HOW COOL IS YOUR COFFEE TABLE? Paul's October Article for Glastonbury Care Home In House Magazine

Of all the pieces of furniture I’ve owned, large, small, lounge or dining room only one piece is most cherished. It’s neither a family heirloom or antique. It has no monetary value. It is not ornate, beautifully decorated or carved. It has no historical importance. That piece of furniture is my coffee table. 

Many years ago my search for a character coffee table was proving fruitless. One day I stopped at an extremely up market antique dealership. Inspired by Bargain Hunt I thought ‘what do I have to lose’.  As I walked around the shop eyeing the large ticket prices I was losing hope. I then spied a scruffy table supporting an insanely large ornate bird cage containing stuffed birds.

With no price tag attached I offered the dealer £50. He accepted this far too willingly. He went on to explain he was closing the shop due to poor sales and how ironic it was my small scruffy table was the only thing he had sold in the last week. His only use of it had been to display his 'valuable stuff’. He further explained that my table was made by a local carpenter’s apprentice and was the first piece of furniture the 16 year old boy had made.

Every day since, this coffee table has informally displayed my ‘valuable stuff’. The table is a constant flow of books and magazines of the moment. It has carried my passions of life with books about rock music, English medieval history, Apollo moon missions and Henry V to name only a few and to add the cherry on top of the cake a latest edition of Classic Rock magazine. Everyone from Ozzy Osbourne, medieval kings and queens, Neil Armstrong and Freddie Mercury have peered up at me every day from my coffee table.

I often think of that young apprentice. This, their first piece of furniture. They must have started that first chisel shaving with excitement and trepidation. Their skills basic but once finished an immense sense of relief, pride and achievement having created something. All from bits of old wood. 

To me this coffee table represents all that life should be. Every morning round 6.30am I sit alone on a large green couch at my coffee table. The day is fresh and unspoilt. My table solid and reliable. It’s imperfections and simpleness are its attractiveness. My coffee table in its naive way has literally held up my life on its uneven wood. Its uniqueness, honest charm and character that is not arrogant, without ego or monetary value. The table in its charismatic unevenness reminds me lives are not defined by perfection. Our lives only move forward by starting with a very small step and then making hundreds of mistakes and false starts. Start your day by making your bed, learn one chord on the guitar or take a piece of wood and start to carve the shape of your life to come.

Life is about having a go. Put your head above the parapet create something from nothing in an earnest desire to learn more. Be courageous and be open to criticism and ridicule in the hope for praise and wonderment. Whatever your fear have the industry and strength to always deliver. Have the generosity of your heart to create something that will give someone you will never meet a great deal of pleasure. 

For me all this is in writing a song. A song can never exist as a material possession like a table and therefore its power is beyond explanation. A song is completely useless to put your ‘valuable stuff’ on or enable you see to see Henry VIII and John Lennon sit sit by side in peaceful harmony at the fireside. 

But ….here’s the thing. Great books, the latest edition of Classic Rock magazine, a cup of tea, two pieces of marmalade on toast, sitting on a one off, very cool, unique coffee table built in the innocent inquisitiveness of youth and a great song playing in the background? Now that, at 6.30am, is the first step to start every day with inspired peace of mind.

Paul Denegri