Me an' my ol' rockin' chair

 ARE YOU SITTING COMFORTABLY?

This is my rocking chair.  It's made by Ercol.

My mother had a big thing about Ercol furniture in the 50s and 60s.  So we had Ercol dining furniture.  Four chairs that were reasonably comfy and practical.  And a two seater bench-like thing that was marketed as 'love seat'.  I'm not sure who loved it.  It was a bugger of a thing to get close enough to the table to eat when there were two of you on it.  

Then there was the long Ercol coffee table, and a nest of three wee tables.  And, by far the worst of the breed, the Ercol sofa, which we had from before I can remember until I sold it after my parents died.  It and the coffee table and the nest all went on eBay and the sofa fetched what I thought at the time was a surprisingly good price.  (Although nowhere near what's being asked for this very similar looking one!)  It was bought by a couple in their seventies who drove their old Volvo estate all the way up from Hertfordshire to collect it.  The woman immediately told me when and where it has been made, and all kinds of other information I hadn't asked for.  Something of an Ercol obsessive.  I helped them get it strapped into their roof rack and bid them a safe journey.  Before they left I did remark that I'd never found it to be very comfortable.  She said "Oh they're not, they're terrible.  I always get backache from them."  And then they left.  I have no answer to the obvious question...

The 'love seat' went to my mother's oldest friend.  We kept the dining chairs for a few years, matched with a surprisingly cheap Ercol table we got on eBay, then sold the lot when we moved up to Edinburgh permanently and did a proper bit of downsizing.  Which left one just Ercol item from that inherited collection.

In the late sixties my parents got themselves comfy new armchairs (not from the big E), while if I wanted to sit with them to watch telly my choices were the floor or that bloody sofa.  Quite why it remained with them for five decades I've never understood.  So I moaned about this situation.  (I know, hard to imagine me as a moany child, eh?)  And moaned some more.  And they took me out to buy a chair that would be mine.  Guess which range of furniture the chosen shop specialised in?

But I was happy with the end result.  Mum got her Ercol, I got a rocking chair.  And, despite the thinly padded back cushion, it was very comfy, at least to someone slightly built like myself, and it has remained so.  I loved it and happily spent much of my teenage years there, rocking away watching TV, reading books, listening to music.  When I'd later return to visit as an adult it was always there, in the same spot, waiting for me.  Although once married I had to share it with my spouse - neither of us could tolerate the dread three seater for too long.

So it's the one item from my childhood home I retain a sentimental attraction to.  New cushion covers had replaced the stripey material it had come with.  In recent years we had new sponge cushions cut to replace the crumbling, sagging originals.  And now it sits beside my bedside cabinet.  It's in an awkward spot, makes getting into the wardrobe a more contortionist act than it need be, and hasn't much functional use.  But sometimes I sit there to read a book and I'm home again.  A rocking time machine.