Conversation pieces

There are, I am sure, things that have happened to everyone who has been in the textile care industry for long enough, that one would prefer not to remember, rogue pens in pockets, trouser leg unnoticed and accidentally trapped in drycleaning door lock mechanism as you start a load off, and the first you know about it, is at at load’s end when what once was a pair of trousers resembles a horrendously misshapen work of modern art.

This type of thing has happened to me a handful of times, over a long career, but one hopefully develops an inner alarm bell, known as caution.

I have noted that when disaster has befallen me, it’s often been at times when I was too busy to carry out the usual thorough checks in linings, hidden pockets and so on in each garment in order to save time and get a load through, a typical example of act in haste, repent at leisure.

Take it from an old drycleaner who has personally experienced virtually every type of disaster that can befall a garment processed in a hurry: it’s not worth rushing.

That customer who really insisted an item be cleaned within a couple of hours, will suddenly have all the time in the world to let you know how expensive your hastiness was.

ULEZ compliant

It’s not often that I will touch on a subject such as ULEZ, but I just cannot imagine how difficult it must be for small drycleaners to survive this extra financial burden, but even with a Government grant, the costs of a new ULEZ compliant van might as well be pie in the sky. It has been made almost impossible to keep our old vans running, even those that are economical and kept in sound condition. I have to wonder, if one has a 10-year-old workhorse of a van, if it should not be considered as greener than a new fully electric battery-powered vehicle that cost goodness knows how much further strain on the environment, and what is exactly going to happen the millions of batteries once they reach the end of their working life. Would there be some exorbitant price charged to the poor motorist in the name of getting them cleanly recycled by a garage? At least with old metal engines, there could be recycled. I would be surprised if these batteries ever could be.

It does not seem that long ago that the Government was encouraging us all to stop buying petrol engines and to buy diesel vehicles instead, and this as at a time when lean burn petrol technology was being worked on. Why are we not all just given a free ULEZ vehicle by those in power, you are the the driving force behind all of this (or at least you would be the driving force if you actually drove instead of being transported by chauffeur driven vehicles everywhere). Is this a case of do as I say, not do as I do?