I often make an excuse to visit Ponds, the ironmongers just off Wareham Quay, in St John's Hill - I'll buy a bag of coal, a net of kindling or a fire iron, so that I can enter this shadowy treasure house of shovels, scythes, delicate bolts, watering cans and hinges -
The premises are long and narrow, with passages snaking between shelving filled with intriguing implements - it is always cold and dimly lit inside - one of the lads, with his blonde pony tail, points to the small stove, fit for a barracks hut in a Kolyma camp - he says - we don't really need it - we don't want to get soft - a lean dog with grey fur stands before the boy - you can smell wood smoke - logs are burning within the belly of the stove -
I bought my gum boots in Ponds - they're black, thick soled, monsters - I can tramp through Sargasso Seas of mud with impunity - I found them, right at the back, near the tiny staff kitchen - outside, in the yard, are pallets stacked high with sacks of coal - a man with a monobrow and wearing a blue plaid shirt arranges garden statuary -
Anne once asked for a particular type of light fitting - within seconds, the blonde pony tailed boy had plucked the fluorescent tube from deep amongst the hoard - after a couple of years, you get to know where things are -
Men with leathery faces and thick fingers come through the doors like gunfighters, asking for taps or sections of pipe - they leave theirs vans outside, the engine running - they hand over crumpled tenners -
I feel insubstantial, shadowy, before these chunky, oily, figures - what do I know of spirit levels or power drills?
I wonder about the shape of my life as I rummage through a box of copper screws - how many power points have I crafted, how many shiny presentations have I made? How should one be valued, or remembered?
The premises are long and narrow, with passages snaking between shelving filled with intriguing implements - it is always cold and dimly lit inside - one of the lads, with his blonde pony tail, points to the small stove, fit for a barracks hut in a Kolyma camp - he says - we don't really need it - we don't want to get soft - a lean dog with grey fur stands before the boy - you can smell wood smoke - logs are burning within the belly of the stove -
I bought my gum boots in Ponds - they're black, thick soled, monsters - I can tramp through Sargasso Seas of mud with impunity - I found them, right at the back, near the tiny staff kitchen - outside, in the yard, are pallets stacked high with sacks of coal - a man with a monobrow and wearing a blue plaid shirt arranges garden statuary -
Anne once asked for a particular type of light fitting - within seconds, the blonde pony tailed boy had plucked the fluorescent tube from deep amongst the hoard - after a couple of years, you get to know where things are -
Men with leathery faces and thick fingers come through the doors like gunfighters, asking for taps or sections of pipe - they leave theirs vans outside, the engine running - they hand over crumpled tenners -
I feel insubstantial, shadowy, before these chunky, oily, figures - what do I know of spirit levels or power drills?
I wonder about the shape of my life as I rummage through a box of copper screws - how many power points have I crafted, how many shiny presentations have I made? How should one be valued, or remembered?
As one who cared
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