Sometimes I go in to work on a Saturday morning. There’s a certain energy about a workplace when you’re the only one there. The phones look poised, as if they are always about to ring. But they don’t ring. In a way, that's as disturbing as if they were to ring. I hate phones. Ringy bastards.
The Saturday silence, the emptiness, the abandoned film set atmosphere of a deserted workplace – it's always made me feel like I’m the only person left in the world – like the bloke in Nevil Shute’s On The Beach. It also makes me feel hugely self–righteous that I’m ‘working’ when every other man in the world is watching Football Focus, or Swap Shop, or eating bacon. I’m so selfless, me.
My studio is a converted mill, in a small, former textile village, in Huddersfield. The village is called Slaithwaite but pronounced “Slawit” by its indigenous pie eaters. There is a penchant for the shortening of place names in Huddersfield. Nearby Skelmonthorpe is referred to as “Shat” (sic) by its dwellers, whilst neighboring Linthwaite has been truncated to “Linfit”.
I’ve no idea why these locals got themselves involved in the business of abbreviation. They are fiercely protective of their bit of the world and God forbid you mispronounce their beloved town’s name. So why do they muck about with it? Perhaps they do it to create a linguistic trip wire to trick and thus expose the unwary ‘comer-in-er’. Or maybe the omission of a few, key, consonants buys them valuable time, which they can spend doing other things, like drinking. Or maybe they just enjoy sounding retarded.
Anyway, back at t’Mill I have all the peace and quiet I need to write and design for my customers. I stopped referring to them as ‘clients’ a few years back because I decided it sounded pretentious – definitely too pretentious for a lad in Slawit anyway. Our studio (I share it with my partner Ruby, a fashion photographer) is what Grand Designs’ Kevin McCloud would lazily refer to as “A great space”. Tall, smooth white plaster walls and modern desks, on which perch Apple Macs with screens the size of billboards. The thick Millstone Grit walls insulate us from the cold trans-Pennine winds that whip down the valley and they help to silence the hum of the little passenger trains that shuttle back and forth, from Huddersfield to Manchester, atop a colossal soot-black Victorian viaduct that dwarfs its landscape.
Like all good northern mills, ours has a yard. The stone setts of its floor have long been entombed in a thick strata of tarmac, across which the forklift trucks perform their daily waggledance; to and from the dark warehouses that border the yard. But, not on Saturdays. The odd worker is usually knocking about – bagging a bit of time and a half – but other than them, it’s as quiet as the looms it once owned.
This Saturday morning I was outside my studio door, having a cigarette, watching a man using his boss’s jet wash to clean down his 4x4 off–road vehicle. I’m not talking about a Chelsea Tractor here, I’m talking about something that looks like it was made from left over bits from a Mad Max film. I recognized its grill because it had a badge on it that said LandRover, but, as he blasted away the mud crust, the rest of its body parts were just a mysterious combination of home made angular aluminium panels, drain pipes and dodgems.
He finished thrusting his water gun about and stood back to admire his efforts. His face and spectacles were splattered with the rehydrated slurry from last weekend’s meeting and, for a few moments, he just stood and looked, like a loving artist, at his battered, red, V8, off road thingy.
He spotted me watching him.
“There!”
The Saturday silence, the emptiness, the abandoned film set atmosphere of a deserted workplace – it's always made me feel like I’m the only person left in the world – like the bloke in Nevil Shute’s On The Beach. It also makes me feel hugely self–righteous that I’m ‘working’ when every other man in the world is watching Football Focus, or Swap Shop, or eating bacon. I’m so selfless, me.
My studio is a converted mill, in a small, former textile village, in Huddersfield. The village is called Slaithwaite but pronounced “Slawit” by its indigenous pie eaters. There is a penchant for the shortening of place names in Huddersfield. Nearby Skelmonthorpe is referred to as “Shat” (sic) by its dwellers, whilst neighboring Linthwaite has been truncated to “Linfit”.
I’ve no idea why these locals got themselves involved in the business of abbreviation. They are fiercely protective of their bit of the world and God forbid you mispronounce their beloved town’s name. So why do they muck about with it? Perhaps they do it to create a linguistic trip wire to trick and thus expose the unwary ‘comer-in-er’. Or maybe the omission of a few, key, consonants buys them valuable time, which they can spend doing other things, like drinking. Or maybe they just enjoy sounding retarded.
Anyway, back at t’Mill I have all the peace and quiet I need to write and design for my customers. I stopped referring to them as ‘clients’ a few years back because I decided it sounded pretentious – definitely too pretentious for a lad in Slawit anyway. Our studio (I share it with my partner Ruby, a fashion photographer) is what Grand Designs’ Kevin McCloud would lazily refer to as “A great space”. Tall, smooth white plaster walls and modern desks, on which perch Apple Macs with screens the size of billboards. The thick Millstone Grit walls insulate us from the cold trans-Pennine winds that whip down the valley and they help to silence the hum of the little passenger trains that shuttle back and forth, from Huddersfield to Manchester, atop a colossal soot-black Victorian viaduct that dwarfs its landscape.
Like all good northern mills, ours has a yard. The stone setts of its floor have long been entombed in a thick strata of tarmac, across which the forklift trucks perform their daily waggledance; to and from the dark warehouses that border the yard. But, not on Saturdays. The odd worker is usually knocking about – bagging a bit of time and a half – but other than them, it’s as quiet as the looms it once owned.
This Saturday morning I was outside my studio door, having a cigarette, watching a man using his boss’s jet wash to clean down his 4x4 off–road vehicle. I’m not talking about a Chelsea Tractor here, I’m talking about something that looks like it was made from left over bits from a Mad Max film. I recognized its grill because it had a badge on it that said LandRover, but, as he blasted away the mud crust, the rest of its body parts were just a mysterious combination of home made angular aluminium panels, drain pipes and dodgems.
He finished thrusting his water gun about and stood back to admire his efforts. His face and spectacles were splattered with the rehydrated slurry from last weekend’s meeting and, for a few moments, he just stood and looked, like a loving artist, at his battered, red, V8, off road thingy.
He spotted me watching him.
“There!”
He said,
“ Na tharrits clean, acan see what’s bust onnit so as a can fix it f’ tommora’s meeting.”
“Ah, I see. Presumably so you can drive it into a big rock and break it all over again?” I replied.
He fixed my stare for a moment, stuck his thumb in the air, gave me a huge, muddy grin, and said:
“Ah, I see. Presumably so you can drive it into a big rock and break it all over again?” I replied.
He fixed my stare for a moment, stuck his thumb in the air, gave me a huge, muddy grin, and said:
“Aye. It's worrits all about”.
At that point I felt as though I had a decision to make: Was that a deeply philosophical statement he’s just made – or was it just the enthusiastic response of a man who still likes playing about in mud?
I went back inside and pretended to do some more work.
At that point I felt as though I had a decision to make: Was that a deeply philosophical statement he’s just made – or was it just the enthusiastic response of a man who still likes playing about in mud?
I went back inside and pretended to do some more work.
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