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Sunday, November 29, 2015

An old photo just surfaced today and sent to me from my first wife, Janis Enright


From the age of eleven I worked Saturdays at Harcourt Howard's antique shop at the Albion and then at his home at Denham Street Clayfield, in Brisbane.
I learned the trade that was buying and selling but more importantly, I learned that research and restoration were the two most important elements to success.
I was far more inclined towards collecting than trading and was also more focused on a design career. Dealers it seemed to me were always at each other's throats and scheming to devise ways of extracting key pieces from households they had entree to.
I can't remember the cat in the pic, he had so many.
Harcourt was a generous man with his time and knowledge, there was no area of the house 'out-of-bounds' to me. This trained me to be scrupulously honest or else . . .
His wife Elsie had passed away by this time, she was a medium in the "Spiritualist Church" and was trained by my GrandMother on my Father's side - Annabell Enright.
I can see that this was after Harcourt's stroke as his right hand was affected, still although his speech did return to normal.
I was so chuffed to see this lost image, again - Love you Harkie (and Janis)!

2 comments:

  1. Malcolm such a thrill to see this photo of Harcor (as my Irish father used to pronounce his name). His lovely smile ....feels like he is saying Hi after all these years. Posted on your other pag about Mum and dad's friendship and biz dealings with Harcourt. Its great someone is keeping his memory alive. He was the person who encouraged my mother to buy and sell antiques in the late 1960s. She used to go to his shop nearly every day I think...he often served her rockmelon and icecream!

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