A new life through old furniture
By the age of 15, Travis Henry had pretty much given up on school and school had pretty much given up on Travis. Although he once harboured dreams of being a doctor, a combination of teenage disenchantment, the feeling that no one was listening to him and what teachers saw as a poor attitude to his studies meant he was on the verge of being excluded. It could have ended badly. The story is depressingly familiar for many young people: leaving school with no qualifications, the attraction of belonging to a gang and petty crime spiralling into something worse. But for Travis, that didn’t happen. The day I meet him he shows me one of his recent creations: a child’s discarded Victorian chair that until recently was almost past saving. Now it is a beautifully restored confection of white, yellow and gold. The little spindles in the back are light yellow, with the tiniest spike of green, suggesting that first day of spring when trees bring forth their soft leaves; the seat is freshly upholstered in slubby gold tweed, neatly fixed to the base with brass studs, and the frame is a cool white: easy, not harsh on the eye, which brings out the delicate swirls and patterns of the hand-tooling. The whole composition is delightful and fresh as a daisy. It took Travis, now 20, nearly four days to make a 100-yearold object good for another century. “It’s quite weird,” he grins. “I never really thought about furniture when I was younger. But now I’m building a passion for it.” Over the past three years Travis has saved dozens of chairs and other pieces of furniture from being chucked into landfill. Once, he admits, he was fairly thoughtless about waste. Now, “before I throw anything away I think to myself: ‘What can I do with this?’” Although trained now in the arts of repairing furniture, sanding, upholstery and caning, for Travis the dream of being a doctor again has flickered to life. He has gone back to education, got himself some GCSEs and is studying at college for three A-levels in biology, physics and PE. The turnaround in Travis’s fortunes came when he met Jay and Jade Blades, a husband and wife team who run Out of the Dark, a charitable social enterprise that trains young people in danger of falling through the increasingly wide loops in society’s net. Jade, who trained as a textile designer, says it was her own and Jay’s experience of being rebellious teenagers that led them to setting up their youth projects. “We both went a little off the rails as teenagers, but if our parents couldn’t cope we were saved by our extended families, who helped keep us on the straight and narrow,” says Jade, 41. “Unfortunately too often today, young people are more isolated from stable adult role models and in many areas, the extended family is no longer there. We try to provide that in our workshops, providing training, employment and self esteem for young people who can then go on and make something of their lives.” Jay and Jade live in High Wycombe, once the furnituremaking capital of England which, in its heyday between 1850 and 1970 had more than 500 manufacturers, where there are now fewer than 10. It made sense to focus the enterprise on furniture but rather than create from new, they decided to add another benefit to their scheme, by using it to rescue and restore pieces destined for landfill. Travis shows me the Out of the Dark warehouse: an enormous hangar of a building, an Aladdin’s cave of sorry-looking sofas, battered chaises longues and stained and broken tables. But with a bit of mending and painting and a splash of gaudy colour from upholstery fabric donated from textile designers including JAB, Timorous Beasties and Parris Wakefield, these pieces are given a bright rich afterlife. “Around 99 per cent of the furniture in our warehouse would otherwise be sent to landfill,” says Jay. “With a few days’ work, a piece can be saved for 100 years, rather than sent to rot.” At present around 25 young people are referred to Out of the Dark each year, from police, social services or schools. The ones who knuckle down and show aptitude and interest are taken on first as trainees and then as employees. “This month we are launching a new ‘Crafty Club’, a youth club where each week the kids will learn a new skill, from making textile bags to painting shelves. Some will go on to join our training course and we hope eventually to be training around 90 young people a year.” For more information, see outofthedark. org.uk greeninmind.co.uk: Husband and wife team Gary and Joanne Lincoln upcycle their own finds or will refresh furniture found by you, to your own style and design. Vintage pink mirror £80 rubyrhino.co.uk: Luke and Hannah Ricci and Gavin Kettle are a young brother, sister and husband team, based in Lichfield. Luke returned to the UK after years of travelling and decided to do something “about all this senseless waste”. A vintage hand-painted side table, above, £295 greenmanrecycled furniture.co.uk: Chris Knipe, based in Pontardawe, near Swansea, trains volunteers as well as adults with learning difficulties to work with wood, giving them skills in restoring, repairing and painting. Small bench, left, made from reclaimed bed headboard £120-£150 hand painted furniture company. co.uk: From her shed at the bottom of a pub garden in rural Shropshire, Rhonda Huxley upcycles unloved, heavy, dark wooden pieces from the mid-20th century. With a lick of paint and a refresh, she turns them into fresh, modern items ready for another 80 years of use. Upcycled bureaux £195-£325 theoldcinema.co.uk: The Old Cinema in Chiswick High Road, west London, is a long-established emporium of all things upcycled, reclaimed and refreshed. Elegantly reupholstered Victorian mahogany love seat £1,450, below