Recovered and Recovering

A Year's Worth of Work for Paul Sellers since my ribs were broken by an assailant in Abingdon. This is how I recovered and why. I'm sorry it's such a long post, but it is a year in the saddle for me.

My Longest Single Blog Post Yet

I often ask myself the question and come to the answer: 'They don't because they simply can't!' And this week things became all the more evident. This week, in conversation with a close work friend, something came up about crosscutting lengths of wood with a handsaw in a place where other woodworkers, not me, were working. I think that they were machinists, and came at things from a different angle with a different perspective. That's a common and most usual thing. My friend was sawing away as per normal when someone popped their head around the door and said, "Here, let me do that for you. I've got a chop saw out here." The answer went back to the offer. "No. It's fine. I don't need any help, thank you." The intrusion went on, but my friend remained firm. The training of a near decade held firm, and the 'misunderstood' others just 'DIDN'T QUITE GET IT!' How can it be that anyone can prefer the high-demand woodworking of hand sawing, hand planing wood and such with hand tools when, 'There are great machines out there to do it all for you?' And there's the workman willing to take over the event altogether to deliver pristine crosscut ends? Surely, it's what's now called a "No-brainer." And then there is the, "Let me pass that through the planer for you." and on it goes. The truth is, they cannot think like we do. They can never understand what we understand and truly think that they have the ultimate solution to what they perceive to be our real problem of physical work, when in reality we don't have any kind of problem. Imagine going to the gym and saying to someone on the elliptical/cross trainer, 'Hang on, let's take some of the pressure down here! Let me do that for you. Or, better still, I've got some hydraulics here that will take the strain and then some counter-pulleys as well. Have those weights lifted in a jiffy, no probs!' Well, we say politely, WE WANT THE WORK! along with all the physical workouts it takes to achieve!

And Then My Life Suddenly Changes

Today, it's exactly a year since my three ribs were broken. With the broken ribs still unhealed and broken, I decided I needed to get back in the saddle straight away. Though I could barely move and could only take very shallow breaths, I went into the workshop and began making. For my first work after my attack, I made five of my newly designed clocks in quick succession, and then another clock of my old design (below); we did that for a new video to update the processes. Every breath and stretch, those additional moves that jar as from a saw stroke or plane pass, was painful, but, cautiously, I held my body as best I could because the exercise was going to be good for my healing.

I've stopped staining any wood these days, preferring the natural colours of whatever wood I am using. I do like pastel shades of colours on some work. Colours you can see through––more like dyes than stains.

None of us know how life can be changed for us in an instant. I suppose that that is stating the obvious, but even so, a thirty-step, thirty-second act by another can change your life––in my case, my life was changed dramatically. The gurney ran smoothly and quickly down the A&E corridors and through the plastic swing doors. The six-staff team, three to each side, lifted me bodily onto the sliding carrier that then slid me into the scanner, and I, still in great pain, tried to avert the pain by not taking the essential breathes I knew I had to if and when I could.

Starting work again after the attack took some effort, both psychologically and physically. I made a dozen or so of my new design picture frames as my first projects after the attack. It was all lightweight work. I did 98% of the work using hand tools even though I was still in substantial pain, but I paced the pain, took it considerately because I listened very much to my doctor's advice, which was, "Don't stop what you have been doing to keep yourself as fit as you are for a 74-year-old!"

There can be no doubt that this attacker slowed me down to a pretty good stop. The ribs he callously broke in little more than a hissy-fit of anger, and for no good or justifiable reason, did it for me. But I knew when I took those first breaths, seconds after the attack, that my future would be painful but that I would get through it. That might seem dramatic to some, but things can seem very different when you are in your mid-70s.

The picture frames were rough-ripped on the bandsaw and hand planed to within small fractions of a millimetre to consistent widths and thicknesses, which for others would normally be processed by a planing machine. I considered my doctor's encouragement to persevere but listen to my body. There was still hand sawing and hand planing throughout the frame making; I really think that without this exercise my recovery would have been much slower. The pains I worked through would not be the pains of the long-distance runner or the gym workout. No, no. The pain was unimaginable. To lay on my back or side was impossible for almost three months. But the sawing and planing, as long as nothing jarred me too much, was part of my personal physio. When friends and others beyond said take it easy, I recalled the voice of the doctor there in A&E. The pain gave me measure by which to make adjustments in my mental and physical exercise, my work was to be my serious workout. I had to put in the hours. Had to!

