[jambutty]

I remember MFI when they first started up back in the sixties. Then they did their trading via classified ads in newspapers.

One such advert for a desk caught my eye shortly after I was demobbed from the navy. As I recall they advertised a solid wood, beautifully stained and French polished desk for £5 something plus p + p of a few shillings. £5 then was probably equivalent to £50 today.

The desk duly arrived for me to discover that it was made from boxwood (what packing cases like tea chests are made from) and the staining didn’t even reach the edge of the wood with the French polishing virtually non-existent. In other words it was so far away from the advert that it was blatant fraud.

“I can make one better than that” I declared to my wife. “Do so” she challenged.

A brief exchange of letters saw me get a full refund, plus the p + p and they collected the trash at their expense.

I’m not bad with wood but I’m not a cabinet maker but I sat down and designed my own desk, went to O’Keefes in Blackburn with a list of sizes for some hardwood plywood of varying thicknesses. A few days later O’Keefe delivered the timber (free delivery). All I had to do was to cut the slots in all the right places and put the whole thing together. Once stained I tried my hand at French polishing and did a presentable job of it and certainly much better than MFI managed to do.

The desk? Is still in use today and as solid as the day it was constructed.

I’ve never been back to MFI since.