00:00It goes back to when my children started in county so I couldn't afford decent bats for
00:08them so I found a really nice bats to chairman's bat it was beautiful I had a million grains
00:14and it was wonderful and he broke the toe off so basically broke it round there so it
00:19wasn't usable and I thought oh I can scale that down for my son so I took it home scaled
00:23it down for my son and suddenly he had this beautiful bat the right size for him he's
00:28at county as proud as anything it was lovely so that got me into doing bats and then lots
00:32of dads asked me can you do my bat for my son and then people started buying bats online
00:36sending them to me and it was just a hobby I was working up in London and it was a hobby
00:41I got home we'd do it in the garage and it was great fun and then I heard Nick Wisdom
00:46who was an absolute legend around here owned Wisdom of Sports wherever we're at now and
00:50he was retiring he sold the business and he was doing the bats still three years after
00:54but he was moving away and I heard that he was leaving and I got talking with him and
00:58we got together and he really pushed me to come and start doing this and I jumped at
01:04the chance it's ten minutes from home I've got four young children and I just love recycling
01:08bats getting them back to what they are you know bats are so expensive now you can fix
01:13them from 20 to 40 quid or you can buy a new one for you know the sort of entry grade now
01:20is 200 quid and then they go up so more and more people are coming to me just wanting
01:25bats fixed the whole time you know just little nooks before they were thrown away got new ones
01:29now they're fixing them and there's rats right and there's hundreds out there in the county
01:33now that are just still going and lasting a bit longer so I love it.
01:37Anything up to 50 bats a week it's absolutely crazy yeah you come in here on a Monday and it's
01:52like accidents and emergency all the games at the weekend people have broken bats something's
01:57gone wrong with them bits come off it and they bring them in so yeah it can be up to 50 bats
02:00great and then even in the winter now with all the local schools playing through the winter a
02:06lot of people playing indoor cricket indoor nets it's sort of an all-around business.
02:22It's just everything that can be done the only ones that are really difficult to do are the ones
02:26that the cracks that go that way and they're almost impossible to do but apart from that
02:31most bats can be even if you've got a massive bit come off you can graft with on the glue now
02:36it's the same glue that we use for the handles so it's a bit flexible but brilliant doesn't go
02:42anywhere and they just don't crack again in that same place they'll break again one day but not in
02:46the place where you mend them it's amazing. Who knows I mean they can go out the next ball and
02:59break it somewhere else that's the lottery of bats to a certain extent bats aren't I always
03:05bang on they're not oiled enough they're not looked after well enough so they tend to come
03:08brittle so they don't last as long I think people almost expect bats to last a year now but you get
03:14all the old boys that come in with their bats and they've had them 10 something years 10 12 years
03:18and in perfect condition and then they just look after them they oil them they don't leave them in
03:22the Sun so it's down to you to a certain, a bat can break at any time yeah but it's down to you to
03:27look after them and then they can last for years and years and years. I think because the sports
03:43growing more and more I think more are being sent to India in containers so they can buy bulk lots
03:49and they're buying lots of them so they're getting them you know buy whole containers whereas the
03:53English guys can only sort of buy pallet loads so they're not getting as good as deal but I think
03:59mainly because it's a throwaway they just get used one season get thrown away and it's just a massive
04:04turnover of bats so that's what I love I feel like it's a recycling it's wonderful.
04:09Through Wisdom Sports the shop so you can just come in and bring them in or through Instagram I do
04:24a lot of most of my work comes through Instagram. Barney bats. Barney bats people come in I have
04:30on my bats I have a QR code so people can press on that and come through to me but no most a lot
04:37of my work comes from Instagram and whatsapp yeah.
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