| Keith launches three tenners
A marketing and PR manager has launched an internet-led business for artists looking to sell their work. Morpeth couple Keith and Lesley-Anne Newman took voluntary redundancy from the utility company the National Grid, in Keith's case after 23 years there, when it became apparent they would have to relocate to the Midlands. Neither wanted to move away, so Keith started as marketing manager for a Gateshead company and Lesley took the plunge and set up her own internet business selling antiques and collectables, All Your Yesterdays. It was while he was helping his wife at an antiques fair that Keith came up with the idea for the Artists Network. He said: "My wife and I were selling at an antiques fair and next to our stall was a very talented artist. His paintings were excellent but his ideas for marketing his work were basic and not doing his work justice.
Headboards cry for creativity
Bedroom headboards can be more than just a support for the rails that hold up the mattress. They can also be something other than the headboard that came with the original bedroom set. Let's get creative. Why not try using no headboard? Many things can go on the wall where the bed will sit other than a conventional headboard. A mirror from ceiling to floor always adds pizazz to the room, particularly if the bedspread on the bed is exceptionally attractive. Painting that wall in a bold color, then adding some type of mural where the headboard would go is another way to treat the room. If the room belongs to a child, then something whimsical might be painted in place of the headboard. Maybe a clown, a favorite cartoon character, balloons, kites or sailboats.
Long-lost letters linked to WWII nurse
STILLWATER -- A Stillwater woman has tracked down a retired Navy nurse whose 150 World War II-era letters -- including about 100 from a Marine she dated -- somehow landed in a Bartlesville antiques mall, where they were sold for less than $15. Shawn Irons, a genealogy buff with serious sleuth instincts, was amazed that she found the woman to whom all those letters, including many signed, "Love, Bob E.," were written between 1942 and 1947. Irons had bought two bags of letters bearing postmarks with their original 3- to 8-cent stamps at an antiques booth in Bartlesville's Gans Mall about a year ago. She said intends to mail all 150 letters to the rightful recipient soon. "It's mind-boggling. I thought I'd be lucky to find a living relative," Irons said Wednesday, a day after she first talked with the woman whose letters she bought.
Antique Tool Talk
I hate to start a story like this because anyone that has seen me in the last 20 years or so is not going to believe it, but I was young once and as a young man up to and including the 1950s the word 'pipe wrench' was not in our vocabulary. No, if you were asking for or referring to what is now known as a "pipe wrench," you used the word "Stillson." We didn't know why and quite frankly didn't give it much thought. Then we got involved in our collection and started accumulating and studying some tool history and we found the following that explained the reason for using this term. We found that a man by the name of Stillson was working as a machinist for Walworth Machine Co. in 1865. In 1869, he (Stillson) patented the pipe wrench. Not having the financial resources to manufacture and market the tool, he offered to sell his patent to his employer Walworth for $1,500.
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