It's important to remember that this was for me personally and not for others with injuries. I have learned about my body through the decades. Nutrition and exercise through physical working in my craft have been imperatives for other recoveries throughout various stages of my life. Learning this has helped me to understand the inner workings of my body and then my mind too. Serious injuries and threats to my health have held me in good stead. Recovering and surviving, together with cycling three or more times a day, taking disciplined exercise in different ways, are important elements in maximising your recovery prospects. It's not a question of saying I don't like this or that exercise, food, challenge. I don't care too much about what I don't like, better to put up with some things, I think, and get on as best you can. Sometimes life can be about weening ourselves off comfort and dependency we've become used to to find what will return our health to better living. I liken some of this to my weening myself of perpetual reliance on machining wood. Had that decision not come, would I have the physical health and stamina I enjoy today? Would I be as recovered mentally and physically as I am now? Of course, we cannot prove anything, but to me, at least, it just feels right.

Beyond any doubt, these days, eating a plant-rich plate is just plain good for us as an everyday diet; it's been very good for me because I am a long-term diabetic and take food and exercise very seriously. I don't do it for the planet or as a political or activist statement, or anything like that. Good health and gut health is more undeniably up to us as individuals than the scientists, who do get it wrong and right more often than we think. Five years ago, the politicians held us captive with a single phrase: "Trust the science." I might recommend a better phrase like, 'First, Question the Science!' I followed on by commenting, 'Trust your gut.' and, with some very good personal experiences, I am glad I did. I got some push back from that. The reality is that we do need to think and evaluate personal healthiness for ourselves! Is what I am eating good for me, and what harm will I do if I eat this or that? Countless studies give great information, but then, surely, it's up to us to then evaluate what's given: we need to find the right balance in the foods we eat and the exercise we take. I have a brother with both knees replaced because of the sports he undertook throughout his life.

On diet though, we've been shown that eating fruit, veg, nuts, and seeds and much else improves our physical and mental health if balanced considerately and all the more with regular exercise: and it can, as it has for me, become an important part of any lifestyle. This, a controlled and well-managed diet, and my work, have undoubtedly given me better health and a longer exposure to the likelihood of a longer and more rewarding life.

In the last week, I have chopped fifty mortises in pine and beech and cut the same amount in tenons to match. I have planed around 70 pieces of rough-sawn wood on four sides and dead square and parallel to each other with no more than a couple of ordinary bench planes. It was an upper-body workout with stretches, pulls and pushes throughout. There are many reasons we do what we do to maintain good health, and for me, a long-term diabetic, it's a complexity and simplicity that plants are my personal resource for healthy carbs, protein, and fibre that we fuel your gut microbiome on the one hand and similarly fuel our enthusiasm for great woodworking experiencing. As it is, with food providing a massive range of vitamins, minerals, and other micronutrients, woodworking by hand becomes our source of highly stimulating nutritional brain energising. With hand tools, you can never separate the brain power needed for the minute-by-minute engagement in the doing of it with our hands. It's impossible and there is no other substitute in the same way riding the bus is an alternative to walking for exercise or sitting in a boat would be for swimming.

You'd be surprised how many woodworkers relying on non-hand tool methods dip in and out with advice for me to use this or that woodworking machine or that sharpening machine for events throughout my woodworking day. These are the ones that just don't get it, and guess what? They never could and they most likely never will. That's because they are sold on something ubiquitously called progress. The spark of the Industrial Revolution just keeps revolving. Most are from the wealthier, more privileged nations and make many assumptions that would never be real for a large percentage of my audience. But my work and those choosing hand tool methods is progressive, truly progressive. In fact, some have said, here and there, that without changing direction and taking up this 'new way' of working wood with hand tools, they would most likely no longer be with us in the initial sense that they would have first, simply lost interest, could never have set up a machine shop, could not afford one, and would never have been allowed to have machines for many reasons. Some even said it gave them hope for a future they had lost hope in and then, too, that they might well have passed away. The most incredible ones came from those who had serious health conditions that changed with hand tool woodworking. I do know that, for most, it has resulted in better physical and mental health. Such rewards are all I care about.

