My legacy keeps me awake (during the day)

What does the word legacy mean to you, asks Colm O’Regan

We’re starting at the wall – the electrician and I. Normally in these situations, only one of us knows the real significance of what we are looking at. My eyes are there for moral support. I talk to skilled tradespeople in the same way that I use school-French in Paris. I can ask a question but I won’t understand the reply.

This time though it soon becomes clear what’s wrong. He’s pointing at a piece of wiring that you can’t imagine appearing on an application for an ISO9000 accreditation. In fact it’s more the kind of wiring brandished by an artificially irate, alpha-male presenter on a TV show called ‘Britain’s Shnakiest Hoors of Tradesmen.’

“Who put that in for you?” If you’re ever having work ‘on the place’ it’s the question you most dread for a number of reasons: a) it’s going to lead to more work b) it might have been put in on your instructions. So not only are you going to be poorer, you’re also an eejit.

In this case though, the dodgy wiring preceded our tenure so I can happily jump on the bandwagon slating the unnamed electrician of the past. I throw in a couple of “No Health and Safety In Them Days” comments out of the side of my mouth. But at the same time I feel guilt. This man is not around to defend himself. He can’t influence his legacy.

What does the word legacy mean to you? (In the non-inheritance sense, I mean. For some people legacy means they haven’t spoken to The Brother in 20 years, “Well I hope the money CHOKES him”.) But for others legacy is about the non-monetary things we leave after us and how posterity will judge us.

It keeps me awake – not at night but during the day certainly – wondering how will the future judge things I’ve written? Opinions I’ve formed, jokes which have dated horribly? Not this article obviously – which will be rewarded with a Pulitzer.

Because we all make decisions which at the time seemed like a good idea but in hindsight look wrong or baffling. On a previous job on the house, the builder and I struggled to think of motives for why a mysterious large block of poured concrete with reinforced steel was wedged in the middle of a ceiling but holding nothing up. Like some sort of surrealist time capsule.

We almost say “Ah they were different times” but that excuse gets used plenty in this country to explain everything from cock-fighting to the re-election of Michael Lowry – oh wait that’s not a different time – so we settle for “They must have had their reasons”.

Chances are everyone who put the fireplace next to a door or the socket up near the ceiling (or a blanket bank guarantee) had their reasons. Maybe it was Friday afternoon or bad design or bad advice. Or maybe he was just told to do it by the client who said “Look, just put it in. It’ll be grand.”

It probably goes back through history. Generations of tradesman doing renovations must have asked a householder “who put that in for you?” before going on to explain that “this is the problem with old houses”.

Whether it be a Norman builder putting in an extension to a Viking house saying “You see all that there, that’s wattle and daub, a great idea at the time but ...” or a Bronze Age worker saying “what do you expect with flint? janoramean?”

I can’t prevent the future from judging my actions now but I can at least explain. So for this bit of work around the place we are going to note somewhere why we did what we did and maybe bury the note in a reinforced concrete block within the wall.