How to add a little imagination to life T

REMEMBRANCE Day draws closer and, as always, I think with fondness of three elderly chaps who shared with me their memories of the First World War, when I was a callow youth.

For a year, before I got into journalism I worked in a family owned department store in Altrincham and was assistant to Fred Pearson, head of menswear (“I’m free!”).

I was occasionally loaned to Mr Twiss in carpets when he wanted to nip out for a fag, which was often, and to a small bent chap, who had a permanent dewdrop on the end of his nose, who ran the jewellery and pawnshop section.

These elderly modest men had all seen action in the Great War on the Western Front.

Fred told me about a football match between officers and men before they went to the trenches and how half those playing were soon dead.

Mr Twiss escaped being blown up when he was guarding an ammunition dump because, at the crucial moment a shell landed, he had nipped off for a fag.

One day, I made a remark about Dewdrop HERE used to be an old maxim that said you could judge a person’s intellect by the smallness of their TV set compared to the number of books they owned.

This is no longer a valid yardstick, if it ever was. I suspect that, in the past, ordinary folk with a library ticket consumed more books than those with stacked shelves.

In the age of e-books, Kindle and reading on your phone, fewer people are now buying books. And if anyone wants to tip their hat to literature, they can buy bookshelf wallpaper.

Slap up three rolls and create your own library without the expense of actually stocking it or the inconvenience of trying to read the latest 650-page CJ Sansom novel that, in its published condition, weighs a ton.

Best devoured as an e-book, unless you want to invest in a Victorian reading desk to save your arms.

For those who like shelves to be stacked with exotic reminders of holidays, or knick-knacks that reflect a quirky personality, you can buy wallpaper that combines both books and souvenirs.

Of course, these are not ‘your’ souvenirs and you may have to adapt your quirkiness accordingly. who, in his old age, looked like a character from a Grimm’s fairy tale. Fred immediately took pains to correct me.

This now bent and elderly gentleman had been a machine-gunner in the trenches who, during a German assault, had held the line as it began to break.

He stayed at his post, kept firing and checked the enemy advance, and gave his comrades time to rally.

It taught me not to make easy assumptions on age and appearance.

My memories of those three modest heroes is one reason why I wear a poppy with pride.

Alternatively, another wall covering, presumably aimed at the ladies, simply has shelves filled with handbags and shoes. “Ooh, what shall I wear tonight?” Well, none of those, love. They’re just pictures on the wall.

The variety of wallpaper designed to look like something else is impressive.

Like dogs? Try: “Puppy-love dogs in frames.” Want to tile the kitchen without tiling the kitchen? How about: “Tile effect wallpaper.” You can have undersea views and jungle foliage, a London sunset and a starry Caribbean sky.

The one I was taken with was “arthouse red brick” that would turn any living room into the sort of Bronx loft where Jason Statham might live with a motorcycle in between fighting the bad guys.

Just as long as you don’t get so carried away with the ambience that you begin to think you are as tough as Mr Statham and start a punch up in a chip shop and get beaten up by a pensioner.

I’m all for adding imagination to life.

Wallpaper is literally opening windows to the world with its possibilities to brighten up the mundane.

Which rather makes the size of your TV set redundant.

After all, that’s just another colourful window and, before you know it, they’ll be making a wallpaper covered with TV sets.

Oh, wait a minute, they already do. Now that could be confusing.

“Mum? Which one is the real telly?”