Old Mill Antiques in Bridgnorth and its back to school for John.

Shropshire Star

A lovely antique school desk seems an appropriate item to look at this time of year as children prepare for the new school term.

Transcript

00:00Come on guys, it's time to put the comics away and get back to the school books.

00:07John Ridgway back in school. It's been a few years since you sat at a desk like this, isn't it John?

00:12I can say that from a distance.

00:14A very long time, yeah.

00:16A very long time. It's a lovely little thing, isn't it?

00:19This is a very attractive book.

00:20These are just the kind of books you'd have probably hidden in there, isn't it really as well?

00:24You know what I mean, your comics and all that.

00:27I think it was the Beano that I used to hide in there.

00:30I was a Beano man, not a dandy, I was a Beano.

00:32What have we got here then John? So it's a school desk.

00:35From an early 1900s school desk, the sort of things that you'd have had in a primary school.

00:41Yeah, with a little lift up flop.

00:43Yeah, go on, let's have a look.

00:48There we go, with a little lift up lid.

00:50Look at that, nice little lid.

00:51And that's put up in the old inkwell hole before the days of the biros.

00:56Yeah, of course, yeah.

00:57Where we used to use a dip pen.

00:59Who's buying these then John?

01:01Is it people that would have been using one themselves at school?

01:04Is it a nostalgia trip?

01:06I mean, I was just thinking, you know, you level that out a little bit.

01:10You've got a nice little hall table there for a lamp, haven't you?

01:13I think a lot of people buy them for the kiddies.

01:15In the kiddies bedrooms to do a little bit of homework on it and practice their drawing and whatever.

01:21It's a lovely little thing with a soap on it to use it for drawing and artwork.

01:25Yeah, yeah, it is nice.

01:26And, you know, they don't make them like this anymore, do they?

01:29It's still solid even after all these years and much abuse from many kids I suspect.

01:34Lots of it and all the names written on the inside.

01:37Yeah, yeah.

01:38Over the years.

01:39So what do these fetch then John? What's this on for?

01:42This one is on a, ooh, there we go, we've got 125 on that one.

01:45Look at that.

01:46You wouldn't get a character full of solid desk for 125 from any new shops that I can think of, would you?

01:53Do you know what I mean?

01:54I think it would be a piece of plastic from Ikea.

01:56Well, very true.

01:57And your days at school, John, where did you get to school?

02:01Moorhampton.

02:02Oh, did you?

02:03That's where I was brought up, yeah.

02:04Oh, okay.

02:05Would it have been these kind of desks when you were there then?

02:08Very similar to this, but they were the double ones.

02:10Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:12But a very similar idea and a lot of them had the cast iron legs.

02:19Ah, okay.

02:20They were the proper Victorian ones.

02:22Yeah, yeah.

02:23Happy days, were you a good boy?

02:25Not really.

02:26We'll leave it there, cut.

02:28Right, thank you Mr Ridgeway.

02:30Okay.

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