It seems a strange time of year to think about deck chairs, but putting away our wooden patio furniture (solid, safe, heavy, reliable) made me think back to the days of 70s of deckchairs.

Not the lovely retro folding wooden ones, but the cloth and metal framed ones with plastic arms. And then laughing as I lost track of the number of people who came a cropper in those chairs. Folding up when they shouldn’t have done and swallowing part of your arse as you fell forwards. Or worse still the chair swallowing part of your arse as you fell backwards. (that happened to my grandma with quite some force, thank goodness for a growbag with her then squashed tomatoes that broke her fall).

I’ve seen kids gets trapped in them, and also, who thought it was a good idea to put curvy edges on the bottom? It might has well have been the production team on ‘You’ve Been Framed’ for the number of people I’ve seen go over sideways in the deckchair.

And this doesn’t take into the account the serious and not amusing injuries people suffered. I hate to think of the number of people who trapped and cut their fingers in the metal spring mechanism.

Only this summer I saw mum (forever frugal) attempt to adjust herself in her aged green deckchair, and the plastic of the arm finally gave way, right in the middle of the arm. Her own hand and arm were no longer supported on that side and she fell out sideways as the chair tipped over. Not only that, it was the second time that summer, her other chair had done it a few weeks before. She finally realised why I always refused the chair and preferred to sit on the grass or the concrete patio.

The only reason I’m sorry to see the back of those chairs is the hilarity it brought me when you watched someone have an accident.