Boat Lamp Revamp

It’s amazing what people throw away. This beauty was down and out in the gutter outside my house last month. I looked around for a ripped bin bag or evidence of a discarded declutter box, but the lamp was the only thing on the kerb.

Naturally I took it in.

I’m guessing this piece of junk (see what I did there? Junk being a flat bottomed boat with sails) was thrown away not simply lost. After all there was no plug, a chunk of the wood had split, bits were missing and it looks there may have been a long 'prow' or figure head of some sort.

I wonder if the thing was lobbed out of a window in the middle of a domestic, with a yell of ... and I’m sick of your trashy kitsch boat-lamp! I’ll never know, although I suspect it probably belonged to my next door neighbour – they leave a lot of stuff on the kerb.

I glued the boat bottom splinter, then found a couple of wooden beads and toggles that could reasonably replace the missing bits – one looked a little like a barrel.

The whole thing has the feel of a ‘kit’ about it, it’s not beautifully manufactured – I wonder if it was a hobbyist’s project at one time?

Amazingly the lamp is also ... a music box!  I dug around for a spare key and managed to get a little tinkle out of it, but the music mechanism is quite bust. Ah ... I really should have replaced it before gluing her back together.

But with a new bulb and a new plug, I think she looks quite majestic. 

For those old enough to remember 'Bagpuss',  I should really place the boat in my window for the owner to reclaim it, then go back to sleep on the Mouse-organ.

I’m amassing quite a few kitsch lamps and don’t have enough surface space or electric sockets (to the relief of my family frankly). The Junk now sits on a bookcase next to my parrot, but will have to remain un-illuminated unless I rig up a complicated extension lead.

It would be great to hear about any similar lamp sightings – I reckon it’s probably circa 70’s?