Three days following my assault, I taught Hannah to make my latest picture frame compositions. She had a customer looking for new frames for her linocut prints. This has developed into regular work for her.

My smaller projects carried me through the early trial of my injuries, including the psychological effects of being suddenly attacked from behind. I hadn't realised that the trauma of a complete surprise attack from behind can have such an effect, as opposed to a face-to-face version. That element changes the dynamic on many fronts and becomes exacerbated by the incapacity of not being able to take the next essential breath. The minor confrontation of no more than a few brief seconds when one person said it was wrong to do that, became a life-changing event for me.

We'd planned the clock repeat from one we'd made a decade earlier. I can't remember why, but it's a small project and I had already planed up my oak before my assault, so it was just joinery, shaping and moulding, etc, such like that to be done. Mostly quiet work, quite lightweight and ably done with some basic tools.

On the 18th of April, I am riding my bike for the first time in three weeks. It feels good to have the breeze in my face at 20 mph. I try to cycle three times a day, and not doing it affected me for a short while. The fear for me at that time was that I might at some tricky corner lose my balance and fall off with three ribs far from recovered health and strength.

I am pretty much fully planing wood every day again now. Not with any great force, though. I'm sensitised. It's been a month and though I have been planing, it's just about now that I feel less vulnerable. The neat thing is this, though––whereas I always thought that I always planed my wood considerately, now I am much more considerate than ever. Pain can do that. Pain has and does have its purpose.

Drawing was a great relief during my earlier recovery. I had some unfinished that I went back to to finish off. Remember, I couldn't lie down for almost three months and had to sleep in a recliner. Sleep came in fits and starts, but bit by bit they started to get longer and more peaceful. My walking, sitting and standing took some time to get back to anywhere near normal, but any fast action was completely out. I just loved seeing my family, though.

My granddaughter, Charlotte, was a star in taking care of me. Rosie, too, of course, seemed to know things weren't right, even though she was but a year-old puppy then.

Maintaining muscle for me, and muscle tone and memory too, meant tackling things like this, so each day I added extra ingredients into my workday. Twenty minutes of therapy keeps the brain active, as there is no way anyone can cut a dovetail without the brain being totally engaged. That's because it's you doing the whole work with body and mind––accept no substitutes.

What a relief! My first major piece (below) after my assault, and I was able to plane over four-hundred surfaces with a hand plane for each of two of these, so 800 surfaces altogether. There were times of strain and even pain, but I remembered my doctor's advice to persevere considerately even in discomfort

I really enjoyed the outcome of this design, and it has been hanging in the Sellers' Home now for nearly a year. Another project where I had some Ash I had not found a use for. It's got features you need to search out and if you do know wood, then you should ask how is it possible to have a ten-inch wide piece of solid hardwood, and it is solid wood, on the face of a rigid dovetailed frame where the dovetails are not obviated in any way.

Can a clock like this give you stock preparation with pristine sizing, half-lap, rabetted dovetails, tongues, grooves, stopped grooves, using only hand tools? It's fine woodworking at its very best and all with just ten hand tools.

The projects grew in size and using studs, etc was easier on my body as I healed. I am near the end of June now and feeling so much better than three months ago. I can pretty much breathe normally and just about sleep on my side, which is my preferred sleeping position.

Also in mid-June, I did take out a few days for a break of rest and relaxation in the Welsh mountain areas so I could swim in the icy-cool lake, walk in nature, write, sketch and simply retrieve myself. I am beginning to feel happy again, though I was only ever sad because of the pain others felt on my behalf in the midst of my dilemma.

I came back totally refreshed because of the kindnesses of people I came to know in the diversity I came across. I found myself thinking about my autobiography and getting back to that. Still, though, it's woodworking that matters the most. At the end of June my granddaughter from the US comes to stay for a month and that was a nice opportunity to get her into some woodworking. We had a fabulous month, and we hope to do it again.

It might not seem much, and these are just the remnants of practice pieces, but we learned a lot about each other both in woodworking and family things too. She took hand-mades back to the USA with her and left me with a strong impression that she is a maker in the making.

