[BITList] Beretta

[HUGH]

John, Mike,

Your grandfather's fine wooden chest might have been a 'prentice piece. In the days of 7 year apprenticeships such things were submitted by apprentices desiring journeyman status.  You did well to hang onto it.  My great great grandfather, James Henderson,  was a cabinetmaker, ran his own business in Dumbarton.  In the late 1800s, after he retired and his wife died, he came to Port Glasgow to live in the house behind the shop run by his daughter in law, my great grandmother - great grandfather William Henderson had by then gone to Australia and disappeared.  Some of the furniture in it I recall from my childhood was made by him, lovely bow-fronted chests of drawers.  All gone, God alone knows where.  My Dad inherited a beautifully inlaid chest that for some reason was kept at the back door, outside. It fell to bits.  I've still got the 18" high grandfather clock case model James made, and all his notebooks and legal stuff. The actual clock was in my parents' loft until after my mother died - it was disposed of when my father moved to a smaller house.

A friend, the late Hans Knauf, arrived here as a POW, married, and didn't go back to Germany until long after contact with surviving family there had been established. He had a couple of holiday trips, I recall. Hans was a toolmaker, 7 year apprenticeship. He got his trade credentials sent over here, and worked as one in a local factory till he retired.  When short of the right tool he just made it - drill chuck, twist drill, all the same to him.  At his funeral the minister told of visiting Hans - in his bedroom the clothes were (very) neatly folded in piles on top of the chests of drawers.  In the drawers were his tools, all highly polished.

Hugh.
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