Malcolm Smith's Family History Archive

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Biography of

Malcolm  Archbald  SMITH

[Ref. S.1]

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Biography index

Part A: Shaftesbury House

Part B: Pine Walk

House

Garden

Holidays

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After rejecting several other properties in the area, Malcolm and Brenda selected this house as it was well situated in relation to the town. They had viewed the property several times and found the condition to be not too good. The owner had several untrained dogs in the house and besides having chewed furniture and woodwork they had abviously been allowed to foul inside the building. At one visit there a fresh pool of urine on the kitchen floor. The owner was also reluctant to open the garage for inspection but did agree only to reveal it to be stuffed from floor to ceiling. Malcolm and Brenda made the purchase through the agents Goadsby & Harding of Fordingbridge, and were obliged to pay the full asking price in order to secure it.

Malcolm and Brenda finally moved to the house on 16 December 2004. The previous owner had not left by the appointed time and Malcolm had to negotiate between her and the solicitors in order to gain access. The delay put the removers behind schedule and at the end of the day they just dumped the remaining boxes into the conservatory.

Unfortunately, the interior of the house was in extremely poor condition, partly due to neglect, but also due to damage caused by untrained dogs. Door frames had been chewed but the worst problem was where they had been allowed to urinate anywhere within the house and the stench of ammonia was hard to bear. Malcolm washed the hard surfaced floors downstairs then his son William hired a carpet cleaner for upstairs. However, the smell persisted and the carpets had to be taken up and removed, but that revealed another problem. Urine had soaked into the flooring and also some of the shampoo, softening some of the chipboard flooring, part of which had already expanded. It was necessary to treat the soft areas with a bonding agent to strengthen it then paint the entire upper floor with a sealer which, in itself, gave off pungent fumes, so Malcolm and Brenda had to sleep in the living room. Next, new carpets and lino were laid.

Having seen to the urgent work, Malcolm set out to redecorate the house. The woodwork was in poor condition and thus very difficult to put right. All the old wallpaper was removed but with difficulty as the plaster underneath was of very poor quality and liably to come off. Malcolm also replaced all the internal doors, putting in glass panel doors in most of the rooms downstairs to give more light.

Having got the house sorted out, Malcolm turned his attention to the garden. The front garden was very uninteresting and the back garden was completely overgrown, so he set about renovating it, taking account of what was already there. He cleared the back garden and restored the lawn. The front garden was bland so Malcolm created a shrubbery to provide screening from the road and flower beds to be seen from the house.

In 2005, Malcolm's son William purchased a flat in Bournemouth and, knowing that his father was capable at DIY, asked him to help get the flat into order. Malcolm constructed a built-in clothes unit in one of the bedrooms then supervised various tradespersons.

In March 2006, Malcolm was given a present of a flight in a hot air balloon from Salisbury. The flight had been postponed from February due to unsuitable weather conditions. The flight was superb, passing over Salisbury cathedral, Beamore House, nephew Robert's forge in Breamore, then landing in the New Forest at Furze Hill.

Malcolm and Brenda had their ruby wedding anniversary in 2007 so held a small family gathering on the day to celebrate.

Malcolm and Brenda's first grandchild, Finlay Thomas Archbald Smith, was born to son James and his wife Rachel on 18 January 2008. Rachel returned to work in 2009 so Malcolm and Brenda started childminding him during working hours. Finlay's sister Megan Hannah May was born on 24 April 2010, and later that year she also was looked after by Malcolm and Brenda. When they started school, Malcolm would walk them to school each morning then collect them in the afternoon and bring them home to wait to be collected. The school was only a short walk away and there was a children's playground on the route, so there were frequently stops there during the summer. There were also occasions where the children would stay overnight if their parents had an event to attend.

A little while before Malcolm and Brenda had moved to this house, Brenda had been diagnosed with progressive MS from which she would gradually lose the use of her legs. It became necessary for her to walk with the aid of a frame and this limited how they would take their holidays. Consequently, they took long weekend breaks at various seaside locations. This became more limited in later years when Brenda needed a wheelchair.

Malcolm was a member of the Swanage Railway Society and he and Brenda would often visit, usually on a summer Monday when the weather was fine and that was the quietest day of the week. On 19 June 2018, they treated themselves to afternoon tea on the train.