The vans and horse carts that the snooker table manufacturers used, where kept in pristine condition. The horses were well looked after by the driver whose job it was to make sure these horses were fed and watered 365 days a year. One well established company had a horse called ‘Old Tom’ who, when he died a board meeting was held to decide what should happen to the horses remains as the thought of selling him for cat and dog meat was looked on as being disrespectful to the beast. It was decided that ‘Old Tom’ should be given a decent burial. This is a clear indication that the horses used to transport snooker tables were not mistreated.
These days a telephone enquiry is made to the snooker table manufacturers and a representative will pay the potential customer a visit. Showing images and wood samples of the tables they make. Snooker tables are then delivered by van and the snooker table fitter will have all the tools and snooker table recovering cloth with him.
In the early days when carrying out a snooker table recovering, the fitter would carry the cloth wrapped in brown paper and his bag of tools onto a train and travel to the nearest station to the customers address. This meant that sometimes he would have to walk three to four miles from the station.
I should count myself lucky! the men I speak off knew what it meant to do a hard days work. I quite often have a moan to myself in the comfort of my own car when I have two or three pool table recovering in different locations.