My Dad's Shed

The smell of sawdust and Danish oil hit first,

a heavy, comforting musk trapped in creaking timber.

My father's memory lives here forever,

sealed away in jars of mismatched screws and rusty nails.

I remember the workbench,

scarred with deep rings from old coffee mugs,

and the sharp burns of a soldering iron.

A yellowed cassette radio sat in the corner,

hissing static between country classics,

the soundtrack to our quiet weekend afternoons.

To me, it was never just a workspace,

it was a kingdom of shadows and secret tools.

I would build castles out of old timber offcuts,

while he stood over the vice,

sawing, measuring, sanding,

the rhythmic shhh-shhh of wood grain yielding to steel.

He didn’t say much,

but he always handed me the tape measure,

trusting my small hands to hold the silver line straight.

In the amber glow of a single, dust-coated bulb,

we were entirely safe from the world outside.

And later, when I was older,

the shed became a theatre;

an old velvet curtain pinned from wall to wall,

the witness to dances, songs and childish plays.

And rapturous applause from my dad's old chair

Or a clubhouse, the radio now playing top of the pops on repeat from a TDK cassette.

Bartons pop and custard creams.

Darts.

We improved our maths that year,

not that it showed in any school tests

The shed is gone now,

a patio in its place, geraniums in bloom.

But when I hold a hammer, or smell sawdust,

I am seven years old again,

watching his gentle, calloused hands,

teach me how to build a life.