Presenting: Edward James Furniture Ltd

Presenting:

Edward James Furniture Ltd

By Zara Harris

Discover the story behind Edward James Furniture in our interview with the founder, James as he gives us an insight into what the company is all about, why he set it up and his core values. Here’s what he had to say...

TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOURSELF AND YOUR COMPANY.

We are a furniture shop in the centre of Kendal, selling high quality furniture for an affordable price. I started the business Edward James Furniture Ltd in 2012. This was after coming back from Australia in 2008 and trying to buy some decently priced, good quality furniture to no avail. This led me to opening up my own business to fulfil such a need. The name was derived from the middle names of my two boys, Charlie Edward and Harry James.

WHAT IS UNIQUE ABOUT EDWARD JAMES FURNITURE?

It’s a family run business located in Kendal, specialising in high quality British made furniture. Our Lakeland range of sofas are crafted from the finest materials. The furniture is constructed for strength and durability, with all components extensively tested for the customers peace of mind and all of the money goes back into Britain. I am proud to be British and our furniture is hand-crafted and tailored here in the UK.

The furniture has a free upgrade of Aquaclean fabrics on all sofas, as opposed to most selling this as a feature! Aquaclean® technology is a revolutionary fabric treatment that allows you to clean stains using water only. This provides you with simple fabric maintenance in the minimum amount of time. Aquaclean helps to remove the majority of household stains (wine, ink, sauce, fat, mud, chocolate, cream, etc) making life easier and giving you more time for the more important things. And it really does work.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE FURNITURE YOU SELL? (For example classic, neural etc..)

We have a variety of collections in all types of designs, in 100’s of quality fabrics and are all very comfortable, and will stay comfy! No cheap materials used whatsoever. Even the cushions are made of quality materials with duck feather inners. The furniture combines traditional techniques with modern technology to ensure the highest quality construction and superior comfort.

WHAT AREAS DO YOU COVER?

near them. We do direct home delivery from the factory to the client and free local delivery is to: Kendal, Windermere, Ambleside, Kirby Lonsdale, Ingleton, Sedbergh, Kirby Stephen, Coniston, Hawkshead, Ulverston, Grange over Sand, Arnside, Carnforth and Milnthorpe.

HOW DO YOU GO THE EXTRA MILE FOR YOUR CUSTOMERS?

We don’t pressurise our customers, we are there for the customer’s needs. I take the pressure off of the customers by listening to their needs and making sure their purchase is the right choice. Old fashioned quality with old fashioned service. We offer a free set-up service with delivery to the room of your choice, and the removal of all packaging.

WHAT PRICE ARE YOUR PRODUCTS?

I am proud that the furniture isn’t necessarily the cheapest, but by paying that little more, you’ll get furniture that will last over 15 years! I don’t want to sell a person a cheap sofa that only lasts 4 years. I know that in buying the right sofa, the best quality will please customers enough that they will then recommend us to their friends and family, and that’s better than a repeat purchase. WHAT ARE YOUR BEST SELLING PRODUCTS/ SIGNATURE STYLE?

We have seven best sellers, with a further five new models being introduced after Christmas, so stay tuned!

WHAT TRENDS HAVE YOU NOTICED?

Blues are very popular right now, with rusty orange and khaki following closely.

HOW DID THE BUSINESS ADAPT DURING THE PANDEMIC?

My business did OK during the pandemic as we already had orders to fulfil when the Kendal shop was closed. When it opened again, all those who had refunds from their holidays etc had money they wished to put into their homes, so business is doing well.

WHAT IS NEW FOR THIS YEAR AND NEXT?

We will be extending due to continued success with more choice, styles while still keeping the more traditional designs people know and love.

WHAT IS THE CURRENT CHRISTMAS DELIVERY LEAD TIME?

If you are thinking of a new sofa for Christmas, please consider ordering your sofa as soon as possible to guarantee Christmas delivery as due to the current circumstance and demand, the current lead time is 14 weeks from date of order.

Their full collection is available to view now at the Kendal showroom at: 37 Highgate, LA9 4ED N 01539 734439 F Edward James Furniture E enquiries@edwardjamesfurniture.com www.edwardjamesfurniture.com www.lancmag.com LANCASHIRE & NORTH WEST MAGAZINE 25

DEVILSTON BY AUTHOR JASON GREENWOOD

Devilston by JJ Greenwood ISBN: 9781723926723, is available to purchase as an e-book or paperback on Amazon

Autumn 1940.

