COMMENT
Business Buzz
with Harry Pearson
Why lofty ambitions don ’ t always lead to the high life
Flying – Harry ’ s dad could turn his hand to making anything , including a model of this Fokker Dr . I triplane .
I was excited to learn that this year ’ s winner of the Tees Businesswoman of the Year Award , Kimberley Turner , works for a company that began in her brother ’ s loft .
This is because during my teenage years the loft at my parent ’ s house was also a hive of creative activity .
Admittedly , unlike Double Eleven , my dad and I were not creating computer games , but something that , at the time , provided just as much fun for the agile mind – building plastic models .
During the day Dad worked as an engineer for Cleveland Bridge . He built , among other things , Britain ’ s longest suspension bridge , the Dartford Bridge , and what was then Britain ’ s tallest building , the Canary Wharf Tower .
My dad liked making things . He didn ’ t care whether it was a greenhouse , an oil rig or a 1 / 32nd scale Fokker Dr . I triplane . He made me balsa wood aeroplanes , a wild west fort and a medieval castle .
For himself , he made huge radiocontrolled gliders , high-grade US slot cars to race on a vast wooden eight-lane track above a pub in Stockton , remote-control tanks and motorised stock cars . He also made Airfix kits . So did I , though the results we produced differed wildly .
I bought my kits with my pocket money on Saturday morning and then spent the rest of the day at my dad ’ s workbench in the loft , doors and windows firmly shut , fan heater switched to max , glueing bits of plastic together with polystyrene cement .
The fumes swirled about the room until they were so thick you could practically slice them with your Stanley knife . The toxic stink was so ferocious it ought to have been banned under the Geneva Convention . No wonder I had visions . ( Nowadays you can buy glue that is solvent and odour free , of course . But where ’ s the fun in that ?)
Whatever I built , whether it was Monty ’ s Humber staff car ( with female driver ) or a Sopwith Camel , two things were guaranteed : none of the joints would quite meet , and there would be at least three parts left that I had no idea what to do with ( a similar problem occurs every time I build anything from IKEA ).
Also , there would be clouds of fluff stuck all over it . I don ’ t know where this fluff came from , presumably from the same mysterious source as the stuff that gathers in your belly button .
Whatever way it got there , the result was always the same – my Mustang P51 looked more like a labradoodle than a fighter plane .
My dad ’ s models , by contrast , were always immaculate . He approached tasks in a meticulous fashion . He never committed himself to action until he had considered the job at hand from all angles . He took time to read the instructions and study the plan .
This is because he is an engineer . You don ’ t just turn up at a riverbank with a truckload of steel and start knocking together a bridge , get halfway across and say , “ Hang about a bit , fellas , this isn ’ t going to work . Let ’ s pull it down and start again ”.
When you build a bridge , you have to have a very precise idea of what you are going to do before you begin .
My own approach to everything is , by contrast , completely haphazard . This suited me to my profession , writing , which is largely about making something , then ripping it to pieces , lopping a chunk off here , stuffing a bit in there and then gumming it all back together over and over again until you have either got it how you want it or , more likely , giving up because you ’ ve run out of time .
Writing is trial and error , with error predominating . This is not a good approach when you are building a skyscraper . Or a plastic model of a Lancaster Bomber .
I ’ m not sure which approach is best for making computer games . However , I am sure of one thing – Kimberley Turner ’ s brother ’ s loft didn ’ t smell as bad as ours did .
Harry Pearson ’ s latest book The Farther Corner – A Sentimental Return to North-East Football is out now .
18 | Tees Business