High life
Tailor unmade
Taki
A supervisor — not a screw — wearing a white medical jacket, showed the newcom- ers how to work the machine, handed us some jackets, and told us the quota we were expected to fill during the three-hour morning session. After about one hour I was so hopelessly behind, I simply gave up and stared at the ceiling. The supervisor was on me like a shot. When I professed that even as a child I had a learning disability with machines, he grunted that if I could drive a car I should be more than the if they lose, they should enter it for Booker Prize.' capable of using a sewing machine. He then warned me that I would receive no pay unless my output improved. Needless to say, it didn't, especially after Warren, the large Rastafarian working almost as slowly next to me, told me that was being manipulated by Her Majesty 'S fascist regime and helping the English imperialists to suppress his people back in Jamaica. (I was laughing too hard to work.)
In a way, however, it was the first time I realised first-hand why capitalism works and socialism does not. Although having fallen behind cost me privileges and further pay cuts (from a top £2 per week), the lack of incentive made it almost impossible to concentrate. It was the most boring work I had ever experienced, and I totally gave up trying.
Then, as always, I got lucky. The super- visor hauled me out of my bench and took me inside his small office in order to give me a lecture, as he mistook me for a trouble-maker. I was polite but distant, and in no uncertain terms let him know that I didn't mind physical hardship, but there was no way I would be able to fulfil my quota. Then, as a lark, I told him that if I could get hold of Mr Harvey or Mr Halsey from Anderson & Sheppard, I am sure they would send someone over to help me out.
His reaction was not unlike, say, that of Princess Anne upon encountering a horse. He smiled widely and asked me in what capacity I worked at Anderson & Shep- pard. When I convinced him that they were in fact my tailors, his attitude became, say, not unlike that of a horse while being fed carrots by the Princess. Friendly beyond any previous justification, and almost cuddly. I was then rewarded by being assigned a broom and being named orderly of workshop number 3, the cushiest job after the gym.
The reason I tell you all this long after Pentoville is no longer even a bad dream is that Anderson & Sheppard, plus all the other wonderful Savile Row tailors, are about to be put out of business by three surveyors and — what else — a lawyer. Let me explain.
Bureaucrats who without doubt purch- ase their double-knits in chain-stores have proposed to 'alter the present demarcation between offices and light industrial premis- es'. Which means that the tailors' work- shops now classified as light industrial premises will be reclassified as offices, with the ensuing rise in rents and rates, and profits for whatever Shylock owns the leases. This means that more than 3,000 jobs will disappear, and the death knell will sound for Savile Row.
I find this not only terrible, but un- acceptable. It will mean the end of appren- tice training schemes, and Soho workshops for shoe-makers, jewellers and more. It will mean the end of a great English tradition. It will mean that the bureaucrat
and Shylock have once more triumphed over the individual, and the poor indi- vidual at that. (The rich will simply fly to Italy for their clothes.) It will also mean that if I ever land in the stammer again, I will not be able to impress the supervisor. I think the Prime Minister should declare her intentions regarding Savile Row before 11 June.
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