The noose is slowly tightening. For how long can Britain survive against the Nazi scourge consuming Europe?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jason Greenwood was born and raised in the Lake District of Northern England and won a scholarship to Giggleswick School, a boarding school in North Yorkshire which contributed to some of the background detail of Devilston.

Jason passed out of Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth and served on HMS Intrepid and HMS Fife. After two years service he resigned his commission to study History and Philosophy at the University of Liverpool. He gained a Post-Graduate Certificate in Education at the University of East Anglia and now works as a special needs teacher and tutor in Lancashire. As well as writing Jason loves to travel and has journeyed overland from Britain to Australia, India to Europe and Argentina to Alaska.

The spirit of the book was inspired by family holidays on the wild and beautiful coast of Cornwall, and visits to the mysterious St Michael’s Mount which provided the perfect setting for Devilston School.

Jason lives in the Ribble Valley in Lancashire, in the shadow of Pendle Hill, and he’s sure its dark history of witchcraft was another subliminal ingredient in the cauldron of the book’s creation. Devilston is his first published novel.

Three friends embark on their final year at a boarding school on a wild Cornish island: a bookish refugee, a charismatic prince and the world-weary son of a fighter pilot. Seeking respite from the school’s brutal and corrupt regime, they search for a legendary secret tunnel to the mainland.

But the three become unwittingly embroiled in a tangled web of smuggling, espionage and ancient ritual. At its centre lies a daring plot which - if successful - will determine the outcome of the War, and the very future of humanity...

For one historic moment, the most important place in the world is Devilston.

DEVILSTON BY JJ GREENWOOD QA&

What is Devilston about?

It’s the story of three teenagers in their final year at a boarding school on a Cornish island, run by a cruel headmaster and his sadistic son who is head boy. The three are all outsiders in different ways (an Indian prince, a Jewish refugee and a boy who is bullied). They forge a strong friendship and seek a legendary tunnel to the mainland to escape a brutal regime. In their quest they discovery many revelations about the staff, the locals and the school’s secret history, and a plot even darker than Devilston herself… Devilston is about the adventures of three young people at a very quirky boarding school, the wider struggle between good and evil, and you also have two initials in your name. Should J.K. Rowling’s lawyers be informed?

I have great admiration of Rowling’s work but I’m afraid there’s no magic in Devilston other than the thrill of a good yarn, though I suppose history is a kind of magic in the way that it can bring the inanimate to life.

Three is often the magic number when it comes to main characters in classic stories (eg The Three Musketeers, The Wind in the Willows, The Three Little Pigs…) and this venerable number is itself celebrated in Devilston School’s motto: ‘Usquequaque Tria Via’: Always Three Ways.

As for my initials, ‘J.J. Greenwood’ was stencilled on my trunk and tuck box at boarding school so it seems somehow appropriate. You live in Lancashire, went to school in Yorkshire and yet the story is set in Cornwall?

Every year my family went on holiday to Cornwall and I have many memories of exploring its wild coast and the magical St Michael’s Mount (shamelessly plundered as the setting for Devilston).

For most of my life I’ve lived in the shadow of that great big mystic pudding that is Pendle Hill in Lancashire so I’m sure my subconscious has absorbed much of its supernatural radiation over the years.

At the age of ten I won a scholarship to Giggleswick School in North Yorkshire. Though not quite as brutal as Devilston, my time there provided plenty of grist to the gruel. Why did you set the story in 1940?

This was the year Britain has come closest to being invaded in modern times, and by a power rivaling Sauron in its malevolence: the darkest of backdrops to what is essentially a gothic story. I also liked the idea of setting it in a time of scarcity, when food was rationed and the black market was thriving; such a contrast to our modern age of consumerism.

I went to boarding school in the 1980s: a world of drafty floorboards and iron beds where mobile phones were the stuff of sci-fi and entertainment was a film on an old projector on Saturday evenings if you were good. Not a million miles from 1940 then… What creative works influenced Devilston?

I suppose my book is a spicy curry of literary influences, from Robert Louis Stevenson to Daphne du Maurier, The Famous Five to Lord of the Flies. And I’ve always been drawn to scenarios with a strong sense of place, whether it be Wuthering Heights, Dracula or the board game Escape from Colditz.

