At this busy time of year for most of us, the bank holiday weekend almost passed by un noticed for yours truly. Funny how a little bit of good weather for a couple of days has people realising that they need a new set of gates or a little bit of welding work doing, and then there’s all those Olympic torch replicas I’ve been making to flog on ebay. Anyway this morning on BBC breakfast I caught a bit of the jubilee pageant footage from yesterday, inevitable I suppose. For the most part it was plenty of stiff upper lips smiling for the cameras while the rain lashed down, and if Wimbledon is anything to go by the last thing you need when Cliff is around is rain. It was impossible not to hark back to our street party for the silver jubilee we had when I was just 11 years old in back 1977 and the first time I had a proper beer. Watneys pale ale provided by my mates older brother to the sound of Showaddywaddy, pretty horrible on both accounts,but what memories are made of.
However being the ironhead that I am the thing I noticed most was the magnificent London metalwork, something that is quite unique. As someone who lived in Glasgow for a couple of years it reminded me of a stark contrast between the regions when it comes to the traditional construction of fabricated metalwork. Not just north and south but all accross the uk in my experience. For our street party we had our 1950s built council commisioned hoop top railings covered in bunting, that was just what happened in post war Britain, but most big cities had metalwork that had its own individual character way before then. Now I know that in this age of austerity (thanks Dave) councils are never going to have the budget to afford railings to rival the original, but I think there is room for imagination as far as those of us who make a living making them are concerned.
We are all familair with the customer who wants a set of driveway gates who says “You know, a curved top with gold spears on and those twisted bits on the bar” and then they just leave you to do it. And of course you do it, you have done that many of them you can do them in your sleep and at the end of the day it’s another £500 – 600 in your bank account. We call them ‘Starbucks’ gates, every town and every city has them, the off the shelf yeoman design that you see everywhere. It doesn’t have to be like that though, ask your customers to look around them, talk about aesthetics, explain that traditionally finials never had gold on them. Classic designs are often quite simple, ok maybe the railheads will cost a few pence more each but all the major stockholders keep the components in stock these days, and think of the time you will save not having to paint them that awful gold.
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