Props and Springs

You could see why several famous silent movie comedians (and some others since then), had made such mileage out of the sequences of simply hanging wallpaper. The ideas of using such props for laughs was also used in several live music hall shows, long before the movies. Wallpaper has changed a lot, but the sense of fun (although our father seemed to miss the point a little) has never been far from such work. Ladders, buckets, paper rolls and glue. What more could you ask for? Add in a few doors, windows, and people, and catastrophe is easily within reach. There are so many routines one could conceive. Of course the best ones would involve making a mess. But picture it now. What fun could be made of such work and (from the artist in me), what works could be made such fun. 

However, my father showed me how to hang the paper straight and true. A skill I still remember. Though given my dislike for such wall coverings, I doubt it will be of much use today. I did use the skill on several set designs I assisted in creating, when working in professional theatre some years later, but in the real world, I prefer a plain wall with art or my own photographs hung to display.

The striped wallpaper of my shared bedroom has stayed with me over the years and there I was looking at it. Fearful of the impending punishment my father was to deliver. I sat on the edge of the bunk bed nearest the door. I had the bottom bunk, my next younger brother the top of this set. My other younger brother (currently lying injured in the hospital, through accidental kite mis-management (see April 1^st blog) ). He usually had the top bunk of the second set and my youngest brother had the other bottom bunk. I was never too keen to lie down and look up at the sagging springs of my bothers top bunk as I waited for sleep. I often wondered  (and often heard) exactly what was to pass down through his sheets and to the mattress, seeping through to ‘my’ air space. Everytime he rolled around, shifting in his sleep, should I be concerned. Could he fall through the springs?

Actually to call them springs was incorrect. There were springs around the outside, but the metal links were just that. Links, which formed an interlocked mesh across the space. It was expected to hold up the weight of a rapidly growing child. On the odd occasion, I had been known to unclip some of the links, just to see what might happen. No cruelty involved. Just a test of ‘weight dispersion’ (see physics again, boy, if we had been taught physics when we were young, I think we could have been scientists). It seems the metal just creaked and groaned more. It’s a good thing my brother was never obese, as sadly many kids in our society today are.

(continued tomorrow)