no urgency to improve the industry within the industry; people have become used to shoddy and poor standard work, as a norm. I meet customers every day of the week from all over the country that talk of plumbing, sub-standard work would not be believed. Price does not come into it, low price, high price; it is all the same to people who carry out sub-standard works. TV 'from Hell' programmes are for entertainment but are so close to reality regarding plumbing.
The plumbing industry should stand up to the rest of Europe regarding water regulations. What absolute rubbish is spoken by the people advising the industry. Great Britain, who gave the world modern plumbing as far back as late Victorian times, is derided for its knowledge and skills. Water wastage, continued to use some of the current equipment and you will soon know about wastage! The drop valve system, discontinued early in the twentieth century, has returned in plastic! The early brass ones of which I have samples and (still used in the USA) at least were of solid construction, and worked well enough at the time. Then along came the 'WWP' perfected through years of research by many, such as Thomas Crapper and George Jennings. These men, not only plumbers, but innovators, also tried, failed, tried again, and again eventually achieved a product unsurpassed, until now apparently? Is all this to be disregarded as meaningless and old hat. It is not 'the new order of things'. Therefore rubbish it.
Plumbing in trade magazines appears to consist of heating boilers, pumps, many articles on water regulations etc, where are the scribes who understand plumbing? 'The Real Plumbing Business' - some years ago there were 'Heating and Ventilation Engineers' and there were 'Plumbers' - the two working along side each other to complete a contract. Heating Engineers were supplied with most of their tools, Plumbers supplied their own and carried out all aspects of the plumbing trade. Now we have a situation of blurred aspects and a mish mash of mediocre people purporting to be both parties.
We must put our own house in order from within, with leaders who served their time and got their hands dirty and bloody over many years of hands-on experience, not a body of pen-pushers and jobs-worths who are afraid to speak out against a never ending tide of relentless death-of-a-thousand-cuts officials who will destroy completely our once proud Plumbing Industry and Tradition.
At this stage you may well ask yourself, 'what has he achieved, with all his talk? Why is he not out there protesting?' I, like most of my contemporaries, had and still have a work ethic; you get up in the morning and go to work, 'no work, no money', there are no handouts for the self-employed, you rise or fall by your own actions and in some instances fall by the actions of others. Your duty firstly is to your family to do your best for them, there is little time for protesting, you keep your head down and plod on, relentlessly, it is hard, very hard at times, but in the end through good and bad days we win through, it is called 'survival'.
Now at my age frankly I don't care any more. I will if required tread on toes, be very controversial and hope to attract constructive criticism. Maybe this way there is a glimmer of hope for the industry I entered all those years ago, with so much enthusiasm.
Yours sincerely
Colin Elderfield
MIP, RP
Location : UK > Surrey
Category : BATHROOM & accessories
IP : Logged
No : sn239a
ID : sn23418 (8842)
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Date Created : 04 Apr 2003 16:07:42
Date Modified : 04 Apr 2003 16:07:42
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