The island of Devilston is a major protagonist in my book, an almost living and breathing influencer of proceedings. You have worked as a teacher for many years. What influence have your experiences had on the book and do you think private schools should be abolished?

Schools are weird and fascinating cultures in their variety of fauna and flora, and my teaching experience has provided the rich humus in which Devilston has grown, though detractors might use a different word...

I trained as a teacher of history – in my humble opinion, the king of academic subjects – and I‘ve taught in the state sector all of my working life, mostly in special education. Like a deep-fried coelacanth Devilston is positively dripping with history, from the Stone Age to the Atomic.

As for abolishing private schools, I’ve been programmed to explode should I diss my alma mater, but it irks me that the public sector remains the Cinderella service next to the private. However, rather than close those posh bastions of privilege, I’d like to see them provide more opportunity to the disadvantaged so that their charity status actually means something. Ultimately I’d like to see the state sector properly funded so that private education becomes - like Devilston - an historical curiosity. There is a subtext about fascism that underlies Devilston like its subterranean mines, and the way in which history can be exploited by the unscrupulous in order to hoodwink the gullible. Was this meant as a warning?

I sat down to write a thriller not a political philosophy, but in telling a story you also open yourself up to the mercy of your own subconscious and so your own deep anxieties are bound to manifest themselves. 

 The rise of authoritarianism is something I fear as much as environmental destruction, not just in Russia and China but in western democracies previously considered immune. Ordinary people are disengaging from the complexities of democratic politics and opting for off-the-peg easy answers, allowing others to do their thinking for them. And mainstream politicians are flirting with this fast-fashion fascism, and that scares me.

It is said that there is a little bit of fascism in all of us: the part that secretly admires strong leaders on horseback pointing the way forward. We should be ever-vigilant of this enemy within. In your book the Headmaster talks passionately about the importance of Devilston prevailing as an autonomous entity, no matter what chaos prevails beyond the island. Is this a veiled reference to Brexit?

I think a sense of belonging is important to all humans, whether it be to family, community, society or the human race itself. However there’s quite a porous border between a patriot’s love of country despite its faults and the toxic idea of racial supremacy enshrined in nationalism. Readers of my book will quickly understand in which camp the Headmaster resides.

As for Brexit, we seem poised as a nation between a responsible internationalist relationship with the rest of the world or a new age of jingoism and xenophobia. I probably don’t need to state my own preferred choice of direction. Devilston is self-published. Did you try to find a publisher?

I sought an agent and received plenty of positive feedback but no offer. There seemed to be a struggle over how to classify Devilston. Children’s? Adult? Crossover…?

I tried to write a thriller that would appeal to readers like me, who could cope with a story with some young characters but with a darker, more adult theme in the tradition of classics like Oliver Twist, Treasure Island and Lord of the Rings. Unfortunately modern publishers seem to be particularly obsessed with allocating pigeon-holes for writers and they couldn’t seem to find the right hole for me. Maybe they need to consider other birds, not just pigeons?

Self-publishing is hard graft, requiring an author to do everything themselves: not just writing the bloody thing, but proof-reading, downloading, marketing, putting the bins out, etc…But it’s been a generally enjoyable journey and I’ve surprised myself with what I can do. And being in control of everything has pleased the little dictator inside of me, no end. Who designed the cover?

My mother Nuria created the distinctive artwork, a talented amateur artist. She’s also a fierce patriot who wasn’t happy about changing the colours of her beloved Union Flag. Red and black happen to be the colours of my old school, but in terms of the story they have a much more sinister connotation…

My mother was born and bred in Calcutta, of AngloIndian extraction, and I was lucky enough to spend some considerable time travelling round India, travels that inspired the charismatic character of Jai Rana. And my mother’s father was from Catalonia, from where the mysterious Elena Montserrat originated. Have you written any other books?

Quite a few. My first was a science fiction novel which I wrote when I was a history student at Liverpool University. And before I’m hailed as some literary genius who can write novels between lectures, while the book had some interesting ideas it was mostly rubbish.

I like to think - perhaps deludedly - that each book I write is an improvement on the last. In fact I managed to acquire an agent for a book I wrote before Devilston (a fantasy about a journey to Heaven and Hell) but alas he couldn’t secure a publisher. It was admittedly a very weird story, though not unentertaining.

