It started long ago with fishing rods and bicycles. They were a real challenge for a boy brought up more on a diet of chemistry sets and slide-rules than spanners and saws. Most recently it has been wellie boots and sunglasses. Less technically demanding – but given the cost of a good hard-wearing pair of wellies, these items have their attractions for a confirmed ‘fixer’.
There is, I maintain, a fairly clear divide between people who are ‘fixers’ and people who are ‘chuckers’. It doesn’t seem to come down just to a matter of technical ability – a handiness with tools and materials. Though that is no doubt a part of it – how many of us like doing things we aren’t very good at? No, fixing a wellie boot is more about cheating death itself, about Nietzsche’s famous ‘Will to Power’ and John Fowles’ ‘flight from the nemo’*.
You might need me to fill in some of the steps there: the ones that lead from dry wellies to the heart of life itself. (If not, then please skip to the end for wellie-fixing tips.) The steps go roughly like this, with suitable modifications depending on your personal life-history. First, we are told that we need a lot of stuff. Most of the stuff is made in places and by processes about which we have no idea. ‘They’ make the stuff. The stuff will ideally (according to ‘them’) break or cease to function adequately after a short period of use. (Note: for ‘premium’ or branded goods it won’t necessarily cease to function quite so quickly, but it will have some other form of dysfunctionality such as visible ‘wear’ or unfashionable colour/model etc). A lot of the stuff is inextricably linked to other stuff which won’t work without it and for none of the stuff are any spare parts available. So, I need ‘them’ to fix my stuff. They won’t. (They probably can’t fix it – i-junk wasn’t ever meant to be fixed.) I, the free citizen of a liberal democracy, am now enslaved to ‘them’. I am in the grip of my nemo – the nothingness, the counterpoint to ego, the powerlessness, the not-really-existing. I am terrorised not by bombs or coshes, but by the threat of voiding my warranty – patently useless contract that it was in the first place.
No, you bastards! – you who sold me a wellie in which some tiny fault developed in the rand long after I could conceivably send it back, but long before 98% of the wellie’s life was even remotely used up. No! I will not buy another pair of wellies – even with the one remaining illusory sop of buying a rival brand. Ha! I will fix my wellie. Fix it beautifully so that it will last another year (a year is a very long time in crofting – certainly as far as a wellie is concerned). And with that fixing I will achieve so much more than a dry foot. I will achieve freedom from ‘them’. I will thwart ‘them’. The nemo is diminished. I wrest back a grain of power. I am inspired to fix more things. I choose in future to buy and build things which are fixable. I begin to despise things which are not fixable. I see through the lie.
All by fixing my wellie.
Coincidentally, and with pleasure, not with a feeling of sacrifice – no hair shirt – I have also lived by the ‘reduce, re-use, re-cycle’ rule. I guess that fixing a wellie comes somewhere between ‘reduce’ and ‘re-use’; the ideologues of the three r’s will no doubt be able to tell me precisely where. In any event, something good has happened. My life budget of wellies has been drastically reduced. (Never mind the carbon – it appears I am ‘wellie-counting’!) And by proudly displaying the fact that my wellie is ‘fixed’, not new, I may also encourage a certain ‘fix-it chic’. The viral benefits are seemingly endless.
If you are still a ‘chucker’ why not try this simple experiment. Fix one little thing you would otherwise buy new. Keep it a secret if you like. See how it feels. Maybe you’ll like it.
Oh yes, the wellies. Fixed with ‘Aquasure’, a couple of quid will save you £50 or more on new boots. (Who makes ‘Aquasure’? Well, ‘they’ do, of course …)
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* “a man’s sense of his own futility and ephemerality; of his relativity, his comparativeness; of his virtual nothingness” (The Aristos)
I wish I had learned of Aquasure sooner, I have lots of wellie planters now, but finally a pair of Rigger boots….
the farmer constantly reuses the farm in his tractor. The bits fall off and then he uses them again. Or the hens eat the bits.
David, you can’t imagine how delighted I am to discover there’s a product (albeit made by ‘them’) to fix my wellies! I get through a pair a year walking the dog, and reckon I do 700 miles in them in that time, on average. But usually it’s the smallest split in the heel or sole that means I have to bin them; I have used bike puncture repair kit patches but they’re not really successful on the heel or sole. Usually I resort to a plastic bag (the shame of admitting I EVER use them!) wrapped around my foot inside the welly until I can’t bear it any more. Do you think Aquasure would work on a heel/sole? Can I get it in a farmers’ store?
You’ll get Aquasure or its slightly cheaper copy ‘Stormsure’ mostly from fishing shops – it was designed for waders. But now that I look at the price online it’s nearer a fiver I’m afraid. If you do try it then save up a few repairs to do at once – if you put the top back on the tube and ‘save it for next time’ then ‘they’ will have got you! The top won’t come back off and if it does the stuff will have evaporated and be useless. The ‘fix’ is pretty tough but where a sole is flexing as you walk I don’t think there would be enough strengtht to hold things together – alas, that might be a job for an advanced fixer.
David – thanks! Next time I’m anywhere near a fishing shop, that’s a must, though I hear your reservations re the sole. Happy new year to you both.
PS That’s the puppy, yes? Adorable!
Nope – that’s Nell (alias Nelly Belly) the original perfect border collie! 3 1/2 years old and hopefully to be the puppy’s mate …)
Ah! I thought she was a bit grown-up looking; and I thought he was b, w & tan…??
I love everything about this article! I absolutely hate the fact that so much of the ‘stuff’ we have these days is deliberately designed to become landfill in two or three years. And that, of course, is after it’s used up precious resources being created and transported, and also created large amounts of pollution in the process. My grandparents were fixers of high degree, artistic and creative as well. My grandfather built several of the houses my mother and her siblings grew up in, and also sculpted and made toys. My grandmother made clothes, laid bricks, tiled bathrooms, fixed her taps herself, and painted and wrote poetry. When my aunt needed a fancy dress costume back in the 50s at school, my grandparents made her into an Egyptian princess. A wig made of horsehair, arm bands made from an old kettle cut down and shaped and beaten into bangles, and a collar of coloured beads, every one made individually from strips of brown paper, rolled up round a knitting needle and glued. And made with love. Escaping the heat yesterday (several days over 40 degrees here), we watched the first part of The Lord of the Rings, and the introduction to the Shire made me long to live in such a place…a place where things are made to last and are handed down from generation to generation. (Sorry about the novel, you struck a chord this morning!)
Love your philosophy! Let us strive to thwart ‘them’ and celebrate ‘us’ at every turn…
Immediately after reading David’s blog we started a discussion about whether we could mend our leaking electric kettle or would have to buy a new one. This blog supported my pride in being a fixer!