The Empty Chair by Sue Hunter

Well, it’s a good job it is empty, as at the moment it’s hanging at an awkward angle from the garage ceiling. Much loved, almost forgotten, but ready to go into service again if required.

I’ve no idea how old it is, my family’s old high chair. It was 2nd hand when my aunty passed it to us for my little brother, 70 years ago. I think it might have been pale blue then, and I don’t know who used it after my brother. But when I next saw it a quarter of a century later, it was a dull battleship grey. We were delighted to acquire it for our first baby. We had time then, and carefully rubbed off all the lead based paint and painted it bright chicken yellow.

It became invaluable when we moved to a multi-storey flat in Edinburgh. We were only 4 floors up, but the Toddler couldn’t just toddle out into the garden, he needed a lot of indoor occupying. You could collapse the high chair and turn it into a low seat with a large desk, ideal for pencils, paper and plasticine. When it was turned up to its full height he would stand on it to look out the large window, down onto the train line to Glasgow. He could see children playing in the car park below and clamoured to go and join them. Soon we moved to a house with a garden where Toddler could toddle outside and release the high chair for Baby 2. She was the easy one, she could be relied on to enjoy her food and everything that was going on around her. But she didn’t get long in the high chair, soon being replaced by Baby 3. We bought a second cot, but it didn’t seem to occur to us to invest in a second high chair. So Baby 2 was propped up on a dining chair with cushions so that she could reach the table. They were busy, baby-filled years, and now looking back at the photos I can’t always tell which baby it is, smiling out from the chicken yellow high chair.

There are other photos too, happy snaps of the whole family sitting round the meal table, the littlest in the high chair, everyone smiling at a visiting aunty behind the camera. Well, you always do smile at visiting aunties don’t you? No hint on the photo of the family tensions that often accompanied meals “Sit up straight!” “Don’t talk with your mouth full.” No hint either that the friendly looking old high chair is getting a bit knocked about, often encrusted with spilt rice pudding, scrambled egg and gravy. No time to paint it, often no time to clean it.

Then comes a gap of 21 years when it becomes the Empty Chair again. Not seen or thought of. until it came down from the attic and was given a fresh coat of paint – still chicken yellow, for visiting grandchildren. Our first grandchild was, right from the start, a joiner-inner. At all our big family meals she liked to be up there, on a level with all the adults. Even before she was able to converse, she could laugh when everyone else laughed. The high chair became her throne. Her little brother wasn’t quite as keen on adult company, and he didn’t need feeding quite as much as he needed anchoring. He was a speedy mover, even before he could walk, and at least we knew where he was when he was in the high chair.

After Grandchild 3’s brief incumbency her mother decided the old chicken yellow chair had seen better days, and painstakingly rubbed it down to its original wooden beauty. We had never realised it could look so smart. But it is a bit impractical, whatever would happen to the rice pudding and gravy now? So for 8 years it’s been elegantly hanging in the garage.

But with the advent of Grandchild 4 we’re about to varnish it and make it baby proof so that once more it will resound to the happy sound of banging spoons and dripping custard.