Sample chapter from Fine Things
It was not the usual sort of school trip, not even a usual sort of day. But on an August morning during the last decade of the twentieth century, thirty or so spotty teenagers crammed into a rickety old bus and travelled from the urban sprawl of the West Midlands to the free and open spaces of the Derbyshire Dales.
The trip was to be the geography department’s first and only field trip of the year: one week’s rambling across the hills and dales of the Peak District for pupils to study land and river formations. I was one of the schoolchildren.
Mr Hill, our aptly titled geography master, had told us that the expedition was “scientifically important”. In fact, it was so important that we’d been instructed to bring our own toilet paper. (The school governors couldn’t have us venturing forth into the wilderness without such luxuries.) Whilst some pupils had skimped on their toiletry supplies in favour of rucksacks full of crisps and fizzy pop, I’d come prepared with four rolls of Ivory White and two rolls of Apricot Peach. If I were to survive a week living on baked bean ragout then I’d need more than willpower to endure the ‘after-dinner activities’.
I was looking forward to making an impression during the trip. Geography was one of my strongest subjects. But more importantly I wanted to show my townie schoolmates that I was completely comfortable being in the countryside. Whilst they would inevitably be wearing white trainers and T-shirts, I decided to make a statement. I arrived in my battered old walking boots (the ones crusted with muck from the farmyard), my threadbare corduroy trousers, and my wax jacket; such was my resolve to demonstrate my country character. The plan was going well until mid-day, when the heat of the summer sun turned the inside of the bus into a sauna of adolescent perspiration and teenage tantrums. Added to this were the scents of a slowly cooking wax jacket and manure-infused walking boots. You can imagine who was asked to sit at the front of the bus ‘for the good of the class’.
Sitting there next to the teachers, and alongside Travelsick Terry, was bad news for my street-cred. The trip was supposed to be my opportunity to shine, to show everyone how amazing the countryside is and how I come alive amongst the pastures. Fat chance of that happening now. By the time we pulled up at our destination – the lovely and historic market town of Bakewell – the class had already written three verses of a song that ended with me being the town’s prize pudding.
The experience, however humiliating, was not without its merits. This, after all, was an educational trip designed to teach me something. And it did. I’d been ridiculed since noon for my ‘inappropriate’ dress and for showing my true colours. As a young man charged with finding my independence and individuality, this moment was the turning point. I had two options: I could prove them wrong, lifting my head high and carrying on regardless, or I could grab my loo rolls and do a runner. I did the latter.
I fled the bus, running across the market square towards the first haven I could find: a shop entrance, tucked back from the main road and safely away from the fists of Mongo Chutney, the class Neanderthal. In the window of the shop was a faded cardboard sign. It said: “All Welcome”. The invitation was well timed.
I fumbled at the door handle and entered my refuge. Inside, the room was warm and quiet but for the tick-tock of a grandfather clock at the far end of the room. I looked around. The shop was an old-style establishment, with dusty wooden floors and heavy oak panelling supporting rack upon rack of shelving that reached from floor to ceiling.
“I take it your friends won’t be joining you?” said a voice from the far corner of the room. I looked up to see an elderly gentleman in a neatly pressed black velvet suit and red bow tie. “Good,” he said, “they don’t look like my sort anyway. You, on the other hand…”
The elderly man ushered me further into the shop while asking me why I should be wearing a wax jacket on such a swelteringly hot day.
“I wanted to get straight ‘out there’ into nature,” I replied, “across the fields and up the hills.”
“Really?” said the old man, “You looked like you were doing a runner.”
“Well, possibly.”
“And yet you look so smart, at one with yourself on this fine day.”
“Thank you.”
“Of course,” he said, leaning forward, “there is something missing, something very important.” He then tapped his head with the index finger of his left hand. “No dress is complete without a suitable titfer.”
“A what?” I asked.
“A Titfer Tat, a hat,” he replied. “And what better place to find one; we’re the best milliners in Derbyshire.”
