You can talk about things till the cows come home with pretentious words
Tom 65. From North London. Married. I do exactly what I want to do but I am a Cabinet Maker by trade.
How do you see yourself?
As a cantankerous old git. I have an extreme suspicion of all authority. Have you always been like that? Pretty much, yes. That's why I do what I want to do because I don't trust what anyone else wants me to do.
I beat myself up over silly things, those anxieties linger. If you’ve got a lot of imagination it can be your worst enemy because you can imagine how things can go wrong the whole time. My grandfather spent four years in the trenches and all they said was - he didn't have the imagination to think what could have happened! If you let your imagination go, anxiety can get out of all proportion.
The character - Sheldon Cooper from Big Bang Theory is an example of what I’m explaining. Everything that happens has a whole stream of events which leads to a scenario. People like him are always several steps ahead. If something goes wrong, then this will go to wrong. It's never just one issue. It’s the knock on effect. With a good imagination you can always find something to worry about. Anxiety is a problem but when I’m at work I don't get it.
I do believe that one's own brain can affect one's body. You can visualise a problem in your body and make it better.
What's your most memorable experience today?
My parents taking me to see the Beatles in 1964. I’d have been nine. For being crap parents that's one thing you couldn’t accuse them of being crap about. It's a good memory about my parents - they were totally crap!
Why were they crap? They were totally self absorbed. Not particular keen on having children even though they had four, which is why I sort of ended up bringing up my sister. My father was always working and when he was there, he was always talking about himself. As for my mother, caring isn’t her greatest quality. I had a demanding elder brother who was very attention seeking and an autistic younger brother who was hell. I was always caught in the middle. I always wanted to go to boarding school to get away from it all. I ended up as a weekly border. Then it all got a bit like home, everybody always fighting.
I was used to people fighting around me. It’s quite nice to have peace and quiet. My nicest memory was one Easter day, for some reason my brothers weren’t there. I had a lovely day with my parents ignoring each other completely, in complete calmness there was no shouting or screaming.
Who or what inspires you?
Thomas Chippendale. When you hear about Thomas Chippendale they often refer to the father. I am talking about the son not the father. The father was awful and the son was brilliant. The wonderful makers. What they achieved was far greater than the sculptors and painters put together and yet so little is known about them. There was very little recorded.