Uncle Ralph - Paper-hanger

Ralph's career as a interior decorator.

Table of Contents:

• All posts
• Prequel: My uncle was a one-armed paper hanger
• Introduction
• The Arm
• Driving
• One Armed Adaptations
• 364 Day Marriage
• Paper Hanger

As previously blogged, Ralph lost his right arm just above the elbow in an industrial accident. Interior decorator was not the obvious career switch for a man under those circumstances but so he chose. It turned out to be a felicitous decision.

He lived in Queen's Club Gardens, Baron's Court, London as did most of his clients. The estate was built in the late 19th century when an entrepreneurial developer, William Gibbs acquired the land for his most ambitious project comprising 33 blocks with 548 flats, 3 staff flats and an office set around central communal gardens and two tennis courts, inspired by the new Queen's Sports Club which had opened in the 1880s. [1]. 

As a sitting tenant, he was given the option to buy his flat for a measly £10k (year unknown). He was uncertain whether he should do it, while the rest of the family screamed at him, do it! He did. Given the current prices of the property, that was a prudent move.

Ralph was never out of work. With that many flats word of mouth recommendation meant that it was like decorating the Forth Bridge; there was always another flat queuing up for his services.

I had to ask how he hung wallpaper. Apparently he pasted the paper, concertinaed it, balanced it on his head, went up the ladder, head-butted the wall with the end piece, used the stump to hold it in place and his good arm to position the drop as it unfolded.

I called upon Ralph to redecorate a bedroom when I lived in South Wimbledon. My main bedroom had had part of the room stolen to extend the original cupboard-sized bathroom on the landing and make it a decent size. The previous owners who did that also installed a second door from the bedroom so it could be used as an en-suite. 

As a result the false wall was missing coving along the ceiling (this was a late Victorian terraced house). I used a local company who specialised in replacement plasterwork to take an impression and extrude a new section to match, then fit. The room then needed re-decorating so I called in Ralph. 

He did an excellent job then performed a piece of magic. The new door to the bathroom was a modern flat one unlike all the other original Victorian panel doors. So he stuck four rectangles of beading to the door to fake the impression of panels. A simple trick but amazingly effective.

He had some t-shirts printed with the legend “One Armed Paper Hanger” one of which I acquired. One time I walked into a pub in Richmond, the barman looked at me and asked, "How is Ralph?"

Postscript.
At one point Ralph was in the running to be a movie extra in a pirate movie. In the days before CGI movie makers relied on practical effects. The proposal was that he would wear a papier-mâché arm filled with fake blood. Then in the fight scene his fake arm would be hacked off. Sadly it never came to pass. 

Uncle Ralph - 364 Day Marriage

The true story of Ralph's short-lived marriage.

Table of Contents:

• All posts
• Prequel: My uncle was a one-armed paper hanger
• Introduction
• The Arm
• Driving
• One Armed Adaptations
• 364 Day Marriage
• Paper Hanger

My earliest memory was of him living in a basement flat at 10 Philbeach Gardens in Earl's Court (aka Kangaroo Valley on account of the number of Aussies who lived there). He lived with his girlfriend, Irene, "in sin" as it was described in those days. Very exciting and risqué for someone like me growing up in the very conventional milieu of middle England in the ‘70s.

They subsequently moved upmarket to a 2-bedroom flat at 28 Gainsborough Mansions, Queen’s Club Gardens in Barons Court where Irene’s mother tried to bribe them into marriage with the offer of a three piece suite as a wedding gift! No dice. Eventually Irene gave up waiting and left for Colorado where her sister and mother had relocated some years previously.

Ralph continued to talk to Irene by phone usually on a Friday night after an evening down the Colton Arms. One particularly inebriated evening he suggested they get married. Next day he got a call from Irene to say the date was fixed and he was to present himself at her home in Colorado on such-and-such a date which he duly did.

Apparently the sister and mother both wanted to have the preacher conduct the service in their respective front parlours and got into a heated debate. Exasperated, Irene rang up the reception venue and asked if they could also host the wedding, “Sure”. And so that is how Ralph ended up marrying in the Colorado Holiday Inn on 18 August 1979 when he was 48 years old.

Ancestry.co.uk were able to give me the date but wanted me to upgrade my subscription to research the US records hence the redacted detail. I'm not sufficient nosey at this stage to cough up.

Unfortunately for Irene the cheapest flight out to the States was in fact a one-year return deal. As the 12-month deadline approached Ralph wondered how the lads in the Colton Arms were getting on. "Shame to waste the other half of the ticket." So he returned to the UK and never went back!

