A hut-blooded man is all you ever need
AS THE knotted timber door closes on National Shed Week, we ponder the relationship between art and outbuildings and yearns for the day when he can retire to his 6ft 8ft refuge at the botto....
It is no good, I cannot lie to you all. I was tempted to report that I was writing this from the calm oasis of a cosy wooden hut with nothing but the soft cooing of wood pigeons and the scent of jasmine and honeysuckle to aid the flow of creative juices.
Sadly, that is not possible just yet as my shed is crammed full of the perceived necessities of modern family life.
The five bicycles in various states of repair, the cheap hand mower and lawn trimmer, spade, fork, rakes, logs, kindling, broken plastic toys and stash of highly dubious horticultural chemicals leave no room for an "artist in residence".
For now I am camped at the kitchen table with nothing but the distant whine and crunch of the binmen's lorry wafting through the open back door and the scent of unwashed dishes.
But one day… one day I shall make my stand. The clutter will be cleared, the writing table and chair installed, the beer fridge connected to the mains and the laptop fired up in preparation for my journey to literary immortality.
I can dream, can't I? After all there is a long and honourable history of writers, artists and musicians who have created their finest works from within slightly warped shiplap walls.
The primary job of a shed is to be a haven. It is a private cave
Hollywood actress Patricia Neal, Roald Dahl's first wife, may well have raised an eyebrow when the author tramped off to his "writing hut" in the garden of their home in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, in the mid-1950s.
However, without the inspiration of that solitude the children of the world might never have been introduced to Matilda's magical stare, the pathos of the BFG or Wonka Bars.
Dahl's shed, complete with the writing chair he customised and a collection of odds and ends that he used for inspiration, now forms the centrepiece of a museum dedicated to his life and work.
In March a replica of the writing shed used by Dylan Thomas in the four years that he lived at the Boathouse in Laugharne, Carmarthenshire, began a nationwide tour of schools. It is said that Over Sir John's Hill, the first poem Thomas wrote there, was inspired by the views over four estuaries that he could take in from his eyrie.
Virginia Woolf, Arthur Miller and George Bernard Shaw were all shed lovers along with giants from the worlds of art and music including Barbara Hepworth, Henry Moore, Joseph Haydn and Benjamin Britten.
The shed in Horsham, West Sussex, where Britten composed music including Death In Venice is now a listed building. Pink Floyd's Roger Waters is believed to have made demos for Dark Side Of The Moon in his shed.
When the Shed Of The Year is announced in a special programme on Channel 4 next month you can be sure that the nation's "sheddies" will once more do themselves proud. Flights of fancy will include signal boxes, fantasy castles, bijou pubs and perhaps the odd Tardis.
Last year's winner was a mountainside retreat in Wales with an old rowing boat for a roof. Its lonely and beautiful location was cited by the judges as a plus point.
The primary job of a shed is to be a haven. It is a private cave in which to escape the pressures of our throwaway world, to take a break from the family and to avoid those poor, desperate people who phone to ask if you would like to take part in "a quick survey".
In that context perhaps the only survey worth noting is the one that says 65 per cent of us use our sheds for precisely this purpose (obviously they didn't ask just men otherwise it would have been nearer 98 per cent).
When the modern world gets too much the temptation to disappear to a remote beach hut may become overwhelming but if £100,000 for a wooden shack by the coast seems a little steep, the alternative in your backyard is always there.
Roman lawyer and writer Pliny the Younger is said to have remarked: "When I retire to this garden summer house I fancy myself a hundred miles away from my villa."
Bernard Shaw's shed was a technical marvel. It was built on a turntable so that he could enjoy the sun all day and was equipped with a telephone and a bed.
Cunningly the great man named his lair "London". Unwanted callers to his home in Hertfordshire were then told by staff, quite truthfully, that he was unavailable as he was "in London".
Following Shaw's principle when I finally get round to taking up residence in my shed I may well rename it "Everest Basecamp".
On the other hand perhaps I'll just nail a big sign on the door, reading, "Go away, I'm trying to be creative".
