Former Pink Floyd guitar technician restores old rocker
A former bass guitarist who has played with 70s legends Pink Floyd has turned her hand at renovating another type of rocker – a 1950s rocking horse.
Ludlow musician Paula Riordan, who has also took to the stage with Deep Purple, King Crimson and Roxy Music in the sixties and seventies, restored and painted the fairground-style rocking horse and is now selling it at a Bridgnorth antiques centre.
Hand-made and dating from the 1950s, the beautifully decorated horse has proved popular with potential buyers at the Old Mill Antiques Centre in Low Town.
“This is the most unusual rocking horse we have ever seen and it is certainly attracting a good deal of attention,” said Old Mill owner John Ridgway.
“It is decorated in stunning colours like a carousel horse and has been beautifully restored by Paula.”
Paula, originally from London, began her music career in the 1960s, playing with bands Mandrake Paddle Steamer and PicketyWitch.
She was also guitar technician on Pink Floyd’s ‘Wall’ tour and set up her own studio in the 1990s, achieving UK chart success with dance hit Harmonica Man with Paul Lamb.
Along the way Paula also became a lettering artist and she is using these today to restore items like the rocking horse.
She said: “This horse had been hand-made and used by four generations of one family, so he was in need of some work.
“He was painted brown and had quite a scary face which may well have put young riders off.
“I had to strip the paint down to the bare wood and start again, painting him in fairground colours and repairing his original saddle – I had previously restored a carousel horse and thought he would look good decorated a similar way.”
The rocking horse is on sale for £595 and the Old Mill Antiques Centre, in Mill Street, which is open seven days a week from 10am until 5pm.
