The gate to storyland

Some objects are full of stories. Take this small wooden gate:

Earlier this year I spotted it on a shelf in a local charity shop and couldn't resist. Not unreasonably, OneMonkey asked why on earth I wanted it and what I was going to do with it. I just do, I said, and I'm going to put it somewhere and look at it - what else?

The truth is, it was the story behind the wooden gate that appealed to me. It's the sort of thing my dad might make as trackside scenery for a model train (he builds the kind that actually run on coal, outdoors) but it's an odd scale, the base-board is about a foot long. There was nothing similar on nearby shelves, it was in good condition and the gate opens, so: what did it get made for, and why did someone get rid of it? There's the mundane explanation that it could have been a test piece for learning a particular woodwork technique, and once made it was just taking up valuable house room. That's a bit boring though, and I've thought of lots of better ones in idle moments, but I assumed it was only me who was interested in it.

Sister Number One noticed at Christmas that I'd added the hedgehog and the mouse which have lived on my bookcase for many years. Big Brother then suggested I get a suitably sized rucksack and sit it on the stile, perhaps with a walking stick propped against it. And a pair of boots, he added. Boots? Yes, then we'll wonder where the walker's gone and what's through the gate. And we all sat and looked at a second-hand model gate, and wondered.