Introduction to Furniture
1. Great Midlands Fun Run of furniture
The Great Midlands Fun Run is an annual charity fundraising event held in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, West Midlands, England. The event began in 2003, as the successor to the Royal Sutton Fun Run with a total of 2,800 entrants raising just over 40,000.
This was doubled in 2004 to 82,700 and a further 81,800 was added in 2005 before rising 108,300 in the 2006 event. In 2015, 203 charities and voluntary organisations nominated by the participants received a record-breaking 347,000 from the event. Over 2,540,000 has been distributed to charities and voluntary organisations since 2003.
It is sponsored by numerous local companies including Erdington based Cookes Furniture, Central Independent Newspapers Ltd who publish the Sutton Coldfield Observer, Tamworth Herald, Lichfield Mercury, and Walsall Advertiser, Chambers Group (Ford automotive dealership in Sutton Coldfield and a Mazda/Hyundai dealership in Tamworth) and Sutton based Square Circle - web and social media partner. The specially minted medal, presented to all who complete the course, is sponsored by Cookes Furniture. In 2020, Webasto Roof Systems will be a main sponsor of the event for the second year running.
Webasto's Minworth based manufacturing plant has over 400 employees. The Minworth plant supplies sunroof systems to Jaguar Land Rover and their products can be seen in the Range Rover and Range Rover Sport as well as the Discovery, Discovery Sport and Evoque models. The route is 8 miles long and completely tarmacked.
It begins in Sutton Coldfield town centre before entering Sutton Park at Boldmere Gate and running for 4 miles before leaving the park at Four Oaks Gate. Participants then return to Sutton Coldfield town centre to finish on The Parade. The 2020 event will take place on 31st May and starta at 11:00am.
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2. Robert Anstruther (soldier) of furniture
Robert Anstruther (floruit 1550-1580) was a Scottish soldier in the service of Mary of Guise and Mary, Queen of Scots. Robert Anstruther was probably a son of John Anstruther of Anstruther in Fife and his second wife, Elizabeth Spens.
James Anstruther of that Ilk was his nephew. He wrote a letter to Mary of Guise regarding the service of two soldiers and a recommeded promotion. The letter is not dated, but probably was written dring her Regency between 1554 and 1560.
On 14 August 1561 Captain Robert Anstruther arrived in Edinburgh. He brought news from the French court that Mary, Queen of Scots was returning to Scotland after 13 years in France. He had travelled from Mary's household at Mru north of the Chteau de Saint-Germain-en-Laye where the French court was staying.
Anstruther had Mary's commission to be captain of the island fortress of Inchkeith and Dunbar Castle. Anstruther went to Inchkeith on 12 September 1561 to repair the fortress on the island, which had been constructed for Mary of Guise in 1555. He brought the Master of Work William MacDowall and craftsmen and gunners including David Rowan, the metal-workers Adam Hamilton and John Biccarton, and the glazier Steven Loch who provided a window for Anstruther's chamber.
Workmen were equipped with spades, picks and mattocks, and chisels to unspike the cannon left on the island. His lieutenant was John Beaton of Balfour. Two senior soldiers were on double pay, and three boatmen were retained to serve the island, Captain Lumsden, and Thomas and Alexander Northgate.
There was a prisoner on Inchkeith, George Laidlaw. In April 1562, Anstruther was made captain of Dumbarton Castle. He travelled to Dumbarton from St Andrews and was installed by the Marchmont Herald, Adam McCulloch.
Inchkeith usually had a garrison of forty soldiers. It was provisioned and reinforced with extra artillery in 1565 and 1566. Surplus provisions were returned to Tantallon and to Leith but failed to find buyers.
One of the Leith sea captains who made trips to Leith for Robert Anstruther was John Downie. In 1580 Downie brought plague to Edinburgh from Denmark in his ship the William and his crew was quarantined on the islands of Inchcolm and Inchkeith. His son John Downie, who was also a skipper in Leith, presented James VI of Scotland with a porcupine.
