History in the making

David by Michelangelo? WRONG!

Around midday. I will be up a high scaffold practicing the magic for which I am now known. It is going to be hot, but I will have a hose pipe and spray. In a few hours I make brand new, dazzling stonework look as though it has been there for 200 years. This is why I will not be remembered for what I am now known.

It is only now toward the end of my working life that I am actually doing the thing which I was supposed to be trained for (but was not) - pure sculpture. Everything up until this point has involved making someone else's work look as though it has survived the last 200 years intact, so I will not be remembered for that either.

Historians will ask, "Who made that?' to which the answer will be, "So-and-so, 200 years ago."

Others will ask, "What the hell did Tom Stephenson do with the last 50 years of his life?"

Just now, I had an email flash up from Airbnb, who I recently subscribed to. The title of this email was, 'Wake up in a Castle!'

Although that offer might appeal to us today, it would have been a terrifying thought for someone 400 years ago.

Reading the Airbnb email in more detail, I found it elaborated with the headline, 'HISTORY IN THE MAKING', and I realised that this is exactly what I have been talking about above. This was a very timely email from them.

When I spent most of my time restoring and conserving stone and marble statuary for antique dealers, I was renowned - if not infamous - for taking a very long time to finish the jobs, and this would sometimes cause bitter resentment when it came time for them to collect and pay the bills. Most antique dealers bitterly resented paying the bills in any case, so my reputation for ignoring their jobs did not bother me in the slightest.

In those days I had business cards and letterhead notepaper, and when I was designing some new stationary, some wag suggested I should have, 'Antiques While You Wait!' as my slogan.

Oh well, I suppose I had better go off and keep a low profile again.