I am onto some heavier-duty working now, thankfully. I made a walnut bookcase to an earlier design of mine for a video series on how to make a simple bookcase for YouTube. Here's the link.

Another family member flies in from his life as a Rolls-Royce engineer in Berlin. He's done this twice since my rib damage, and it's a great family time because it's also his birthday week. Recovery hinges on many things, not the least of which is the love of family. I doubt very much that the man who saw fit to attack me in his fit of uncontrolled anger would have any idea of the hurt and pain he caused by nothing more than his thirty-second hissy-fit. But we did have a great family week, no matter what.

I'm moving on an idea I have had for some time, and it's radical. Even I, clearly more and more the iconoclast, question my sanity, but I really want to do something that takes me and others out of our comfort zones. My idea revolves around making a substantive project using higher-end birch plywood within frames of solid oak without relying on any machines beyond my bandsaw for ripping through wider stock for frames, etc.

Although one or two woodworkers often chip in and say they do this or that using hand tools, I often doubt that their use of the two words 'hand tools' are one and the same as mine. I think the same when they use the term 'hand made'. In some rulings I have known of, a completed project coming from some labourers passing boards into a machine can carry the words 'Hand Made' on the product labelling. The outcome in my healing ribs personifies the values I strive for in developing hand-held, hand-powered skilled work. It's been more than that throughout my life. Many times have I experienced the real power of hand work in bringing healing to my body and mind. Until you've done it, you cannot understand it. It's as simple as that.

It was a lot of work with the drawers and doors, shelving etc, but delivery came at the end of September. It's the total flat-pack endeavour I pulled together, and I am glad that was so because handling this one fully assembled would have been more than a two-man job.

As it was, I got it up the stairs and around the ninety-degree corner on my own. Assembly was a breeze too.

In mid-August, I took a trip to Évora, Portugal to meet my family for a family break. The hotel was once a convent and has been converted, so the rooms we stayed in were the 'cells' the nuns once lived their private in. They were not cells in the sense of prison cells but nicely furnished, light and airy with a wonderful feeling only old places can give.

We definitely did not slum it. The food and the swimming pool were both wonderful after a day walking around the historical city.

I am feeling strong again, pretty much near to normal, and my breathing is normalised again, though I can still feel a twinge now and then and the muscle at my scapula is still detached and clicking when I move laterally with my arm, which I do all the time. I've learned to ignore it but still do the exercises according to my physio, which is all very near to my normal working anyway.

The new project moves progressively. It's a design I first made twenty or thirty years ago, and designwise it's all still in my head. With no massive components and short, the small parts enable me to move quickly through the construction of the superstructure, and I'm feeling so very alive. Intricate, tight parts, close proximity of joints make everything high-demand, with replication of the same joints taking half the time on the equivalent opposite. Oak is one of the most forgiving and easy woods to work with. It planes well, chisels easily, whether chop-cutting or paring and split-cutting speeds everything along nicely.

I always set goals for my work. Without setting goals and having plans, we achieve very little and often even nothing. My closing time for the desk is Christmas and though concluding the main desk is on time, I have yet to make the storage bins and the mirror for on top.

On the 28th of November, I am developing a new joint for my mirror frame, but I am also working on the storage bins with the flip-up lids. These two projects are a lot of work. Small stuff but embracing numerous complexities––good training for all. So my ribs are holding up great. I have lost track of the projects now. Who's counting anyway? Oh, I didn't mention half a dozen other videos we put out that needed for me to make something there too.

December 18th 2024. I deliver. It feels better than good. It's almost the close of the year.

I still have some ideas yet to come together. Christmas is never the same without some hand mades.

I have enjoyed a good start to my new year. Mostly, it's my work that sustains me and the output of training 1.5 million people online is very much a dream come true because now I know that my craft of hand tool woodworking is far from dead. It is definitely the amateur woodworkers now who, along with an ever-decreasing number of a handful of professionals, that are learning from our work and will keep hand tool woodworking alive as a craft.

In January 2025, I began designing new thoughts in wood, and one of them was a padded stool needed for the dressing table. It was a quick and simple project with some hidden gems woven into the methodology.

