Stock ref: DS1071

Circa early 1930’s

Authenticated by a Director at R. Thompson’s Craftsmen Ltd and considered to be a unique bespoke item, probably made as a gift by a mouseman craftsman for it’s original owner William Buckley, who knew Robert Thompson personally via his lifelong
friendship with the Kirk brothers, farmers and butchers in Kilburn, whose decendents still reside in the village. Acquired directly from the original owners grand daughter Mrs P. Maynard, who, as a young child in the 1940s remembers it fondly as ‘
grandpa’s curly walking stick’. She also vividly recalls annual Easter holiday visits  and meals with her father and grandfather at the Kirk’s farm in Kilburn. The stick is made from a single branch, not oak but possibly elm. It looks
to have warped in usage early on and has had a light woodworm infestation into the handle at some point in the past, not surprising as it has lain unused for over 60 years.  Immensely tactile and suitable for left or right hand use the mouse is
carved looking towards the user on the bend between the handle and shaft. The mouse carving is especially fine and distinctive and the consensus amongst the older ex mouseman craftsmen who have seen the stick is that it is the work of George (Dod) Weightman,
one of their finest carvers ever. His greatest work for Thompson’s is probably the bas-relief interpretation of Christ’s crucifiction transposed to a WW2 battlefield, to be found in The Green Howard’s Chapel within St Mary the Virgin
church, Richmond, Nth Yorkshire.

Size: 92.5(h) cm

 

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{gallery}DS1071{/gallery}