Loose Dowels and Borrowed Initials

The chair came apart at the joints more easily than I expected. I had built it eleven years ago from ash and rush, and the dowels had loosened in a way that let me lift the seat free with two hands, no tools. What I found underneath was a penciled mark on the stretcher, a date and a set of initials that were not mine. I had bought the ash from a mill in Buckinghamshire in 2013 and worked it in a shed behind the house, and I have no memory of writing anything on that piece of wood.

The mark might have been there before I cut the board. It might have been made by the man who sold me the timber, or by someone who handled it before him. What I can say is that the chair held for eleven years, carried weight, did not wobble under normal use despite whatever was written on its underside. The pencil was soft, the letters small, and the wood had darkened around the graphite so the mark sat in the surface like something older than the chair.

I rebuilt it this afternoon with new dowels and a shim of walnut at the front left joint where the mortise had worn oval. It sits level now. The mark is still there. I have not sanded it out. I do not know what it means and I do not expect to learn. The chair has four legs of unequal length that I have cut to match, and the seat is 43 centimetres from the floor.