Irene was not impressed to say the least.

Next: Paper Hanger

Uncle Ralph - One-Armed Adaptations

For Uncle Ralph having only one arm required many adaptations, some simple, others harder or more complex.

Table of Contents:

• All posts
• Prequel: My uncle was a one-armed paper hanger
• Introduction
• The Arm
• Driving
• One Armed Adaptations
• 364 Day Marriage
• Paper Hanger

Writing: he had to learn to write again using his left hand. It was a little shaky but perfectly legible.

Shoes: laces were out, it was loafers and moccasins or Velcro.

Scissors: you can buy left-handed scissors, right-handed are uncomfortable to use for a leftie. There used to be a fascinating left-handed shop near Regents street, now online only [Anything Left Handed] selling all manner of items. 

A friend of mine bought a left-handed corkscrew there and left it out at parties causing much confusion when people tried to open a bottle and couldn't work out what was happening. 

I used wonder where my left handed scissors came from but just now I realised that it could well have been from Ralph. Left- and right-handed scissors:

Chopping onions: he had a chopping gadget that you put the peeled onion into and banged repeatedly on the top.

Shirt buttons: another re-learn but rarely needed as he lived in t-shirts.

Nelson knife: named after Admiral Lord Nelson, another famous one-armed person. A knife designed for one handed eating. The blade can be used with a rocker action and the pronged end used as a fork. Ralph had a folding one for ease of carrying.

After he died I asked Mum for his as a keepsake.

Pinball wizard: At Ralph’s funeral one of his drinking companions gave a eulogy including a fun fact I had never heard before. Apparently he was partial to a game of pinball on the Gottlieb in the Colton Arms. The first time he went down for a drink following his amputation he went into the pub and looked thoughtfully at the table. Inspiration! He called to the landlord to bring him over a beer crate. He propped his right foot on the crate and proceeded to play with one knee and one arm.

Poker: Ralph used to join in regular Friday night poker sessions after the pub closed. He used to win some, lose some but generally held his own. After the accident he started losing more often. Finally one of the group drunkenly let slip that there was a vein on his stump where they could see his pulse. He may have had a poker face but the raised heart rate gave it away when he had a good hand. He switched from t-shirts to long sleeved shirts tucked in and started winning again!

According to one of my nephews, Mum revealed that he gambled away the insurance payout from his injury. This I did not know.

Paper hanging: that is a whole separate topic...

Next: 364 Day Marriage

Uncle Ralph - Driving

As far as I know Ralph did not not have to re-take his driving test but he would have been required to inform the DVLA of his amputation and get the OK from his doctor.

Table of Contents:

• All posts
• Prequel: My uncle was a one-armed paper hanger
• Introduction
• The Arm
• Driving
• One Armed Adaptations
• 364 Day Marriage
• Paper Hanger

As mentioned Ralph’s artificial arm had a cup attachment that would fit over a ball fixed to the steering wheel for driving so he did not require a specially adapted car. However as he didn’t bother with the arm he simply held the ball with his left hand and steered that way. He drove a manual so to change gear he steadied the wheel with his stump, changed gear and then swapped back. 

One of my more vivid memories was being in the car with him when he needed to change gear whilst negotiating a corner using the only stump to steer - can I open my eyes now? 

Ralph liked his beer at The Colton Arms in Barons Court. It was perhaps inevitable that he would eventually get done for drink driving. He was three times over the legal limit so the case had to go to court where the allocated solicitor saw the breathalyser report and, with grudging admiration, exclaimed “that is the highest level I have ever seen!”

I never was told the outcome of the court appearance but if it was a first offence and because of the high reading it could have been a lengthy ban. There could have been mitigating circumstances due to being amputee and needing his car for his livelihood. I do believe he learned his lesson. He still drank as much but didn’t combine it with driving. 

Next: One Armed Adaptations

Uncle Ralph - The Arm

How he lost his arm and what they replaced it with.

Table of Contents:

• All posts
• Prequel: My uncle was a one-armed paper hanger
• Introduction
• The Arm
• Driving
• One Armed Adaptions
• 364 Day Marriage
• Paper Hanger

It was an icy winter’s day in January 1963 and Ralph slipped on a metal gangway at work. I presume it was on a British Thomson-Houston construction site somewhere in London. He reached out to steady himself and his arm went into an unguarded part of a cement mixing machine. 

The mechanism chewed off his arm which the doctors said saved his life. The ends of the blood vessels were twisted off which helped stem the loss of blood. If it have been a clean slice cut there would have been blood spurting out like a Monty Python skit. 

