Made In Britain

 

A few weeks ago I was interviewed by Sarah Smith of Channel 4 News, not about poetry unfortunately but about British manufacturing and the small consumer goods company that I co-own and run in Somerset. A couple of excerpts from the interview were included in the feature which ran on Monday 14th November. See above - my bit is about 4 minutes in.

What has this got to do with poetry? Simply that my professional life interferes with my poetic output in a number of ways. It stops me writing as much as I might by chewing up a large amount of my time for instance (although this is increasingly an excuse I use to justify my inactive months) and it frequently intrudes in the subject matter of my poetry. For instance I talk in the interview about why I am a supporter of British Manufacturing (and elaborate here). This point of view comes up again in this poem written back in 2010:

THE PATRIOT

He loved his country. He loved the flag.
He had Union Jack cushions, Union Jack tea towels.
He had a Union Jack rug.

At Christmas he bought his wife
Union Jack knickers, a Union Jack T-Shirt,
and a Union Jack mug. He had no idea

it was all made in China.

It intrudes in other poems as well. I bought the business in 2003 with my business partner Martyn Shiner. The PLC that owned it had been forced into receivership by its bank. The most likely outcome was that the bit that we worked for would be closed with the cost of 45 jobs including my own. Neither of use were directors so we had no influence on how things would pan out. So we stepped up and cut a deal. We emptied our savings, borrowed some more money personally to top it up, persuaded HSBC to back us, bought it out of receivership, renamed it and started again. We still employ 45 people 8 years later. 

A couple of events from the time around the failure of the PLC have crept into poems in recent years. "The Receiver" published in Popshot 3 for instance deals with the terror of the seeing the man in question (for he was indeed a man) walking up the drive "carrying fate in his black leather case" and is based entirely on my recollections of the day that the receiver arrived.

"The Union Rally" similarly recalls a mass meeting of the 300 odd workers of the PLC locally in a huge industrial hall in the factory next door. The representatives of three separate unions stood on a small raised platform and spoke over a p.a. One stood up and tested the p.a. with some inappropriate jokes before spelling out that the PLC was on the slide and might not make it. They has seen the numbers, he said, it was bad. 

The workers were unimpressed and the general feeling was that the unions were colluding with the PLC to sell them all down the river. Voices were raised. A fist or two. Things were said that I won't repeat here.

In the poem I contrast this with a conversation I had with the CEO of the PLC when I tracked him down after doorstepping his mobile phone for a week to try and find out what was going on during the final few weeks before the PLC finally went under. He was cryptic. "Sometimes it is better to go down and get back up" he said. 

A one time mentor of mine liked to quote "tell women what they want to hear and your business colleagues what they need to know". The first part I don't endorse. The second I have seen happen all too often. The numbers in question above may well have illustrated the inevitable demise of the company but they undoubtedly painted a picture that suited some vested interests, and these were quite different to what was in the best interests of the many many workers who lost their jobs as a result of that whole sorry saga.

THE UNION RALLY

In a crumbling factory where three hundred
make a wage, a Union Official tests the PA
as he lumbers to the stage.

"Now I'm not saying my mother in law is fat...
Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
Can you hear me at the back?"

The message he conveys is not one his members
want to hear. "No one wants to see jobs being
cut, not at this time of year."

"We don't trust you!" Voices cry. Fists punch the air.
"You're a bloody liar!", "You're on their side!",
"You just don't bleedin' care!".

"Now, now lads! I've seen the numbers and the
picture is bleak. They haven't even got the cash
to last another week!"

He is telling the truth. At least one truth. Well.
More or less. It's "official" that the finances are
"a right bloody mess".

But a week can last a long time. It might just be
worth a bet. With snow upon a cold North wind we'll
sing White Christmas yet.

As a man here once said to me, although not
a man I trust. Sometimes you have to go right down,
before you can get back up.

It is of course only my recollection of a series of events and not necessarily more truthful or factual that any other account.  This is a frequent theme for me: the contrast between different perceptions of a situation, an event, a recollection. There is no such thing as truth. No such thing as facts. Everything stands in the shadow and distortion of our memories.