Find a friend... - October Textiles

Have you endured that negativity? I hope so because it’s not meant to be…it’s just me morally absolving myself before we begin in earnest, making sure you really want to take the magical journey, before we pack the Elvish bread, the Mithril coat and the packet of Benson’s, before we crack on.

So you’re with me, and we’re doing this thing, and I guess your next thought is….HELP! Where do I go, what do I say, who do I call, Ghostbusters?

There’s Google, there are T-shirt forums, or you can ask Jeeves if he’s not making a restorative cocktail, but what is required I feel to get stuff properly happening, are some proper people, and these are now thinner on the ground.

Forgive me again if I look backwards in a way that may be totally useless to you, but humour me a moment while we remember Harry Harris from Berwick Street.

When I had a dream and stumbled into this game, he found my number from somewhere, and would call me every week without fail…and it went something like this…

Paul, is that you boy…?
‘Hello Harry, are you well?’
‘I am son, fit as a Butcher’s, but not as well as you’re going to be when you hear about what I’ve got for you…’
‘Really Harry, what’s that?’
(Silence, as Harry looks furtively about, making sure no one can hear, and while he builds the required level of tension to deliver his news),
‘Harry, are you still there?’
‘I’m not even going to tell anyone else about this one Paul, not a peep not a whiff not a whisper’
‘Tell them what Harry?’
‘You’re the face for this one Paul, you’re the man, the head honcho, il Capitano, numero bloody uno…my son, you know what’s gone and happened don’t you’
‘No Harry, I’m not sure I do’
‘My boy, your ship has only finally gone and come in!’
‘If it ever does Harry, I’ll be at the airport.’
‘Not this time amigo, you’re at the port in a brand new titfer, waiting to jump on board’
‘Harry! What have you got?’
‘What have I got, what have I bloody got? I’ll tell you what I’ve got son (more silence as he makes sure the coast is clear)….I’ve only got 10, 000 metres, of it’
‘Of what?’
‘Crepe de bloody chine my son, crepe de bloody chine!’
‘So you’ve got some fabric for me?’
‘Fabric he says, fabric! It’s the cloak of the gods this stuff son, fit for a queen!’
‘What colour is it Harry?’
‘It’s that really fashionable one, that sells really well’
‘Which is?’
‘Well, it’s a sort of Chinese floral, covered in lucky monkeys…my Mrs has had some put up in our gaff, only two days before she had a very nice tickle at Sandown races, and I’ll tell you what else…’
‘Harry, STOP! What do I want with floral fabric, I’m a printer, I need plain fabrics!’
‘Exactly my son, and that’s why I’ve called you and no one else…(silence while Harry wonders how he’s going to get out of this one)…you’re a printer, so you can print in plain, and then put your own pattern on! How much do you want?’

I never bought a single thing from Harry, not a thread. But he called me every week all the same for twenty years, and gave me a million pounds worth of business advice…and obviously tried to sell me 5000 pairs of crushed velvet hot pants ‘like the ones Pan’s People used to wear,’ a consignment of fire damaged woks, and 20, 000 bread boards that I’d have no problem shifting, because they’d been ‘made by that bloke who was the surfer in the Old Spice advert’

One day, it was a Tuesday, and he called me no more…and I was sad. I tell myself he had made his dough, and retired to a nice little bungalow by the sea with ‘My Vera’…I miss him. I miss them all, Blue Peter, Sunglasses Henry, and Textile Tony, who showed me the Manchester Fold, which makes you look like you’ve got more fabric than you really have. Which reminds me of the time Tony went to pick up a greyhound for Suglasses Henry, and lost it at South Mimms Service Station, went off like a whippet, as it would, but hold on, I’m going off too…the point is, we need some good people.

You’ve found out who you are, you know who you want to sell to, you know how you’re going to reach them…but before you get all product obsessed and and start trying to re invent a sweatshirt (whatever you’re thinking, it’s been done)…turn off the computer, get on the blower, talk to some real people…and then follow your heart…don’t ask yourself ‘Is their client list impressive’…ask yourself, ‘Would I have a beer with him, and if it kicked off, would he have my back’…make a friend, share a story…find a Harry.