Anstruther continued at Inchkeith under Regent Moray and received wages for soldiers there in June 1568 including Bartraham Companye, William Lowriestoun, Julian Rowan, David Scraling, George Lafont, John Carruthers, and Archie Blackwood.
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3. Eliashib (High Priest) of furniture
Eliashib (Hebrew: Ely, "El restores") the High Priest is mentioned in Nehemiah 12:10,22 and 3:1, 20-21,13:28 and possibly the Book of Ezra of the Hebrew Bible as (grand)father (Nehemiah 12:22) of the high priest Johanan (Ezra 10:6).
Some also place him in different parts of Nehemiah including 12:23 and 13:4,7, but this is disputed. Nehemiah 3:20-21 places his home between the area of two working groups constructing the walls of Jerusalem on the south side of the city. He helped with the refortification of this wall (Neh 3:1).
The size of his house indicated his wealth and high socio-economic status (Neh 3:23-21). This places him as someone who lived during the time of Nehemiah. In the year 445 BCE, Eliashib was the high priest when Nehemiah returned to Jerusalem in the 20th year of Artaxerxes I (Nehemiah 1:1, 2:1).
Josephus puts Eliashib as a contemporary of Ezra during the reign of Xerxes, in Ant. 11.5,6-8.
He also dates his reign as high priest through the reign of Cyrus the Younger, who Josephus mentions is "also called by the Greeks, Artaxerxes". Josephus outlines this story in Antiq. 11:185- Antiq 11:297.
The last quotation of this story states, "When Eliasib the high priest was dead, his son Judas succeeded in the high priesthood."(Antiq 11:297) Eliashib's grandson was married to the daughter of Sanballat the Horonite (Neh 13:28) and, while Nehemiah was absent in Babylon, Eliashib had leased the storerooms of the Second Temple to Sanballat's associate Tobiah the Ammonite. When Nehemiah returned he threw Tobiah's furniture out of the temple and drove out Eliashib's grandson (Neh 13:4-9).
According to David Kimhi, this is the political background to the allegorical vision of Satan, the Angel of the Lord and Eliashib's (possibly deceased) grandfather Joshua the High Priest in Zechariah 3.
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4. Alma of furniture
Alma is an example of site-specific promenade theatre (or more precisely a "polydrama") created by Israeli writer Joshua Sobol based on the life of Alma Mahler-Werfel.
It opened in 1996, under the direction of Austrian Paulus Manker, at a former Jugendstil sanatorium building designed by architect Josef Hoffmann located in Purkersdorf near Vienna; and subsequently toured to locations in Venice, Lisbon, Los Angeles, Petronell, Berlin, Semmering, Jerusalem, and Prague. Protagonist Alma Mahler-Werfel was intimately connected to an astonishing list of the famous creative spirits of the 20th century. Not only was she married sequentially to composer Gustav Mahler, architect Walter Gropius, and poet Franz Werfel (The Song of Bernadette), but she had also fervent and sometimes notorious love affairs with the painters Oskar Kokoschka, Gustav Klimt, and several others.
The performance is not presented as a conventional theatre piece, but instead takes place throughout an entire building in simultaneous scenes highlighting the events and defining relationships of Alma's tumultuous life, with each playing area fully equipped with appropriate furniture and props. Members of the audience can therefore choose to follow certain events, outcomes, and even individual characters from scene to scene, thus experiencing a uniquely personal version of Alma's life story. When Gustav Mahler dies halfway through the piece, his funeral can be followed interactively with his music; and at the interval, the entire audience comes together at a buffet dinner featuring Austrian cuisine during which they can compare notes about what they have each experienced, and develop a fuller perspective of the biographical events.
The production was also adapted as a three-part film.
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5. Sources of furniture
"Brnshj Kirke - Danmarks kirker".
danmarkskirker.natmus.dk.
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