Living with Wood
John’s Story
Thanks, Bill. As you know I have just finished a book on my life in writing as an academic that I’ve entitled A Theological Odyssey, so it’s about time to share the story of my life in woodworking. Writing, woodworking, and playing sport intersected my life from an early age. As a teenager I dreamt of writing a murder mystery, but I gave up after a few pages. At school I was more interested in cricket and hockey than in Latin and Mathematics. Yet by the time I went to university in my seventeenth year I had taught myself to type and enjoyed writing the essays that from then on became a constant part of my life.
My father Harold always had a workshop. He made the furniture for our first family house, including two large teak Morris Chairs, which I inherited but no longer have. He taught me the basics of woodworking and bought me a second-hand lathe when I was still in junior school. I have no idea what happened to it after I left home. Woodworking was part of the junior school curriculum, at least for boys, so it was there that I was taught elementary industrial drawing and developed my rudimentary woodworking skills. But even though I was not particularly good at either, the smell of boiling horse-hooves glue pellets on the gas burner remains part of my memory, and a pen and inkpot stand I made from mahogany still sits on my study desk.
My younger son Anton would later do woodwork throughout his high school years, and did much better. But, alas, woodworking is no longer an option in the vast majority of schools in South Africa, including those to which we went. This is an enormous pity and loss, as has been the demise of the apprenticeship system. There are signs that both will be re-introduced, something that cannot come quickly enough. To learn to use your brain in the school room and your muscle on the sports field are obviously important, but so too is learning to appreciate the creative arts and crafts that add such value to life and to the community, whether as a profession or hobby. I was fortunate to be introduced to all these at school, and they remain important, giving my life some necessary equilibrium. Developing this balance has become important over the years on my journey into becoming more fully human and, in the process, nourishing my soul.
Although I have always had my own workshop since Isobel and I were married and, from time to time, made furniture and other items needed for our various homes over the years, woodworking increasingly took a back seat as my work in a congregation, my involvement in public life, and my life as an academic (and much travel), took centre stage. It was not only woodworking that suffered; I fear that amidst everything else I could not have been a very good father. But Steve and Anton got something of their own back, for my workshop became a bicycle repair shop (their sister Jeanelle was party to some of their exploits as well, though she now denies it!), and the chisels I had once kept sharp were put to uses other than those for which they were intended.
Life was difficult, hectic, and sometimes fearful during the final years of the struggle against apartheid in which our whole family, many colleagues and friends, as well as our local church, were engaged in one way or another. But then Nelson Mandela walked out of prison, a new era dawned, and the rest is history, though the journey towards a transformed society is still in its infancy. These dramatic changes affected all of our lives, not least my own, giving us a new freedom. I was able to start research projects that were no longer focused on the church struggle against apartheid, though still usually related to Christian faith and public life. But as the 1990s progressed it was becoming clear—at least to Isobel, if not to myself—that the intensity of the previous years had taken its toll on soul and spirit as well as body. And the gusto with which I was now involved in new writing projects was not helping to restore the balance so necessary for a meaningful and productive life.
I vividly recall the day on which Isobel told me in no uncertain terms that I had better find a hobby and get my life more in balance. She was right. But my workshop was a shambles, my tools rusty and blunt, and my skills, such as they were, all but forgotten. Yet, after a moment’s reflection—it took not much longer—I resolved to return to my workbench, rescue my chisels, and make sawdust again. I don’t think Isobel had a clue as to what this would mean—or cost, for that matter—when she encouraged me to buy new tools and get going again, or in terms of the time I would devote to doing so. But she was delighted, not least because at the same time she was developing her own skills as an artist and poet after years of doing community work and teaching school mathematics. We were both in search of a more balanced life as we began to think ahead to the so-called years of “retirement,” a notion that could mean becoming bored to death, or alive to new possibilities. Fortunately we had the resources to avoid the former and pursue the latter. In that regard we are privileged, but also enormously grateful.
Anton re-introduced me to woodturning during a holiday we spent at the Moffat Mission in Kuruman, on the edge of the Kalahari Desert, where Steve, his older brother, was the director during the 1990s. I was hooked. So one of the first pieces of equipment I bought for my renovated, though small, workshop was a No 1 Record woodturning lathe. Then I had the opportunity, during a sabbatical in England in 1998, not only to write a book on Christianity and Democracy but also to attend a woodturning course given by Alan Batty in the Yorkshire cathedral town of Ripon. He helped me get the basics more or less right, but he was also a stickler for perfection. I am not sure he regarded me as amongst his better pupils, but I undoubtedly benefitted from his tuition. On another occasion I took a course in wood carving in the English Peak District, and although I have not done much carving since then (a few pieces are the exception), it was a good experience. I cannot recommend strongly enough to anyone keen to get started in woodcraft that you find a mentor. On our return to Cape Town from our sabbatical in England I resolved to enlarge my workshop, buy a bigger lathe with a swinging headstock to turn large bowls, and join a woodturning club.
Around that time, my brother-in-law, Ron Steel, who had long been my companion in various ventures, retired from the ministry, and with his wife Elsie and family came to live in Cape Town. Ron was an avid woodworker and was also beginning to develop an interest in woodturning. So together we joined the Pinelands Club and twice a month for several years participated in its meetings. What a learning experience that was! We were introduced to tools and techniques, watched and shared in practical demonstrations, rubbed shoulders with some remarkable turners, marveled at their skill and output, entered competitions, received excellent critique, and even progressed to what was designated an “advanced level” of woodturning. Above all, we became passionate wood turners. And I also learned that some things had changed since the days of shop class.
Having learnt much from feminist theologians over the years, I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when towards the end of our sojourn in the Pinelands Woodturners club several women joined and soon established themselves as accomplished turners. I know that sounds patronizing, for why should they not excel at woodturning as at everything else? I suppose it is just because woodworking has always seemed such a men’s thing, something like rugby and cricket! But seeing that there are now women’s rugby and cricket teams, why not wood turning? The circle has turned, and none too soon. I am sure it started in the US before it did in South Africa. In fact, I now recall that several years before women joined the Pinelands club, I visited a craft festival in Hyde Park, Chicago, where I met a woman turner whose exquisite work inspired me. Be that as it may, I owe much to that club in Pinelands and to Ron’s companionship along the way. Ron himself later managed a large solid wood furniture factory and continues to make fine furniture as a hobby. Children establishing a home are very fortunate beneficiaries of such a father’s craftsmanship!
Then you entered my workshop. While we had originally talked of collaborating on our research in Cape Town that year, I ended up taking my sabbatical in England, while you and Sylvia stayed in our house. But it only took one evening before we left for us to discover that our interests extended well beyond doing theology; we also shared a passion for woodworking, and a zany sense of humor—something very necessary both in friendship and in the workshop.
Over the succeeding years, as you and I have moved into “retirement,”
