I remember my grandmother’s house well. I used to stay there when my mum was working late. I remeber how little ‘stuff’ it had in it. The sitting room had a small sofa, a side board with an old biscuit barrel on it, a TV, one of those 1930s mantle clocks on the fireplace and my grandmother’s old reclining chair. That was it. Each bedroom had a bed and an empty wardrobe, nothing else. My grandmother’s bedroom also had a dresser with triple mirror and a set of those brushes that were popular in the 1930s on top. The kitchen had just a cooker, a sideboard and a wall mounted radio that was a simple plywood box with two bakelite knobs and no dial.

At the top of the stairs was a Singer sewing machine. An old treadle mounted one. I had hours of fun working the foot peddle to make the large drive wheel spin as fast as I could. I never saw my grandmother use it. But my mum was a talented seamstress so I guess she learned it from somewhere.

When my grandmother died, I wanted the machine. I wasn’t in a position to take it at the time. It’s a sizeable thing and I was living in a small room in a tiny shared flat. My uncle wanted to turn it into a cocktail cabinet, but I pleaded for him not too. Many years later, when I finally had space to keep it, I got the machine. I had it serviced and it works like a dream…not that I am capable of using it for more than basis pocket repairs. It now sits at the top of my stairs.

The serial number EA039466 tells me it is a model 15K machine made in the Kilbowie factory in Clydebank, Glasgow in Scotland in 1935. I’ve been wanting to take a series of photos of the machine for some years, and finally got round to it recently.

The logo design on my machine is the so-called RAF eagle that was common around this period. It seemed appropriate, then, to photograph it using my World War II Air Ministry 8 inch Dallmeyer Pentac reconnaisance lens bolted to my 1940s Speed Graphic. Wide open, the lens also allowed me to get ridiculously shallow depth of field to really focus in on the details, which is the vision I’d had in mind for some time.

I printed everything up on 5×7 Ilford Warmtone paper, which seemed fitting for the vintage look, and I’ve left any and all inperfections that mysteriously effected a couple of the negatives.