Morpethroad

This week we are asked to weave a tale using this: Klinlinsop and Sons Propriety Limited. – as our starting point.

Klinlinsop and Sons Pty Ltd – Tanners.

What Alfred Klinlinsop most liked was a fine day. Fine days meant work was done, orders finished and the tubs went unpolluted by rainwater.

By 4am he was up and out in the yard adding his bit to the tubs, which every week would be cleaned out before the next Mondays collection.

By 5am his son George would be returning from the killing yards with skins to be treated that day.

By 6am the first of his collections would be arriving each paid a half penny for their trouble. Their pots of urine poured into the bigger tubs after the scum from the day before was cleaned away and thrown into the river where it washed away to who knew where the least of Klinlinsop’s concern.

There was also the steady stream of regulars of no fixed abode who stopped by and on a weekly basis stood to make a good penny from their regular morning deposits. They marked their name each morning after leaving their bladder’s contents and then went about their own business.

As soon as one tub was ankle deep the first skins were thrown in and Alfred stood back as his sons, in bare feet stepped in to the stench to begin their day of walking up and down on the skins plying them with their feet into a condition that would enable the cordwainers to fashion them into what ever orders awaited.

Tanning was a specialised job. Too much could be too much and too little too little.

Klinlinsops had been in this business forever. It had been passed down from generation to generation, Alfred remembered his grandfather knee deep in piss, as he’d say, stomping up and down in the tubs late in the day when a special order came in that required a hide ready for the next day.

Alfred’s sons George and Randolph had been brought up to take over the family business and were often out sourcing that valuable raw material that produced such excellent hides.

Socially they were considered almost at the bottom of the social ladder, the only ones lower were the unemployed, the destitute and the cesspool cleaners who lets face it had no friends and little prospect of such.

But Klinlinsop was a determined man. He gave his sons aristocratic names, he taught them manners and most importantly he taught them to wash.

Alfred’s wife Rita was a stickler for cleanliness. No one could enter the house unless he had thoroughly washed his feet and hands…..feet mostly for as Rita would say ‘I know where they have been and in whose you have been stomping.’

But despite their lowly status they did do a fine trade.

Their hides were sought from all over the town. Every reputable cordwainer sought Klinlinsop leather.

It was a great recommendation when the local squire commissioned a new dining room suite with Klinlinsop leather as the covering for the chairs. This resulted in Alfred posting a sign outside his business that he was the supplier of leather to the squire.

Not that it mattered as very few people ever went near their business, as the stench was on most days unbearable.

The highlight of Klinlinsop’s life came when the annual fair was being held and during a demonstration of shoemaking by Mathias Cordonnier, the master French shoe maker, he commented on the fine quality of the local hides, their pliability, their rich leathery texture and their unique aroma.

It was true that upon completion any shoe or any thing made from Klinlinsop leather did require many hours of rubbing, polishing and generally sitting about waiting and wishing for the urine aroma to go away.

For the most part people ignored the smell for after all what was one more smell in a city full of the worse smells you could imagine.

Alfred’s wife Rita had solved the issue of smell by using a number of perfumed flowers, crushed and soaked and the residue used to freshen not only the air within the Klinlinsop house but also Klinlinsop and sons.

In fact people often mentioned to one another how odour free Klinlinsop was.

He often mentioned his wife’s enhancing lotion which he wore in very liberal amounts on his person and clothes but the idea just never took off which of course pissed Rita off no end as she hated the overwhelming lingering odour that pervaded her home and surrounds.

It could have been also Rita’s penchant for naming things somewhat irreverently to explain why ‘Piss Off’ never really took off.

Written for: https://mindlovemiserysmenagerie.wordpress.com/2015/08/20/tale-weaver-27-making-sense-of-nonsense/