Hidden Messages

I’ve been decorating Jake’s bedroom this week. We removed the badly fitted units and stripped the wallpaper down to the plaster so that it could be repaired and re-primed. We also aimed to paint the room in colours more of our choosing and less of the previous owner’s preference of dazzling bright colours mixed with nicotine shaded ceilings. After removing all the paper it was clear that the walls, for the most part were in a reasonable state of repair although they needed cracks filling and a thin cost of paint to cover the now bare plaster. There were various marks on the wall marking out the unit sizes in feet and inches but on one wall was this very faintly pencilled message:

My grandfather was a builder and I always remembered that if he was papering a wall he would leave a message underneath with his name, the date and some snippets of news, the football results or some topical trivia. I’m not sure whether this was through nostalgia or vanity but after looking long and hard at this message I determined that it was:

Camelon Co-Operative Paints & Dyes

28/6/23

D Johnson

A Harris

 The names are my best guess as they were very blurred but the company name was very clear (Camelon is the district in West Falkirk that neighbours Larbert and Stenhousemuir – and probably nothing to do with King Arthur) but the date is quite amazing: 28^th April 1923 – almost 90 years ago which probably relates to when the extension on that part of the house was done. They obviously did a good job.

I was also quite intrigued that it was a co-operative that carried out the work. I always imagine painters and decorators in years gone by being like the men in Robert Tressell’s The Ragged-Trousered Philanthropists who were constantly scraping an existence on subsistence wages. It’s nice to think that Tressell’s work may have inspired the creation of a decorator’s co-op.

As it is, the message is now gone as the wall was primed following the plaster repair but I’m sure that Messers Johnson and Harris would have appreciated a job well done.