p.8 misfit 11:FOOTWEAR NEW TEMPLAT 10 08 10/11/09 09:21 Page 8
MISFIT
was not full of little men hammering nails into soles.
The gap between the public conception of how
things are made and the reality is enormous. That is
Misfit
what I find so worrying. Perhaps it is we who are on
the other planet, or living in a parallel universe. It
used to be: if you don’t do your home work you will
end up working in a factory. Today the mantra is: if
you do well at school you will be able to live in
cloud-cuckoo land, or put it another way, you will be
able to sit in an office and shuffle useless bits of
paper to and fro.
It isn’t just officialdom and country ladies. I was
approached once by a gent who wanted us to supply
him with trainers emblazoned with a national logo (I
won’t embarrass anyone by saying which nation) for
Boot camp
the world cup. His plan was brilliant and he would
undoubtedly have made his fortune except for a
small snag: the first game was due to kick off in less
than a month. All we had to do was get the trainers
made on the other side of the world, ship them over
quickly enough for him to do the marketing and
distribution, in other words, like tomorrow.
I
have just read a most disturbing, almost As I tried to think of ways of refusing his very
frightening, letter in the Daily Telegraph, from a
IT SEEMS A COMMON
refusable offer without being unkind my eyes
boot manufacturer, a Mr. Newton. kept on straying to the framed business school
This gentleman was approached shortly before
CONCEPTION IN THIS
degree hanging on his wall.
the Gulf War by the Ministry of Defence to supply To revert to the matter of army boots, something
boots for the troops. He submitted a tender and in
COUNTRY THAT A
which perennially worries the public, the MOD and
due course had his factory inspected by no less than most likely T. Atkins Esq. who has the pleasure of
a general, who arrived with an entourage so
FACTORY IS A
wearing them. It is a difficult area.
numerous that they could not all get into his office, The military never know where the next war will be,
seven people in all. A week after the war started he BUILDING WHERE or who will be the opposition. If they stock up on
got the order, made the boots and delivered them, a desert boots it will be somewhere snowy, like
week after the war finished. BUTTONS ARE Lapland, up a mountain or in a swamp. If they buy
I am sorry to say that I have had similar
experiences when dealing with government agencies.
PRESSED AND
solid waterproof boots with cleated soles with fittings
for crampons etc. the soldiers fighting in the fiery
The people there really do live on another planet.
Why could not just one person have visited the
PRODUCTS EMERGE.
desert will complain they can hardly walk, let alone
run, in them. The planners also don’t know how long
factory? The answer to that is they never trust each
other, so they go around in pairs the make sure the
AS WE ALL KNOW IT
the next war is going to last or how many people are
going to take part. The upshot is the MOD cannot
other is not up to something. What that something
could be I leave you to guess.
AIN’T AS SIMPLE AS
afford to buy boots by the million in the expectation
that they will be required to cope with a world war, so
Was there anyone among those seven people who
knew anything about making shoes, or had the
THAT, EVEN WHEN
what are they to do?
The answer is not simple. It never is, but it is not
technical ability to evaluate the materials and
MAKING SOMETHING
beyond their powers to do the groundwork, explore
methods involved? If there was, what were the other sources of supply, establish a rapport with them, so
six doing? If I were unkind I would say they were
FAIRLY SIMPLE LIKE
when the balloon goes up everyone is ready to do the
having a jolly day out away from the stuffy old office, necessary.
at our expense.
SAUSAGES.
And by the way, what is all this tendering business?
And did they imagine several thousand boots could I know it is designed to make sure the government
be made and delivered in a week? That the factory gets what it wants at the best price and ensure there
had enough of the right sort of leather in stock, the is no doubt in the seller’s mind about is needed, thus
components ordered and the grindery to hand as well enabling government to compare bids, but it is a
as having no work in hand? It seems a common process designed for buying buildings, motorways,
conception in this country that a factory is a building battleships and the like, and even then it doesn’t
where buttons are pressed and products emerge. As work, which is why you keep hearing that such and
we all know it ain’t as simple as that, even when such project, budgeted to cost two billion is going to
making something fairly simple like sausages; set us back ten.
certainly not when a complicated article like an army It certainly doesn’t apply to boots, where the
boot is involved. market is much more flexible. Why can’t they do what
As I say, Mr. Newton’s experience mirrors my own. we do, which is sniff around and see what is out there
Whenever officials came, they never came singly, and and go and buy it? If it isn’t out there go and talk to
never ever knew what they were talking about or someone and convince him to make it.
understood what they were looking at. This goes for But that wouldn’t need a general and six assistants.
the general pubic too: I once showed a party of We used to be a great manufacturing nation. There is
Women’s Institute ladies round our factory a connection between those two statements. That is
who were astonished to find that the building the frightening thing.
8
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FOOTWEAR TODAY
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NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2009
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