Image by me and Chat GPT

Have you ever wondered how much you have inherited from your parents? Personality traits, looks, skills and talents, maybe political opinions. And no doubt there are many other ways. For this week’s Writer’s Workshop John Holton has given us a prompt of ‘the most useless class you took,’ and this seems to be the right time to admit one of my failings.

My Dad was absolutely brilliant at DIY-type things. He made some of our furniture, built an extension to our house, was able to fix things when they went wrong, and generally turned his hand to just about anything. Did his little boy inherit his skills? Not in any shape or form! For the first year at grammar school (i.e. from the age of 11) we were given classes in craftwork, both with wood and metal. This was completely alien to me, and I was lucky that it wasn’t an exam subject counting towards anything. In both of these we were tasked with making two things, and in both of them I was so slow that I only completed one. The metalwork one was to make a pointing trowel. Don’t ask me how I did it – I didn’t know then and  sure as hell don’t now! I can remember it was quite small, probably about four or five inches long, and whilst it looked the part both my teacher and I had doubts about its potential usefulness. I took it home to give to Dad, who was very kind about it. Funnily enough, though, I don’t ever recall him using it, and I later found it tucked away in a toolbox in the shed when I was clearing it out before we moved house, after my parents divorced. He clearly didn’t think it was worth taking with him!

Like mine – but better

The woodworking class object that I managed to complete was a teapot stand – remember them, from the days before teabags? This was, for me, an incredibly complicated task, involving the alteration of a square piece of wood into an octagon (sawing, planing, varnishing and probably some 11yo swearing) and then making a base from two pieces of wood which somehow got jointed together without the aid of glue, nails or a safety net. A few panel pins and two became one, and I took home my masterpiece.

I should perhaps mention that despite all of my efforts, the base pieces had been left with a very fine irregularity, which meant that the stand wasn’t totally flat when placed on a surface. It wasn’t a pronounced wobble, more a delicate swaying, but movement was definitely present! My Mum, bless her, immediately dispensed with the old kitchen tile she had used for the teapot and started using her little lad’s creation. Surprisingly, we never had an accident with it, so maybe it was just about fit for purpose.

A bit like mine – but better

But these were still the two most useless classes I have ever taken, and I was so relieved when I didn’t have to do them any more. Give me books and a pen any time! As I grew up I had plenty of opportunities to improve my DIY skills, with mixed results. There was the time after we had moved into our new home and installed a new kitchen sink. Or tried to. After a very long time trying – and failing – to stop a drip falling from the joint between the tap and the main water pipe I ended up declaring defeat and calling out a pro. He fixed it in next to no time, and took pity on me by only charging his standard call out fee, even though it was a bank holiday weekend for which the rate was usually double. Maybe I should have attended a plumbing class before taking on the task? Or maybe that wouldn’t have helped!

My lack of DIY skills became a part of family legend. When my older daughter was eight I took her down to spend the day with my Mum. Believe it or not Mum was still using that teapot stand, some thirty years later, and told Katy that her Daddy had made it for her. The look of disbelief on Katy’s face was something to behold! So maybe that class wasn’t totally useless after all – even if I was!

I started this by asking you to think about what your parents might have bestowed on you. This is an interesting question for me, and I can think of several good things that are still with me, even if Mum and Dad aren’t. I hope you can say the same for yours.

That’s it for today, and I leave you with my thanks to John for hosting his weekly show and for the prompt. And of course, I’ll leave you with a suitable little song, by the inimitable Bernard Cribbins, who had a UK #10 with this in 1962: