BATH TYPEWRITER
SERVICE
1/20
A CELEBRATION
OF REPAIR
BATH T YPEWRITER
SERVICE
LOC ATIONCynthia Road, Bath (no longer trading)
DATE VIS ITED5 December 2011
SIB TEAMJR & SB
THE SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL PROJECT: A CELEBRATION OF REPAIR
BATHEAST BUDLEIGH
HONITONBARNSTAPLE
SOUTH MOLTONPENZANCE
BUDLEIGH SALTERTONFALMOUTH
REDRUTHCOLYTON
BRIDGWATERBARNSTAPLE
CARHARRACKCREWKERNE
SHERBOURNEFORTUNESWELL
BROADWOODWIDGERHAYLE
WELLINGTONLOSTWITHIAL
123456789
1011121314151617181920
Bath Typewriter ServicesCane CornerHoniton Clock ClinicThe Cycle CentreMichael Fook Small Engine & Bicycle RepairMount’s Bay ElectricalHelen Warren Porcelain RepairSew-QuickStar Shoe RepairsThe Tool BoxThompson Brothers Ltd.New Life UpholstryF.W. Speller Boot & Shoe RepairerThe MendersCastle ForgeR. Paveley TailorJ.Rance Woodwind Instrument RepairsBiggleston’sThe Abrams BinderyStick of Lostwithial
The Small is Beautiful project consisted of a team of three researchers (two cultural geog-raphers and a photographer) setting out to find and visit workplaces in the South West of England where people fix broken things. Notebooks and camera were the project tools, and these tools have produced A celebration of Repair, the archive of texts and images you will find in this set of 20 booklets, the culmination of eighteen months of fieldwork.
– Caitlin DeSilvey, James Ryan & Steven Bond
For further information please visit: projects.exeter.ac.uk/celebrationofrepair
Or contact us at:Environment and Sustainability InstituteUniversity of Exeter, Cornwall CampusTreliever Road, Penryn Cornwall, TR10 9EZ.tel: 01326 254161email: [email protected]
Bath Typewriter Service sits in a narrow building
tacked on the end of a terrace of sandstone houses.
bill collett has inhabited this workspace for
more than three decades, servicing and mending
typewriters as well as fax, adding and dictation
machines of all shapes and sizes. His main work
station consists of three long desks, made by his
father from three salvaged school blackboards. He
used to work here with two colleagues, but their
desks are no longer occupied. Bill works alone at the
desk furthest from the door in a space resembling a
homemade aircraft cockpit, where every implement,
machine or tool is arranged within easy reach.
Machines once full of words and messages are
now silent. The mechanical writing and recording
machines of the past have been replaced with
digital technologies, which are designed neither for
servicing or repair. Much of Mr Collett’s workshop
is now taken up with old but perfectly operating
machines which, rather than maintaining, he is
breaking up into their constituent elements for
scrap value; repair in reverse. Shelves that once held
working machines now struggle under the weight
of assorted aluminium, steel and plastic. A lucky
few, the most beautiful or rare, find a home with
appreciative collectors. Many others sit on shelves,
their fate undecided. It would be wrong not to
honour them by at least taking their photograph.
– James Ryan
BATH T YPEWRITER
SERVICE
LOC ATIONCynthia Road, Bath (no longer trading)
DATE VIS ITED5 December 2011
SIB TE AMJR & SB
Recommended
