Open Writing

I had two good reasons for wanting to find the old smithy the next day, but when I got there only one seemed to apply.
I'd been wanting to talk to Ramsden for some gnarled and rustic advice on Striker, but I discovered that the northern branch of the Sandals and Folkweave Union had moved in.

It was at the southern end of the cobbled main square, where a long row of buildings propped up with black woodwork had top storeys which jutted out like professors' foreheads. Just off the square I found elegant, looped metal lettering on a stone wall proclaiming 'Forge Ahead'. Where once they gave horses manicures there was now a window full of dainty wrought iron stuff. They'd wrought it into plant holders and letter racks and hanging baskets.

Now if there's one thing I love it's the English middle class when they decide to revert to yeomanry. They're people who are in love with yesterday: give them half a chance and they'll go and live on a mountain, breeding goats and reading by gaslight. Whenever you see sixteenth-century technology, like wrought-iron, it usually means retired teachers at play.

Sure enough, the proprietress was a poker-backed lady with a grey bun who hit her consonants as though she was still reading from Palgrave.

'I see,' she said, looking over her glasses at the small steel pin I'd given her. 'And all you want is a little metal blob welded on here?'

'Yes. About the size of a small nut.'

She turned it in her fingers.

'What is it exactly?'

'A release lever from a fishing reel. I want it raised to make sure I don't mis-hit it. Otherwise it's another one that got away.'

'Ah, you anglers!' she said, miming gaiety.

She didn't look as though she'd recognise the safety off a Browning and the rest of it was true enough. I wanted to be damned sure I thumbed the safety first time, sweaty hands or not. If anyone was going to get away it was going to be me.

She went into a room at the back and I could see her talking to a man with a grey beard.

'No problem,' he shouted through.

'Where will I find Arthur Ramsden?' I called back.

'The old blacksmith?' she said. 'Straight across the ginnel here. The poor poppet likes to sit outside but he's not been able to lately. He's such a character that people keep wanting to take his photograph.'

I knocked at the plain board door of the cottage across the way. Instantly a voice shouted, 'Bugger off. I'm not a bloody peepshow.'

I explained that I was making inquiries about Striker. There was a silence. Then the door jerked open.

He might have been a tall man once, but now he was doubled up. His face was sharp and curved as a scythe. He plucked a ragged cigarette from his mouth and flicked it past me into the street. I told him I was from a television company.

'Right load of crap that is, television,' he said. 'You best come in.'

He sank into a broken-springed chair by an old metal firegrate.
'Smithing's dead and gone,' he said. 'Have you seen what they're selling over t'road. Tin pisspots. Bloody tin pisspots! Striker,' he said. 'So you want to know about Striker?'

He told me. Striker was a Barnardo's boy - mother a north country woman, father a Greek. He'd never known either of them. He'd been brought up in a home in Leeds and had wandered up to the town when he was sixteen. Ramsden gave him a job partly because he liked him and partly because he could swing a hammer.

'You think anyone could do it, don't you? They can't. You've got to have the rhythm for it. You've got to have the power too. And a feel. There's a feel to a hammer.

'He were the last round here, was Striker. No one wants strikers any more. He was the muscle, like a steam hammer. When I took the iron out of the glow, I'd give a tap like with my hammer, maybe a two-and-a-half pounder, and then Striker would belt it with his fourteen-pounder. That's how we'd go. I'd tap to mark the place, and he'd give it a bloody big woof. It were like a tune. You could've danced to it if you'd a mind to.'

I was balanced on a stool facing him. Outside the summer's light filled the square. In here the darkness was thick with memories. There was a sheepdog, watchful and still, at his feet.
'It's a fascination,' he continued. 'Old as time. The big man with the hammer. There's songs about 'em. He used to keep his hammer here. Over there.'

He pointed a trembling finger into the corner of the range.
'He took it when he came back. Sentimental reasons, he said.'

'Why did he keep it here?'

He spat hard into the cold fire.

'Used to live here, afore he went to London. Well, lodged. With me and Madge. She passed on nearly a year ago. Soon after he went. She were that upset over it all.'

'Over what? Why did he go?'

From a tin on his knees he took out another of the skinny cigarettes and stuck it between his thin lips. He blew into the ashes. Amazingly, a few cinders at the bottom of the grate glowed. He reached in his fingers and lifted out a pink cinder. He lit his cigarette and dropped it back in.

'Why'd he go? Because he had to. You find out why he came back though. That's what really matters. And it wasn't just for his hammer.'

'Why don't you tell me if there's anything to tell?'

He lifted his faded eyes.

'Because I've got to live here. I'm too old to run now. It killed Madge, the grief of it all, and what she had to do.'

He pushed himself up out of his chair and opened the front door.

'That was where I first saw him. Crossing the square, with a cardboard suitcase in his hand. "Have you a job, sir?" he says, polite as you like. "I'm a strong lad." He were like a son to us.'
With a nod of the head, he closed the door.

When I picked up my safety, they'd done a nice job on it. Again the woman asked me what it was, and I said I thought I'd told her it was off a fishing reel. She looked coy and said her husband Oliver thought it might be off a gun.

'It's not like him to make a mistake over that sort of thing,' she said. 'He's a territorial, you know.'

He'd know his guns all right. He also made a mean letter-rack. Tough numbers, these terriers.