2nd date - 12th August - Glass Part 2

Andy worked as a glass blower for many years, and his passion for making glass was very apparent.  He knew such a lot of the technical detail (and I was later to see he kept books and all of his notes from when he was in training).  I honestly found it all fascinating as glass was such an “unknown” for me.  When he talked about the colours and how it was done, the quality of the glass and how he had an eye for flaws……..I loved listening to him, I loved the obvious passion he had.  He used to work for a company called Hartley Wood – and it was the last ‘real’ glass makers in the UK, but the CEO was from China (although the pictures would suggest otherwise, he was obviously from Chinese decent with a surname like Chen, but looked like a regular Englishman) and didn’t see the company being viable any more, so decided it had to close.
BBC did a feature on it called “Glass Up North” and Andy appeared in the footage.  He was asked a few questions too, so had a speaking part!
He was so young……..and chewing gum most of the time lol.  I loved watching the video, and asked him if I could borrow it – and so I sat for hours one night with an old video machine, and my PC, to convert it into a DVD.  I managed it eventually.  I even bought a package which allowed me to make a CD cover and the actual card which goes into a CD box……………even if I do say it myself – it looked very professional.  I made two copies; one for him and one for his Mum.
I have attached a copy of the photograph his Mum had hanging on her kitchen wall – Andy is on the left, blowing the glass.
Now might be a good time for me to tell you that Andy explained to me that when they ‘blow’ a large piece of glass into a circular shape, the shape is known as a ‘muff’.  He made a little joke about being a ‘muff blower’ and I just cherried up…..which he smiled at.

I called him Mr Muff in text messages, and it stuck for quite some time (ten years!).  Once, when we were camping, he said he was glad his Scout mates thought I was saying Mr Murph (as in his surname)……and I giggled away to myself as I followed him over to the camp fire.