A chap appeared the other day, in peculiar garb and a Singer 201k under his arm. He wore a friendly smile and I quite liked the cut of his jib. I took the old vintage sewing machine from him, and set it down on the workshop bench. Then we got to the talking. He enquired about vintage sewing machine repairs.
Turned out our chap was a member of what they call the Steampunk fraternity. They dress in outlandish gear and live at the crossroads of HG Wells and Jules Verne – that’s my take, anyway.
Being a schoolboy of the 1970s and having had a ringside seat of the development of Johnny’s influence – Mohicans, Green Hair, Studs and Chains and All That, I quite naturally took it in my stride. And there was a time when ladies ‘rinsed’ their hair blue, or purple or lilac – remember?
So there’s nothing really new about anything, it’s just thrown back on the frying pan and reheated from time to time.
Anyways. Back to our chap, and his Singer 201k. He’d brought it in with a timing issue. He used the machine to sew leather outfits for himself and an assortment of chums of the same bent.
I looked at the machine and immediately ‘felt the problem’.
The chap asked if I’d worked on machines like this before…
So I told him about when I first started work for Dad. That was also back in the 70s. After training, Dad sent me out with our mechanics to all the schools around Greater Manchester.
In those days, many of the schools used hand-operated Singer 201k’s, and similar, and there were even treadle machines in many classrooms.
Perhaps you were taught on one when you were at school??
So I told our man that over all those years I’d probably worked on several hundred, if not thousands of Singer 201ks and all the variations on the theme. He nodded his head at my words.
So I took down his details and gave him a receipt and said we’d call with an estimate. He thanked me and asked, almost as an afterthought, if I thought I could repair his machine.
Don’t worry about that, said I. I’ve fixed one or two before.
He smiled and was gone.
Nice chap.
#vintagesewingmachinerepairs #steampunk