The man then held aloft his arms and rotated his wrists like a conductor readying an orchestra. My eyes lit up as I marvelled at the shelves, which were overflowing with hundreds of hats in every conceivable shape and size. From neatly brushed top hats and bowlers, to country caps and deerstalkers, this shop had them all.
“Don’t be overwhelmed,” said the milliner, “there’s a hat in here for you, one that wants to sit upon your head and no one else’s.”
I looked at the beautiful tweed, felt and moleskin fabrics. There were hats here for every occasion.
“Your hat will call to you,” said the man. “Just follow your heart and you will find it. But remember, your head mustn’t rule your decision. It’s a hat’s responsibility to look after your bonce, not the other way round.”
The milliner stood back and let me search up and down the racks. I ran my fingers over the headwear, sensing their coarse and the smooth textures, feeling the light and the heavy fabrics. A tweed trilby first took my fancy; it was grey and fawn with a mallard’s feather in its band. But it wasn’t right for me. A brown bowler looked smart, but sat awkwardly on my head; the panamas were right for the time of year but a little too ‘middle wicket’ for my liking, and the farmer-style flat caps were too predictable; I had enough of them already. I was making my way towards a rather splendid-looking deerstalker when I spied, on the bottom shelf, a pile of mixed caps. Their jumble suggested that they were destined either for the dustbin or a local scarecrow. I rummaged through the stack, dismissing the obvious in search of the unique. There! There at the base of the pile, beneath an olive York cap was something different. Something unique. Something I just had to try on.
I prised the hat from the pile and carried it to a mirror on the far wall. I placed it onto my head. The fit was perfect: comfortable and comforting. It felt right, as if I should hold it to my cheek rather than place it over my brow. But there was a problem. If love is blind, then teenage love is like sketching with charcoal at night.
This was the largest, podgiest, floppiest cap I’d ever seen. Eight segments of tan and orange-coloured tweed, bunched together beneath a small button at the crown, yet saggy enough so that it flopped over my ears and bulged like a puffed cushion atop my head. It looked like an oversized Yorkshire pudding.
Fate had brought me here. I’d followed my heart to this hat. But was destiny meant to look like this?
“Voila!” said the milliner in a loud cheery voice. “The hat maketh the man!”
“But it’s so…big!” I stated, as I lifted up the bulging fabric so that I could see.
“Indeed it is,” he replied, “but have you ever seen anything so splendid?”
“Or so…ginger!” I exclaimed.
The milliner was right, of course. I was sixteen years old and only 4ft 10in tall. The hat added much needed stature to my punitive frame, making my head appear twice its normal size and adding five inches to my height. It would certainly get me noticed and prove that I was unaffected by the ridicule of others. Keen to demonstrate my newfound confidence, I decided to purchase this ridiculously magnificent hat.
“How much, dear sir, for this excellent hat?” I enquired.
“For craftsmanship of this nature,” he replied, “fifty pounds is the price.”
My heart sank. I had only thirty pounds – my entire spending money for the week. I took it from my pocket and counted it in hope that it had magically grown on the bus. I glanced towards the shop window and to the street beyond. There were my schoolmates clambering back into the bus, and my teacher looking anxious.
Sensing my disappointment, the milliner approached me, straightened the hat on my head, and smiled. “Of course,” he said, “I could accept thirty.”
I gasped with excitement and thanked the milliner. I handed over my money and walked, with the hat on my head, out of the shop. The hat bounced, wobbled and nodded with approval. It had, at last, found a loving owner.
The lads on the bus were less appreciative.
“Hey everyone, there’s the pudding, and he’s wearing an August Dumpling!”
It mattered not. I held my head high, climbed aboard the bus, sat down, and ignored their taunts. I didn’t care what they’d said. This was my hat, and one like no other. Plus, contrary to their intentions, I liked the name that these bullies had given it. The August Dumpling was born. It would become my all-time favourite hat, and the origin of my love of Fine Things.