Chris was a keen archer when I first met him. He had shot for his University and was a member of the local archery club. Although his interest waned in recent years he still had all of his archery equipment, which in its day was good-quality stuff.
His Will was really very simple, leaving almost everything to me, apart from a few specific bequests. One read “I give all my archery equipment to Malvern Archers of Manor Park Club Malvern and I declare that the receipt of the treasurer or other proper officer for the time being of Malvern Archers shall be a sufficient discharge to my executors”. Well, despite the legalese, that was quite clear and now that I’ve got probate I thought I’d better do something about it.
It was easy enough to find Malvern Archers online and to contact the Secretary, who was very happy to accept the bequest on behalf of the club. So then I simply had to find the kit. I last remembered seeing it in the garage a few years ago, but it wasn’t there when I went looking on Saturday. Then I thought that maybe I was remembering seeing it in the old garage, which we knocked down when we had the extension built. We moved a lot of the garage junk stuff into the summerhouse during the building work – perhaps it was still there.
I couldn’t actually get into the summerhouse – the lock seems to have jammed and needs at minimum some WD40 and possibly a locksmith to open it again. But I peered through the windows, and saw no archery equipment. Neither was it under the stairs in the house, nor in any of the cupboards. So that left only one place – the loft. I was quite proud that I’d avoided setting foot in the loft for the past 12 years – it was very much Christopher’s job to brave the mice / Edwardian water tanks / Victorian sawdust insulation / itchy modern glass fibre insulation. But I steeled myself to go exploring, and I did indeed find it up there. I still have no recollection of him putting it there, but I certainly didn’t so he must have done so. Perhaps he didn’t want to leave a potentially lethal weapon visible in the summerhouse while we had the garage re-done?
The Secretary from Malvern Archers came around this afternoon to collect the stuff I’d found. I got him to sign a receipt, as per the terms of the Will, saying “I acknowledge receipt of one green case containing sundry archery equipment and one blue rig/jig for making bowstrings, the property of the late Christopher Booth” which was the best I could come up with (as a non-specialist) to describe what I was handing over. He was very grateful for the bequest, saying that it will help their beginners to borrow the equipment while they decided whether or not they were committed enough to invest in their own kit.
So that’s the first bequest from the Will dealt with. I really feel I’m getting somewhere now with sorting out the estate.
