Home based framer

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Roboframer

Re: Home based framer

Post by Roboframer »

I think you're on a different planet Mark.

I've never seen a photographer at a funeral - nor have I ever taken a camera to one myself or been asked to pose for a photo/seen anyone or any group been asked to pose for a photo.

I have framed quite a few photos to be displayed at funerals, I don't know about actually on the coffin though - usually in the foyer and always for the widow/a relative, not the funeral director. It's not an event to promote yourself at, it's just not right, not even for a florist or an undertaker.

I don't 'work with' any funeral directors but I have the biggest one in the area as a very good personal customer - I'll run this past her, in her line of work it's always good to have a laugh.
Not your average framer
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Re: Home based framer

Post by Not your average framer »

Devon is not like Sussex where you live. Most of the people live in small rural, but still working communities. We have large numbers of farmers, who are intermarried and everyone knows each other and we also have large numbers of gipsy families who are also intermarried and everone knows each other as well.

It is not uncommon for gipsy weddings, or funerals to have a thousand, or more guests. Our town has very strong connections with both communities and a lot of them live here too. Some of our gipsy customers have the same forenames and surnames as one another and we have make sure that we know who is who.

When they get together, they won't have seen some members of the family for years and they don't just take a few photos, they take lots of them, of the event and each other. The church in our town is one of those which does not object to gipsy weddings, or furnerals and there are even local businesses run by people with gipsy names.

Based in a very rural part of Devon, which is old fashioned with close knit families often with many generations in the local graveyards, my business and my customer base is very different to those living in the well heeled stock broker belt close to London.

And yes, every year, we get large family weddings and funerals, and lots of framing orders as a result. We used to see cows in lot of the fields around here, now a field full of cows is far less common. The economy may be carp around here these days, but in all other respects the community remains vibrant and solid.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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Tudor Rose
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Re: Home based framer

Post by Tudor Rose »

Well you learn something new everyday! I just mentioned your post to my son and he was surprised we DIDN'T know about the gypsy connections to Bovey Tracey - he knew all about it through being part of Devon Army Cadets and mixing with cadets from the Bovey detachment and presumed it was general knowledge.

I think it would be fair to say that you can't generalise about Devon in this respect, any more than you could about Sussex where Robo is. We are not far from Mark and yet we don't have the same business conditions and customer base. But then we are on the coast and a different kind of community. Having said that, the family connections and close knit families is still a feature. When we moved to Devon 18 years ago we learnt very quickly to be careful speaking about people - everyone seemed to be related or a close friend. In fact when Mark and his wife popped over to us here once we discovered that his wife used to live just down the road from where we live and she is related to our next door neighbour!

It just goes to show though that you never know where business is going to come from.
Jo Palmer GCF(APF) Adv
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Not your average framer
Posts: 11013
Joined: Sat 25 Mar, 2006 8:40 pm
Location: Devon, U.K.
Organisation: The Dartmoor Gallery
Interests: Lost causes, saving and restoring old things, learning something every day
Location: Glorious Devon

Re: Home based framer

Post by Not your average framer »

Tudor Rose wrote:we learnt very quickly to be careful speaking about people - everyone seemed to be related or a close friend.
Ain't that the truth too! Some families round here have grudges against other families that go back years, or even centuries. Old Chagford folks don't like old Moreton Hampstead folks and that's all about the roundheads and the caviliers.

Check out this link and there are others like it, if you want google for more sites. http://www.ianmortimer.com/poetry/hawk&hares.htm

You couldn't make up stuff like this and yet it is as real today as it was all those centuries ago. I had someone working in my shop who told me about it and I thought it was a bit far fetched, but as time went on I experienced this for myself and it's true! It's not a joke, they really don't like each other even now.

Various territories on the moor are divided up between various different local hunts and even local witchcraft families. You would be amazed at some of the things that go on up on the moor. This may be the 21st century, but there's a lot of medievil stuff still happening around these parts.

It's not difficult to understand why people from out of the area, find these things hard to believe. I am also told that there are differences in what goes on in so called "shire" counties and non "shire" counties. I don't know what this is all about, but if anybody can tell me what this is all about, I would be interested to hear about it.
Mark Lacey

“Life is short. Art long. Opportunity is fleeting. Experience treacherous. Judgement difficult.”
― Geoffrey Chaucer
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prospero
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Location: Lincolnshire

Re: Home based framer

Post by prospero »

Where I live used to be very insular. Again, there were a few families that had, in previous generations
had large families (my maternal grandmother had 9 siblings) which meant most villagers had at least some
family connection to a lot of folks hereabout.
Things have changed radically in recent years with lots of new housing and influx of 'blow-ins'. :lol:

The major employer in the '70s was a factory making plastic components. "The plastics", as it was locally known.
If you didn't work there you worked either on the land or at the local timber yard. You could tell the woodyard
workers from the plastics workers as they tended to have various digits missing. :?
I worked at the plastics throughout the '70s. The first thing you learned was to be careful what you said.
There were the Hall brothers. Harold, George, Sid and Albert. (it amused me to think of parents christening their
offspring Albert Hall). They were related to two foremen by marriage. Just about everyone had at least one other employee
they were related to.
This was at a time of labour shortages. Hard to believe now, but it was common practice if you had a teenager due to leave
school to ask the personnel manager if there was anything going and more often than not they would just create a job for the kid.
Needless to say there was a good deal of internal politics and general squabbles. Although looking back it
was a very happy place to work. It was almost literally one big family.
The dept I worked in handled all the raw materials. 3 shift system. At one time there were 5 'lads' on my shift. All called George.
Watch Out. There's A Humphrey About
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