Face Furniture

This is very bad! Six months after we first went into Covid-19-induced lockdown, the jewel of the north finds itself in lockdown again, as of midnight just passed. Not what we had in mind after all the steps we've taken and impositions we've accepted to help the country get this pandemic under control. SNAFU is the apt acronym, I think, this tantalisingly sunny late September morning. I could go off on one, but I had a blog mapped out in mind, so I'll brew up a second damned fine cup of coffee and stick to the A plan.

There have been some great blogs this week on the allotted theme of sideboards, anecdotal, informative posts about heavy pieces of dining-room furniture. I thought of following suite - that would have been the G Plan - but then decided to take the etymological road less-travelled. So guess what, kids? This post is going to concern itself primarily with men's facial hair.

American English may be making a 21st century bid for ubiquity, but I remember when sideburns were called sideboards by any self-respecting British hirsute with a decent set of face furniture. 

As uppity youths of post-war Britain intent on forging an identity of our own and kicking against square norms, when our parents, schools, workplaces banned us from growing long hair or beards, sideboards (aka sidies) became our rebellious frontier, our badge of allegiance to youth revolution. The longer and thicker we could get away with, the more kudos to the wearer. Our idols, Presley, the Beatles, any half-way famous Tom, Dick or Harriet (more on that later), aped and egged us on.

Some claim that sideboards is a corruption of sidebeards, but I think that's over-fanciful and rather nonsensical; others champion sideborders, which may have a greater claim to legitimacy. But I think they were always just sideboards, whether as a direct allusion to the pieces of furniture they resembled or because both they and the furniture were board-shaped and on the side(s) - simplest explanation fits.

I grew my own sideboards just a far down my face as I could get away with at school in the 1960s. Then as soon as I escpaped the institution I let them meet in the middle and I've worn a beard ever since, except for a brief (three month) period in the late 1970s when I shaved it off to appear as Mack the Knife in the Threepenny Opera.

Sideboards, whether neat, sculpted, bushy or plain outrageous, are still popular to this day as a means of establishing a sense of facial identity, and that goes for women as well as men in this age of follicle equality.

As for the American term sideburns, supposedly derived from a Civil War General Ambrose Burnside famed for his sideboards, that's just an example of 'not invented here' syndrome. Sideboards came first and deserve to live longest in common usage. Could it be a campaigning issue under the 'make Britain great again umbrella'? Come on Boris, grow a pair! (You know I'm joking, right?)

And so to the new poem this week, which has almost exactly nothing to do with any of the foregoing, except in tenuous concept. It's a bit of a mystery-tale based on purported accounts of a temporal fault-line in Liverpool into which people occasionally disappear, like items into a sideboard, never to be seen again. If you want to know more, google Bold Street Time Slip. It's another narrative poem of sorts. I don't seem to be able to break free of them at the moment. Anyway, I hope you'll dig it.

Bold Street Time Slip

No one particulary noticed

just another lively gaggle

of teenage royalty, children

of the nanny state stepping out

high on sunshine and wine,

joking denim-clad lads in tow

with mini-skirted wenches

boldly claiming Bold Street

for their own, Saturday noon,

until suddenly they weren't.

It was a queer thing. Few

saw them slip from view

right outside the tobacconist's,

leaving a hint of patchouli

and sex in the air, no more.

Like they walked though

a wall that wasn't there,

said one old biddy. You

couldn't trust her eyes.

I heard a scream said a kid

out shopping with his mum

and dad who never did.

And that was that. Except

for the fact they were gone.

An unsolved mystery still,

they weren't the first to go

and likely will not be the last.

Tomorrow never knows!

Thanks for reading. Mind how you go, too. S ;-)

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Sideboards

The first thing that sprang to mind when I thought of sideboards was: if there are sideboards, were there just originally boards? Well yes, there were. Historically, most dining tables were referred to as boards which as the name suggests were long planks that rested on trestles that were pulled apart after the meal to make room for living spaces. That gave rise to some familiar phrases as Chairman of the Board or Board and Lodging.

When the word first appeared in the Middle Ages, as an alternative to side table, it described a structure used for the display of conspicuously valuable eating utensils. It preserved a basic table shape until the 18th century. The first innovation was the substitution of hollow storage pedestals. Drawers (for napkins, cutlery, and the like) were added in the space beneath the main surface.

Incidentally, when I was reading some background on this I found that side tables are often called credenzas, a word I’ve never come across before.  The origin of the word itself comes from the Italian word for belief or the English word credence. This is due to the credenza being the surface on which food was placed when taste-tested by servants for poison, before serving to royalty, noblemen and other people of importance. I’ve been to cafes where this may still be a good idea.

Actual sideboards were introduced during the 1770s in the UK and were made popular by furniture designer Robert Adam. Reference to a sideboard is made in George Hepplewhite’s Cabinet Maker and Upholsterer’s Guide in 1788.

I had to look up the word Upholsterer and it seems they used to be called Upholders and were members of the Worshipful Company of Upholders. I would like to be a member.

