Saved from destruction

This weekend we were selling at Enys house antique fair and amongst the stands stocked with spectacular treasures for every taste (and budget) was a now firm fixture at every fair there, a bargain table tucked round the side of one of the pitches, a place where the dealer sticks a load of objects without much fanfare at bargain prices.

Now the location of this part of his stall is just where I like going for a cigarette, which I do far to often truth be told, and so I find myself browsing this bargain basement with particular interest as I smoke.

This weekend I bought a number of objects from him over the course of proceedings, first it was doorstop in the shape of a sailing yacht, then a metal deeds box, then it was a couple of small etchings of saints and then when all the dealers were thinking about packing up we got chatting and I put together a job lot of brass and copper that hadn’t sold which he let me have at a very reasonable price, along with a rather attractive studio pottery vase. But the best bit of this was a strange pump like device made of thick brass with a nice handle and screw in top.

As I was carrying my box of treasures in I was thinking of all the things I could make with it, boxes and circular stone mounts, possibly a paperweight using the handle set into some serpentine, the big brass nut into a candle holder, my creative juices were flowing.

I sat down at our pitch and James asked what I had bought now so I showed him the vase, the Islamic pot, a bent brass trivet, pewter tankard with a hole in it, South African copper bowl, brass letter opener and candlesticks, and a toasting fork, all of which he agreed to condemn to my studio. But my new mysterious pump, he liked that and wondered if it was an antique bilge pump….

For as long as I have known him, he has owned a small boat in the harbour in which he goes out into the bay to fish for mackerel and during its latest renovation the bilge pump had broken, the rubber and plastic had perished in the sun….

You can see where this is going… we got home after the antique fair and after dinner I stuck the pump into the washing up bowl and a few short pumps later had covered the draining board and floor in a torrent of water, it worked a treat and so with no small amount of grumbling I handed him his new bilge pump and accepted that I wouldn’t be getting to cut that piece up.