The Stuff of Dreams - a Fairytale!
I won the Lottery I think, or did I die and go to heaven?
Wait for it, you will find this hard to believe, I am finding it hard to believe myself still and I have known about them since last Monday - 7/9/09.
I have just been away on holiday for 2 weeks and I met a very nice lady called Maureen who told me that she had Osnath prams at home. To cut a long story short, Maureen and her husband have fostered many babies over the years and being a discerning lady she bought Osnath prams to push her foster babies in. The prams were packed away in the attic in 1966 when the last of the foster babies left them and now they had decided to get these prams down from the attic where they had lived for all of those years and they were being housed in the garden at the moment, in a gazebo while she thought about what to do with them. It turned out that Maureen's home lay almost directly on my own path home to North Wales on my way back from my holiday, so I offered to put her prams up for sale on my website if she would like to try that. Maureen thought that was a good idea and so I suggested that I call at her home on my way home from my holiday, have a look at her prams to see if I could identify them and to take pictures of them so that I could put them on this website for sale for her. So on my way home last Monday 7/9/09 I detoured off the A55 and went along to see 7 Osnaths. I'm sure I must have gasped when I walked into this large garden which was dominated by a tent almost as large as a bungalow and which contained 7 Osnaths - 6 of them with 24 inch wheels - and a Marmet pram too! There were also two pushchairs and lots of other things relating to Maureen's fostering days and there was still lots of room to walk around! I could do with a tent that big for my shows, couldn't I?
Two of the prams caught my eye immediately and I longed to own them but I knew I couldn't I hadn't a bean to my name, after being away for 2 weeks - not that I have a bean to my name most of the time anyway - but I put owning any of these lovely Osnath's out of my mind and concentrated on just taking photographs of the prams to put onto this website.
Once I was home I told two friends about the Osnaths and one of them asked me to pass an offer on to Maureen for all of the prams, which I did. Next I decided that I had to try to raise the money for the prams myself, because this was too good an opportunity to pass by and I actually decided to put my lovely Wedgwood up for sale, which I can assure you was stomach churning! I finally told my husband about the prams (I had to, I couldn't think about anything else to be honest and I still can't!) and what I was trying to do and he offered, he actually offered, to help my buy them! I nearly fell of my chair I can assure you. I have never been so shocked, my husband is helpful with the prams with fair grace, I don't know whether I would call it good grace, he helps more through resignation I would say. But he doesn't really approve about the big money involved in buying them and restoration etc. Anyway, I jumped at the chance of course and I rang Maureen and made my bid to buy the prams myself, I am happy to say that she agreed to my price and I now own another 7 Osnaths, how about that? Isn't that the stuff of dreams? Best of all, I could take my Wedgwood pram off sale to try to see if I could manage for this month without having to sell it, which with my husband's help, I am hoping to do.
Next where was I going to put 7 large Osnaths when I got them here? I have an 8 x 6 garden shed which is home to 8 chickens and I am afraid that they are going to be turfed out into more humble accommodation in the garden and their nice dry shed will be home to my Osnaths when they first come home, so that I can clean them and see what they need doing to them etc although I am hoping that I can keep them as original as possible. I will try at any rate. At least 2 of the prams have silk hoods and aprons, but I don't think that I will be able to keep those, I think they will have to be renewed, but we'll see. Many of the prams have matching pram bags too and I will refurbish those where I can or make new ones if I can't.
So, now would you like to see the first pictures of my lovely 'Attic Osnaths'?
This is the first pram that made me think, 'Oooooh, I'd love that pram', well, the first two prams really. I had no idea what they were called but I do now.
As soon as I got home and looked through my Osnath models, I saw that this is an Osnath Richmond, isn't it beautiful? A full sized body and the same chassis and folding handle as my Osnath Braemar
Osnath Chelsea
And this is the second of Maureen's prams that I coveted like crazy, can you see why I particularly wanted these two? They have the same body, only the chassis is different and I thought what a lovely pair they would make. It's not often that you see a pair of prams together like this, same body, different chassis. The hood and apron on the Chelsea is silk and is a lovely colour isn't it? I would like to keep it as it is, but I fear that it may not be possible. I do like it's softer colour more than the darker hood and apron on the Richmond and so I am going to have to try to get some fabric in this lovely soft taupe/mushroom colour.
The next pram that I saw was this Osnath Princess I think. I knew what it was, because I have one the same in cream and green, but could I think of it's name? I could not! I think it was the shock of finding these lovely prams all together in a canvas bungalow on the back lawn!
At some point I realised that the brown pram with the lovely leather corner protectors - and which was still not up on it's wheels - and this navy pram were the same model as the one above, they were Osnath Princesses too! I couldn't tell Maureen though because that name still wouldn't come out of my mouth and it didn't come into my mind at all in fact, until I was back on the A55 again heading for home!
Two Osnath Princesses, a brown one above and a navy blue below.
The merimo hood and apron on the navy Princess above has gone rather hard and in fact the hood won't go fully up and the apron won't fit at the moment. I am hoping to soften them by giving them a good warm shower and condition them with fabric conditioner to see if I can get them to fit properly, if not I will have to replace them, but would prefer not to if I can help it.
Next one of my favourite prams, I really like the shape of it, here is an Osnath London I think, although there is a possibility that it could be a Mayfair, I won't know until I get it home and really study the coachlines against a photograph that Queen B (thanks Beryl) had sent to me. I'll put the two catalogue pages onto here as soon as I can so that you can see how similar they are. Pram manufacturers never did make it easy for us. Whatever it is, it is a lovely pram. Maureen showed me how this pram at some time or another had had two hoods on it. I don't know yet whether it was a conversion from a single to a twin, but I am hoping it wasn't and then I will try to put it back to a twin if that is the case. It does seem to have the same fixings at the foot end of the pram as it has at the top, even down the the brown leather straps for stopping the baby from falling out. So I am hoping that it was a twin when it came out of the Osnath factory at Warrington.
Osnath London or possibly a Mayfair
At some point, we wheeled out of the huge canvas bungalow a gorgeous, gorgeous grey pram. Now I am not a lover of grey prams, they always seem to have something just missing somehow for me, but this one was trully stunning! It turned out that this was the pram that Maureen had bought new for her daughter's use and that by coincidence, that same 'baby's' birthday was the 7th September, the same date as the day I visited! Spooky wasn't it?
The lovely pearl grey Osnath with the silk hood and apron turned out to be an Osnath Gainsborough, did you ever see a more stately and elegant pram in your life? I am already trying to find the pale grey fabric that I need to recover the hood, apron and box pram bag
Last but not least was a little Marmet pram which I definately didn't recognise. It turned out to be a Marmet Super Medina - 'Super' because it had a Sheffield steel C chassis. I bet this will look good when it is back on it's chassis
And just think, I may not have to sell my lovely Wedgwood either! RESULT!
I hope you are as stunned as I still am when you read this story, I just find it hard to believe without pinching myself
More photographs of the Osnaths, bringing them home sorting them out and putting them to bed. Well first I had t o find somewhere safe to put them. I had been planning for a long time to turf the chickens out of the 8 x 6 shed which was divided in two and was home to 6 warrens one side and two silkie bantams on the other side. I wanted to use that shed as somewhere to paint my pram bodies and other messy bodywork things. So the chickens were found other accommodation in come of the other chicken houses that I had available for them and scrubbed out the shed and lined it totally with foil and bubble wrap insulation. I even did the floor so I am hoping that they will be nice and cosey in there until the new large shed which is underway (20 x 13 feet - I can't wait!) and ready for them.
Here are some photographs of when I was packing them up to bring them home and what a nightmare it was trying to sort them all out and find the right wheels for each chassis, which wasn't easy. I still have wheels left over and chassis left without wheels that fit them! Still I will be able to take more time eventually I hope, the day we tried to pack them away we were absolutely jiggered and I didn't want to look at an Osnath chassis again in a hurry.
Chassis all lined up for packing the following day.
What a mess! Pram bodies everywhere.
Right to left Richmond, Chelsea and the grey Gainsborough. The Richmond w ill need a respray I think but the Chelasea is looking ok. It will need the chassis done and a new hood and apron (the original one is silk and beyond repair unfortunately. I will be trying very hard to get some of that lovely very pale cafe au lait colour hooding, so if anyone has any ideas please let me know. I will be keeping the Richmond and the Chelsea together, because they have the same body and make a nice pair I think as long as I can get the paint matched perfectly.
Chelsea on the left, the elegant Gainsborough and the navy and cream Princess on the far right. You can see that all the prams are suspended by cable ties, I took off all of the leather straps, I was worried that they may give way and drop the body through into the chassis.
The lovely Osnath London - yes it is definately a London. Isn't it lovely? Now what colour am I going to finish this in?
My husband had to enlarge the shed door to get the prams in and we had to remove the handles from them all except the Richmond which has a folding handle - you can see it raised at the back left of the shed. You can clearly see the insulation on the walls ceiling and floor of the shed hopefully.
I don't know which of the Osnaths I like best. I have to say that I gasped when I saw the Richmond, the Chelsea and the Gainsborough. I think they are the most elegant of prams. I have always longed for an Osnath London but I think the other 3 outdo it for me personally. I need to think of colours for the Gainsborough and the London. I fancy a dark maroon for the London maybe, but the Gainsborough, the lovely Gainsborough, what colour am I going to do that in? HELP!
