The right paintings for your wall

A man tells his postman he’s spent his life on the waterways of Britain. He worked on the canals and before that on the docks. He tells stories from the shipyards, that he’s still in contact with all the old boys all of them in their eighties who all still go by the same nicknames. He’s always felt so much safer near the water.

The postman used to be a policeman but decided he’d had enough patrolling Soho so moved to the seaside to paint Lord of the Rings figurines on the table in the spare bedroom. That bed is the comfiest in the house. ‘Too good for guests’ he likes to say. His grandsons moan about the pebbly beach and who can blame them. He quite likes it though.

His grandsons have heard stories. The churchyard has a ghost of an ice cream man. If you listen carefully you can hear the jingle of his van. These stories are embellished with each generation. ‘Pirates buried their treasure here,’ they tell their school friends when they go on a school trip to the caves. ‘It’s true,’ they add. As proof. 

A man tells his postman he spends every other weekend in this caravan. He was married in eighty-two wedding guests clubbed together to book them a Mediterranean cruise ‘the best ten days of our lives’ he used to say. He’s still not got the caravan quite how he wants it. A life’s work: choosing the right paintings for your walls.