With the huge growth in the middle classes in the early 1800s due to the industrial revolution people were able to afford a separate room for dining. The sideboard became a must-have piece of furniture, on which were displayed cut glass lustres, silver candlesticks or polished brass oil lamps plus decanters, perhaps a silver salver, decorative soup tureen or punch bowl. Elaborate fantasies of design often converted the sideboard into a replica of a medieval cathedral or something equally improbable.

By the early to mid 20th Century tastes had changed and the philosophy was that the dining room was a place to eat and not be a museum for china and glass. Simplicity was the order of the day. In my opinion some of the Art Deco pieces produced around the 1920s and 30s were works of art.

My first memories of a sideboard are based around the early 60s. Every house would have one where papers, mementoes, photos etc were stored rather than being used for cutlery and stuff. All that had been moved to the kitchen, especially after room had to be made for the television. Ours was a long slim piece with sliding glass doors that I managed to break.

Thinking about it now I don’t think I know anyone with a sideboard. All my plates cups etc are in the kitchen, my papers are in a filing cabinet or on the computer, my memorabilia are stored in built in cupboards. I don’t think I’d have space for a sideboard.

But apparently there is a good trade in sideboards now but not for the heavy Victorian type more the sleek Art Deco or IKEA type design.

This is the only poem of mine that contains the word sideboard:

Curious

I like to think
that walking these lines
of pencil and paper
will take me to unexpected places
a hidden track
Stonehenge by moonlight
the finding of a tump

and it does
and I’m happy
though you may get to thinking
that it’s not quite enough

and you’d be right
especially if you’d been in Shrewsbury
the day before yesterday
and a slightly open door
to that medieval house
and the tension as I realised
without a shadow of doubt
that she was going in
and I was going to have to follow

not for the first time
and not for the first time
her daft excuse worked
as we left with the owner’s smile
and the history of a vase
on the sideboard in the hall

which we talked about
over flasks of tea
on an oak bench by the river
where she stumped me
by adding a question
regarding our future
which I haven’t thought about
and is hard to imagine.

Terry Quinn.

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Sideboards - Thanks for the Memory

 

I wonder what happened to all the sideboards, those massive pieces of highly polished furniture that half-filled most dining rooms. Someone is going to tell me that they exist, in everyone’s home except mine. I won’t be surprised.  I’ve got what is loosely called a ‘unit’, sort of cross between a sideboard and a display cabinet, with a pull-down drinks bit – used by me as a sewing cupboard – in the middle. It is a much-loved wedding present. Actually, I've got two now, there's posh.

Thinking of the blog theme being sideboards has put me in mind of the ones I grew up with. My childhood homes were pubs and the private accommodation was usually spacious, offering plenty of room for a sideboard, and a piano, even. My mother was in charge of our sideboard. I had many warnings to keep out, nothing in there for me. It must have been jam-packed with family secrets and skeletons in the cupboard to need such fierce protection. I was allowed one thing, with permission, which was an old chocolate box full of black and white photos from when my mother was a girl. I would spend hours looking through them. I still have the collection, mounted in an album now and I really wish I’d kept them in the old, tatty box. It was part of the magic. Someone gave my mother a small packet of Thornton’s chocolates and she kept them in the top drawer.  Over time, one by one they disappeared. I learnt the hard way that there are only so many times you can get away with ‘they won’t miss just one’. Oh, how I’ve missed my mum for most of my life. I'd replace every chocolate ten-fold if it were possible for her to nip back for five minutes.

Sometime in the ‘60s we had the novelty of a house. The new furniture included a teak dining table, chairs and matching sideboard. The sideboard filled the length of our dining room and had thin, spindly legs. Cupboard and drawer handles were made of wood, chunky and round, unlike the dangly brass loops on the other one. We kept the new table mats and the best cutlery in the drawers.

My grandmother’s sideboard was huge. I don’t know how old I was before I could see the top of it. I remember that it filled the end of her lounge. It had three cupboards in a row, three drawers, one above each cupboard and legs that I referred to as curly in shape. The most important thing to me was that I was allowed to rummage in it to my heart’s content, as long as I didn’t make too much mess and I put everything back. And I mustn’t touch Nanna’s knitting.  There wasn’t much to play with, but I enjoyed tidying everything up. Some items came to be mine over time. I still have a set of electro-plated nickel silver fish eaters with matching servers and a set of cake forks. On top of the sideboard used to stand a couple of bookends with a matching vase. I don’t know what happened to the vase, but I treasure the Bosson’s bookends, despite their theme of Hunting Scene.

Here are a few memories as Haikus,

Like a lifelong friend

Silently storing secrets

Behind locked cupboards.

 

Dark and imposing

Child-size fingers folded round

Your barley-twist legs.

 

A framed photogragh,

The once-happy bride and groom.

A short-lived marriage.

 

A sideboard cupboard,

Whiskey, brandy, Bacardi,

Cinzano and gin.

 

Flowers, past their best

Not quite ready to throw out,

Last week’s thoughtful gift.

 

I hate the subject,

Bosson’s ‘Hunting Scene’ bookends

Are cherished by me.

 

Fleeting memories

Of a lifetime of sideboards,

Bygone furniture.

Thanks for reading, keep safe and well, Pam x

                                                                                                

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