He apparently walked on in shock until he saw a colleague and only then fainted. Off to hospital for an emergency operation where they tidied up the stump to just above the elbow. 

After his discharge from hospital he was referred to Roehampton where they have a world class prosthetic and amputee rehabilitation centre. His artificial arm was mainly aluminium with a leather cup for the stump and leather straps to hold it to his shoulder. No carbon fibre back then so it was pretty heavy. 

Picture courtesy of Arm Dynamics.

It had two degrees of movement depending on which way he moved the stump. One way would bend or straighten the arm, the other would work an attachment at the end of the arm of which there were several. 

• plastic hand for formal occasions and the thumb would move for a handshake
• hook that would open out like two clawed fingers for all sorts of uses
• pair of pliers for basic DIY
• cup that would fit over a ball attached to a car steering wheel for driving

It was heavy and cumbersome so he only wore it on formal occasions. The rest of the time he tucked up his sleeve and adapted to a one-armed life.

Those one adaptations are a separate topic...

Footnote*: Roehampton operated a shoe sharing scheme whereby unipedal amputees could split a pair of shoes getting one each. Styles and colours limited.

* footnote - see what I did there!

Next: Driving

Uncle Ralph - Introduction

Some pay-it-forward for my nephews about their great uncle who they probably don't remember but one day may be curious about their gran's louche brother.

Table of Contents:

• All posts
• Prequel: My uncle was a one-armed paper hanger
• Introduction
• The Arm
• Driving
• One Armed Adaptations
• 364 Day Marriage
• Paper Hanger

Following an industrial accident my uncle became a one-armed paperhanger as previously blogged. Whilst doing some genealogical research I realised that there were great gaps in my knowledge of his life story. He managed to live under the radar for much of his life in a shady demi-monde of cash-in-hand, so much so that he was once called in to the local HMRC office for a chat about the lack of income tax payments. He never bothered to register to vote so the electoral rolls provide no information on his whereabouts. 

Ralph at my parent's wedding, June 1951, age 20.

He was working as a mechanical engineer when he lost his right arm. I tried the Institute of Engineers but they had no record of him. I asked Mum (he was her younger brother by four years) where he did his apprenticeship or who he worked for. She had little recollection of her younger brother’s life. I believe he worked in a copper mine overseas; he had a copper ashtray that was supposedly a souvenir of that trip. Again, Mum didn’t know where or when. 

He was born on 7 June 1931 and died of a massive stroke on 4 February 1993 at the age of 61. He was too young to see active service in World War Two but he must have been old enough to be eligible for National Service. After Mum died I realised that I was officially Ralph’s next of kin and could apply for his service records and learn more – which I did and a little conjecture filled in the gaps.

After three years, Ralph’s army records finally came through. From which I learned that he did indeed do national service - basically two weeks army camp every year from ‘52 through to ‘55. It also records that he went to Rugby technical college and did a five-year apprenticeship with BTH Co Ltd, engineering (1948-1953).  That would be British Thomson-Houston.

I am guessing these were contemporaneous on some kind of day release.  I am under the impression that he spent some time in Rhodesia in a copper mine. Given BTH’s global reach, it could well have been with them. Did he continue working for them and was that who he was working for when he lost his arm in January 1965? He was one for the easy life so I can’t see him switching jobs.

There are many tales to tell which will follow...

Next: The Arm

My uncle was a one-armed paper hanger

Uncle Ralph was a most picaresque role model for an impressionable young lad. My earliest memory was of him living in a basement flat in Philbeach Gardens in Earl's Court (aka Kangaroo Valley on account of the number of Aussies who lived there). His lived with his girlfriend "in sin" as it was described in those days. Very exciting and risqué.

Uncle Ralph at my sister's wedding 1979

He was a qualified mechanical engineer and lost his right arm just above the elbow in an industrial accident. Interior decorator was not the obvious career switch for a man under those circumstances but so he chose.

He used to have a mechanical arm but it was heavy and he only wore it on formal occasions. The rest of the time he tucked up his sleeve as you can see. One of my more vivid memories was him driving round a corner whilst changing gear. This necessitated using his stump to steer whilst changing gear with his left hand - can I open my eyes now?

Uncle Ralph at my father's investiture (MBE) 1984.

It is over ten years since he died of a massive stroke which is one reason we have done several bike rides in aid of that charity.

And since you ask... He pasted the paper, concertinaed it, balanced it on his head, went up the ladder, headbutted the wall with the end piece, used the stump to hold it in place and his good arm to position the drop as it unfolded.

To read the full story about Ralph see Uncle Ralph - Introduction.