The final version pleased the room well enough and, as it is with many of the designs I put together, small changes can make bigger or smaller versions that can be adapted and adopted for different scenarios in different places in the house.

Any January can be a little sluggish to start in some realms, but in addition to what I have published here, there are a few other small offerings that are like stocking stuffers are to Christmas. I have put these together as free videos on our different platforms.

A honing guide for the plough plane cutting irons is a good design I came up with and I just put it in the pipeline for making into a video. Here's a link to find out more.

I am about to conclude the chair-making video series, and that's gone well so far. Lot's to learn and different to most of our projects, but I am feeling good about the instructional value for some of the risk-takers out there. Laminating bent parts in thin layers should be a breeze for any of you who have made any of the several projects we have laminated parts for. In this chair, we are bending solids by steam heat. Much less predictable using dry instead of green wood.

Today, I'm sitting on the bus first thing riding into Oxford to go to the Magistrates' Court. Here I will see the courts in action and see what the court does with the man who assaulted me. I wish that he had not done what he did. No one deserves to have his ribs broken for a minor exchange of no more than 20-30, non-impactful words. There were no expletives and no raised voice on my part, or his, for that matter. The attack need never have taken place at all, but it did.

February 18th 2025. Looking back on all that happened, the various departments of social welfare and justice, I see that it is not the systems that work but a handful of individuals who stepped in along the way who want results and invest their time to get there. I am sitting in the courtroom of Oxford Magistrates Court wondering what will happen today. The man that assaulted me is the one in the dock, and I'm looking over in his general direction. It's isolating to see anyone inside a glass box. The magistrates sit opposite, together with the court's legal prosecutors, legal counsel, court officers and so on just below them. There's not much to say about my offender. Cleanly dressed, slim, fit, not stocky, someone you could see anywhere in the street, or you could be working alongside in an office. Why he ran at me from behind, I suppose I'll never really know. If a simple confrontation with no raised voices, no expletives and no aggressive posturing causes a reaction like this, then there are issues he's given into.

Later in the day, an hour or so, he's finally pleaded guilty to the obvious when in the beginning, after his arrest, and at the police station, he played his, "No comment." card. I am very grateful to those who immediately came forward to support me at the scene and subsequently in making themselves vulnerable by making clear and concise written statements. We anticipated a guilty plea but only because the evidence from witnesses was too strong to deny in all the departments involved; there were several witnesses who watched from their cars as he turned and ran at me with his arms outstretched to knock me down as I rode away––the evidence was because a witness knew him and there was CCTV footage too. Soon, the follow-up court appearance will determine the sentencing; that's on April 15th 2025. I hope this will resolve things long term for him and for me. I'm sure I'll never know.

March 19th 2024. My chair making has been a joy for a mixed range of reasons. I rode my bike to work, experimented with a range of options for developing the new chair design, and yesterday we filmed what's second to the last episode, maybe! I have enjoyed making this particular chair and plan to add two more over the coming weeks, but from different woods to use up shorts and scraps. When I conclude the four, they will be the kind of mismatch people used to bring down from the bedrooms when they had added guests for Christmas or birthdays. The challenges in the chair are not obvious, but one of the great things is that my strength in my upper body can capably rip down two-inch thick beech with a handsaw without pain. This is to me a remarkable thing. Is age against me? More than likely, but perseverance has paid off, I believe.

A Year Since My Assault

A year has now passed since the attack took place. This past week, I took in a chest and head cold and found myself considering significant hurt from my former broken rib area each time I coughed. Of course, coughing serves as a reminder of the pain I took on board a year ago. I am through that now and feel relatively happy because, well, I am well recovered.

Losing those months of work hurt my vision for the future of hand tool woodworking, but I was determined not to lose everything. This injury was because one man decided not to take the side step, run on the allocated path and forced four people to divert because of his erroneous perception of right and wrong. It wasn't a mistake. The black and white markings on the pavement and then too the elevated blue signage clearly declared the right path for all. But even if it had not been clear, there would be no reason for his attack. There had been no aggression on my part, no raised voices, no expletives, just my stopping to explain that the two small children had been forced off the right path whilst trying to follow their mother directly ahead of them. Oh well.