What is it ?

In answer to David's question on the last post - it's a breast bib.

I had been carving spoons for quite a while until I realised that when making certain cuts I was bracing the spoon against my breast bone - and it was sore and tender. So I cut the shape from ash, drilled two holes to hang it from a piece of string round my neck and carved a depression in the middle to stop the spoon slipping off.
I have it on good authority that lady spoon makers can get away with a strongly underwired bra !

Framers in the High Wycombe chair factories also used a similar device to bear on the top of a brace when drilling leg holes - and for a similar reason. This eventually became a "badge of office".

Dad update -
Had a phone call from Velma at 6am yesterday to say that he'd been taken to Ashford Hospital in the middle of the night in a lot of pain. We drove down and spent the day with him - he's had fluid drained from his lungs and antibiotics to clear up an infection in the drain from the bile duct. He looked a lot better when we left than when we had arrived.