AN INDEPENDENT REMEMBERS


“ON OCCASION HE COULD IMPRESS ME”


Brutish power tools, bulging biceps and a step closer towards expansion – our independent hardware retailer takes a step back in time, with part 14 of his stories from the shop floor


M


y barely-noticeable efforts to build a walk-round hardware store fed a sense of achievement that


I’d last experienced when I passed my maths “O” level – actually, it was a CSE but who’s counting? At least I could tell the difference between a red wire and a black one, and that was all that mattered when it came to installing new electric cabling to feed a ceiling that, if my plans came to pass, would be festooned with enough lighting to make it seem like aliens had landed.


Powering up The boss was reluctant to risk his new-look car to the public car parks, but when I told him that I’d need to climb over it to lay the cable, he got the message and shifted it out. I drew a plan of the new shop and where the sockets should be. Come to think of it, I don’t


remember there even being an electric socket in the old shop. The cash register was mechanical (bought in 1970, decimal-ready), and the Burroughs adding machine, with a clunky pull handle, was similarly a clanking and clicking device, sounding like a huge power press from the dawn of industrialisation. The boss had himself converted it from LSD (er, that’s old money, by the way) to decimal, thanks to a donor machine for spares from Freeman, Hardy & Willis (a famous chain of shoe shops) – and it worked perfectly, so high praise and full marks to the boss for pulling that one off. So, as I began fitting neat lines of cable, my excitement seemed to expand at the same rate as my left-arm muscles – which was strange as I’m right-handed. We’re


18 DIY WEEK 30 JUNE 2017


all familiar with Sod’s Law, and I’m certain we’d miss it if it were banned, but I became like a grumpy old man every time I climbed the steps, arranged the cable, balanced a clip with sheer willpower and was about to hit the damned thing when the shop door bell sounded. The clip would succumb to gravity and I would end up abandoning my work and go to serve.


After so many interruptions it became clear that, at this rate, we wouldn’t even be open in time for the millennium – and that was 19 years away! I learned to time my responses so that the boss would be forced to break off from whatever he was doing; as far as I was concerned it wasn’t as essential as my work. Before long he was losing weight faster than a skeleton on hunger strike.


Nine-inch brute I’ve already mentioned the nine- inch Black & Decker heavy-duty circular saw that he used for cutting heavier woods and chipboard – a brute of a machine and heavy as a bag of wet mortar mix. Whenever he pulled the trigger, all the shop’s lights would dim, and the sound it made … I would hear it roaring, literally, from the other side of town, which in effect was a siren to shoplifters. Anyhow, I was looking forward to the lights not sizzling once I’d done the rewiring. The noise of that saw made people think we had a whole workshop full of woodworking machinery, from table saws to thicknessers and spindle-moulders, and some weird tackle that I doubted had been invented yet. They’d bring in old bits of timber, some with nails sticking out like piranha teeth, and ask for a machining job. And, of course, we couldn’t do it so they


accused us of being awkward. I’d tell them that all we had was an over-hand rip snorter which sounded like the sort of complaint you might take to the doctor.


Groovy idea We had concerns about new shop fittings so I looked through the latest DIY Week adverts and made some calls. It seemed that the cost of fitting out a shop would be more than furnishing a three-bedroomed house. And we weren’t the only town


centre shop to baulk at the cost of stuff to simply stand stock on. Laurence ran the local knitting wool shop, a double-fronted emporium that was stacked from floor to ceiling with balls of knitting yarn in cellophane bags, all higgledy-piggledy on shelves. This is how he’d inherited it from one careful lady owner and he wondered why his sales were zilch. Actually, she’d told the boss’s wife that she had the same problem, which is why she sold the business.


To increase sales he decided to pigeon-hole his selections but would face bankruptcy if he got in the professionals.


After the boss went round there, he got out some dowel that he’d bought in the late-1950s, with a slot running along the length. It hadn’t sold so no surprises there. Then he produced a plywood plate that he’d made years ago, to which he attached the nine-inch saw. This enabled it to be fitted upside- down on the bench. After rigging up a crude fence with a stick of wood and G-cramps he wedged the switch and sawed through the dowel to make handy half-round moulding with a slot.


So, we did have a table saw! The boss shook his head. “This is only a one-off to satisfy a customer.” He sold the moulding to Laurence, together with a right old pile of plywood to make pigeon holes for his wool. I had to give it to him: on occasion the old bugger could certainly impress me.


www.diyweek.net


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28