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Watch author Tom Fort as he celebrates the quintessential cornerstone of village life - the local hardware store. Here in Tring we have two of them!
In 2018 Tom Fort’s daughter in law bought a century old hardware shop in Sonning. The family dreamed of developing the shop into one that would become the centre of village life; that much did come true, but not in the way they had expected.
Interweaving the evolution of the shop, its previous owners, the customers it serves and the items it sells, Rivets, Trivets and Galvanised Buckets offers a delightful study of community and shines a light on the eccentricities of ordinary people.
Alongside, it presents a fascinating history of everyday objects and technological development; from who thought of screwdrivers to where the Stanley knife came from, who devised the process of galvanisation and what genius worked out that a suction pad on the end of a piece of wood could unblock sinks.
As Tom recounts: ‘A little girl came with her father into Heath and Watkins, looked around for a while and said to him “Daddy, this is the shop of EVERYTHING”’. This is the story of how that happened.
ABOUT TOM FORT
Tom was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. In 1978 he joined the BBC in London where he worked in the BBC
Radio newsroom for 22 years. He lives in South Oxfordshire with his wife and two of his children and has been travelling up and down the A303 for over five decades. Two of his books have been selected for BBC Radio 4's 'Book of the Week.'