The "Flintoff Chair"
I designed and made this chair for the "Chairs 4 Charity" auction held in Melbourne, Australia in 2006. Before it started its month long sea voyage to 'Down-Under' I sent the chair off to Freddie Flintoff's home in Cheshire, where he was recuperating from a leg injury, so he could scrawl his valuable signature above the bails. It was the third highest earner out of a lot of 40, beaten only by the ones signed by Al Pacino and Shane Warne...well, a chair signed by the famous Shane was bound to beat one from Captain Freddie in an Aussie auction!
Other celebrities who signed the chairs included Whoopi Goldberg, Crocodile Dundee actor Paul Hogan and the cast from Neighbours.
Picture and information courtesy of 'The Argos' Saturday December 2, 2006. www.theargus.co.uk
Some chairs lend themselves to projects, and this one was no exception. It took me 6 weeks to design and build and is mainly made from English oak with the 'stumps' made from ash and the two hand carved 'cricket bats' at the back from willow, as they should be ! I really enjoyed the process of making it. I had a vision of what it would look like and I just really went for it...
