My week starts Sunday afternoon as I catch the train to Manchester in readiness for a Monday morning start. I had previously been to the shop on many occasions when staying with Marc and Heather. I have always been drawn to the wonderful items they have and so jumped at the opportunity to work there.

Day one was a quick introduction to everyone and then helping Natasha on a stock take.

Day two was a visit to the pop up shop in Jermyn Street and lunch in China Town with Marc. I started to feel more relaxed with everyone. The working atmosphere is very easy going and everyone is friendly.

Whilst at the pop up Marc ran through some antique terminology with Masie and I was asked to read descriptions. It’s all new to me and I made a few interesting mistakes:
Tocheres I pronounced ‘torturers’, candelabra became ‘candle a bra’, Rococo was ‘Morocco”, gilded to ‘glided’ and baroque said as ‘barrow key’.

Another days work involved going to the warehouse, where I managed to get lost at a roundabout for an hour until I was found! Working with Raffy and Julian our job was to unwrap and check for damage on 12 glass light fittings delivered from India, and then to wrap them up again! Although the job was long with over 300 pieces to do (which took one day and a half!), the time there was brilliant as we were told enthralling stories by Raffy of his time in Poland and France and marveled at the massive mountain of wrapping paper. It was all so well wrapped that you could have dropped each item from the top of a twenty-story building.

Overall, my working week as an intern was fantastic and to anyone who reads this I recommend you come to the shop and admire the brilliant items it has on show.

Sam