00:00Could you tell me what a Little Mester is, please?
00:03Well, he's a gentleman who works for himself.
00:06He doesn't work for the company, but he makes work.
00:09He's an out-worker. He's got his own little workshop and so on.
00:12And in them days, they had to work from home because
00:15they'd come to poor rents for working in companies.
00:18They'd fetch all the materials, take it home.
00:21And they used to generally walk home.
00:23They didn't get on public transport like a bus or anything.
00:27And they'd walk home, do the knives,
00:30then take them back the following week to the firm they'd been making them for.
00:34And they'd get this name.
00:36It's not Mr. So-and-so.
00:39It was Mr. So-and-so.
00:41And he got the name.
00:44He's a Little Mester.
00:46So when you said that, you knew he made knives, you know.
00:51I found this little place on Rockingham Street.
00:54And I went on my own.
00:56The Germans had bombed Sheffield shortly before that.
01:01And I walked through and bombed rubble and stuff.
01:04And I saw this little place, George Emerson Company, Rockingham Street.
01:09And I went up the stairs and knocked on the door.
01:12And there's a chap, all posh, dressed up.
01:14He says,
01:15Now then, lad, what's the want?
01:17I says, I want to join Mr. Emerson.
01:19He says, what do you want to do?
01:21I says, I want to make them knives there.
01:23And I'd seen these knives as I'd gone into the room.
01:26He says, I'd like to make knives.
01:28He says, do you know anything about them?
01:30I says, I don't. I says, I want to learn.
01:32So he says, this little old fella.
01:34And he says, tell me, this lad wants to make knives.
01:37Will you have him?
01:38So he says, if he wants to make knives, I'll have him.
01:41And I started to follow him under.
01:43Started learning how to make knives.
01:46And I took to it like a duck to water.
01:49And I've been doing it all these years.
01:5276 years.
01:54And if the knife's like this,
01:56a one-bladed pocket knife,
02:00I might make a dozen or so at once.
02:03But when I'm making maybe special knives,
02:05I make one at once.
02:06It costs thousands of pounds, some of them.
02:09And they're old and in natural material,
02:12like real pearl, real staggered, real ivory.
02:17I cut old ivory dust up.
02:20Old tortoiseshell, buffalo horn.
02:23No plastics or things like that.
02:26And I make everything by hand.
02:28By hand, file and sawing and hammering and stuff.
02:31So they're purely and simply handmade.
02:33And if you're making one of about 2,000 quid,
02:36it takes you a month or so to do them, you know.
02:41I go to people who sell steel.
02:45She sells steel.
02:46I go up Spitlittle, there's a place that sells steel.
02:50I go up there, order some sheets of steel.
02:53And instead of me cutting it up myself,
02:57I would cut it in strips so that I can handle it.
03:00I couldn't get a sheet of steel on my bench.
03:03So I would cut it up in pieces for me.
03:06And then I'd start from there.
03:08Whatever shape the blade is,
03:11I've got to do everything by hand then.
03:14After the raw material, you see.
03:16So it takes time.
03:18It takes hours and hours and hours.
03:20And you've got to know what you're doing
03:22so you don't waste anything, you know.
03:24And I've had these ever since I was 14 years of age,
03:27these hammers.
03:28Couldn't buy one in a shop, you know what I mean.
03:31So you need hammers and files.
03:33You see a pile of files I've got,
03:35different sizes and shapes to do different jobs, you know.
03:38But it's all hand, everything's hand done, you see.
03:41And I have a four-year waiting list.
03:44And I'm 91, as I said, a couple of weeks down.
03:47So time's running out for me, really.
03:50It is a fascinating story, really,
03:52because it's more by accident than the design
03:55that I'm doing this.
03:57And I've been at this ever since, all these years.
04:00And I love doing it.
04:02I wouldn't have ever changed, you know,
04:04if I had me time to come over again.
04:06And I was fit and able-bodied like most people.
04:10I still don't want to do the same.
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