What Is Home Without A Tallboy?

New Zealand Listener, Volume 11, Issue 267, 4 August 1944, Page 11

What Is Home Without

A Tallboy?

OST people know that there is a house shortage, but man does not live in houses alone. He lives in chairs and beds and comfortable or uncomfortable settees, and where these days does he get them? If he gets them at all it is at a great price, as some hundreds of men and women discovered in Wellington last week when a_ series of newspaper advertisements took them to a woolstore where the furniture of a luxury liner was to be sold by auction. It certainly was solid; and so, some of them thought, were they. But they were most cheerful about it. For five hours they elbowed and jostled one another in the attempt to get near enough to chairs or bunks or wardrobes or tallboys to avoid making blind bids for them; and when they

¥ failed — failed, that is, to get a clear view of what they were being offeredthey shouted out their bids just the same, % * * But they had to be swift, and strong, too. The stuff was there; some of them, but not all, had seen it the day before; and the others had heard about it. So it was not so much a sale as a scramble. Only the bravest kept their heads, Cane chairs-five, 10, or 15 years old-brought nearly. £3. A cane settee that was easily held up and waved in the air. brought £7/10/0. A woman standing on a stool received congratulations from. her friends over her luck in securing nine small chairs at £11/10/0 each, Forty-eight parts of chairs, major parts certainly of mahogany, brought £80, and the successful purchaser was the envy of everyone else for the rest of the day. A collection of chairs without seats, good, but not special, went for £7/15/0 apiece, and you had to be quick with your request to participate in the "overs" that the winner of the’ first option did not want. Then you had to gather your little group round you and sit on guard over them till.a carrier came. That is what many did. * * * PEOPLE had not quite warmed up when some excellent oak chairs, not pretentious, but solid and sturdy, were knocked. down at £4/10/0 each, but that was their last moment of caution. When .the auctioneer fought his way (with mechanical assistance) to the tallboys, discretion finally disappeared. They were good tallboys, with fronts of oak, and handles of brass, but most of them had been built in, and stripping a luxury. liner in wartime is not always done by craftsmen. In any case, it is done hurriedly and often violently, and the result was that many pieces in this collection were without drawers or handles. or corners or knobs, But they could not have been competed for more eagerly if they had been gold-mounted. If they were "complete," the bidding rose in pounds; but it went up and up even when the damage was so obvious that it was good salesmanship to draw attention to it. And if, by chance, there were "legs." curved like those of the lady in Nesfield’s grammar, the limit then was the distance the auctioneer could go without a breathing spasm. Well, the war is not yet over, and a house without furniture is almost as dreary as a honeymoon without a bride. Besides, brides can sometimes be obtained without a switch-over of men and material from war-work. Tallboys and cabrioles can’t.