Of all my fiction Devilston is probably the most rooted in reality, if that helps… Did you write Devilston with the reader in mind at all times, or was it simply an indulgent flight of fancy on your part?

This is the dilemma all authors must face: to speak the ugly truth and starve in the garret, or give ‘em bread and circuses and pay off the mortgage.

My first novel was very much aimed at the commercial mass market, complete with stale stereotypes and tired tropes, and it deserved to fail. The novel I wrote prior to Devilston was at the other extreme: a story I wrote to please myself and to hell with the rest of the world. It didn’t get very far either.

And so to Devilston which lies somewhere between these two poles, shackling the quirks and idiosyncrasies of my imagination to the conventions of an adventure thriller. I suppose it’s the Goldilocks Principle of not-too-cold but nottoo-hot.

Whether Devilston gets any further than my other books remains to be seen. But whatever the outcome I’ve enjoyed the adventure so far, though I’m not sure it ended well for Goldilocks… What will you write next?

Having written an historical novel , albeit with a modern subtext, I’d next like to write something set in the present. The world is in a strange place at the moment, in the midst of a kind of flux as humans become increasingly conscious of their impact on the planet while at the same time seeking to escape from reality down the rabbit holes of alternative politics and the metaverse.

After that - and if we’re still around - I’d like to try my hand at another science fiction novel, hopefully a little less rubbish than my first attempt. So anyway, why should I give up my hard-earned treasure and hours of my precious life to read your offering?

I guess life at its best is a risk. But, if nothing else, Devilston is a rollicking read stuffed with interesting characters and more twists and turns than a snake on a sugar rush; a snake with a dark underbelly…

But if you really don’t like it I can offer your money back, though I’m afraid lost time can’t be refunded.

IDENTIFYING CAP BADGES BY AUTHOR GRAHAM BANDY

Identifying Cap Badges - A Family Historian’s Guide by Graham Bandy, ISBN: 9781526775979 is available NOW in hardback from www.pen-and-sword.co.uk RRP £25

Clear, concise and easy to follow pictures and descriptions to help you identify BritishArmy cap badges.

• Pictures of almost all the cap badges of the British Army, past and present • Original photographs to help date and contextualise your own • Short regimental histories for each badge, alongside a

‘family tree’ of amalgamations • Foreword by Richard Kemp, former head of COBR

“This book is an invaluable ‘tool of the trade’ for anyone trying to identify or interpret photos” - Peter Hart, Military Historian “This fascinating and impressively-researched volume will become an invaluable resource for all on a quest to find out about family members who served as well as those who have a fascination with the details of British military history” - Col. Richard Kemp CBE former military head of COBR and

commander British Forces, Afghanistan

Identifying Cap Badges is the book that has been missing from the bookshelves of family historians, military enthusiasts, and badge collectors alike.

It is quite easy to find an erudite book on military cap badges, but you could spend hours, if not days, plodding through hundreds of pictures to find a match for the one you hold. Sometimes you may not find it at all! These learned badge collector’s books have one major flaw; they are pictured and discussed in ‘order of precedence’, that is to say, from the earliest formed regiments to the latest, with separate sections on medical, engineers, cavalry, infantry, etc. This can be most confusing to those uninitiated into the ‘dark arts’ of military badges. Thus, if you do not know the name or ‘original number’ of your regiment in this order of precedence, you can be flummoxed! This, combined with all the different crowns, laurels, animals, mythological beasts and castles, can prove more than a little daunting, even to ex soldiers themselves!

In this book you will find badges ordered by what is on the badge itself; be it a dragon, sphinx or castle, horse, lion or tiger. This is badge identification in minutes, rather than hours, with added information on dating badges and many comparison photographs alongside all the pictures of the badges. Added to these pictures are short histories of the regiments and ‘family trees’ plotting the antecedents of today’s units.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Graham Bandy has spent most of his life in the army, nursing, or both. He has been identifying military badges since he was at school, and is now a much sought after asset at both county and national family history fairs, such as WDYTYA Live and Family Tree Live and has also appeared on BBC’s WDYTYA. Graham also gives many talks and lectures on the subject of badge and photographic identification and sits on the Heritage Committee of the QARANC Association. He is married and lives in Sussex with his wife and an ever growing collection of militaria and military photographs, under which they are both slowly drowning.