Up the Ladders

Richard - Window Cleaner

August 22, 2016

“Born, bred and trousered in Hebden Bridge.”

Richard is a window cleaner who works in Hebden Bridge. He wears his pair of HebTroCo trousers every day for work, all year round, and he tells us that he loves the feel of them and their hard wearing quality.

The trousers have a hard life and have creased and faded with daily wear. We think they look fantastic. Our trousers are made for wearing, not for saving and we like how his have improved with age.

Richard is a familiar sight around town, deftly shinning up his traditional wooden ladders. Wood is better than aluminium in his opinion even though it’s heavier to carry.

In this steep sided valley many of the buildings were built tall to make the most use of their foundations which were cut into the hillside. There are ‘over and under dwellings’ here with one house built on top of another. Each one has it’s front door on a different street level and they share a roof and the foundations.

Richard is well known for getting high and sometimes even puts the bottom of his ladders in the river to reach right up to clean the top windows on some of the houses and mill buildings.

We met Richard at our Trouser Town Bizarre Bazaar in Hebden Bridge back at the beginning of April. He bought a pair of our grey 177 moleskins and was very complimentary about the quality of construction. He also liked our story.

“These trousers are proper Hebden” he said.

Carrying on a local tradition of trouser making and using the moleskin fabric, which this area was once so famous for, were things that appealed to him. He has owned moleskin trousers in the past which were made in Hebden Bridge, made by companies now long since closed down. “I’ve still got one pair. I loved them but eventually they got so worn out and frayed that I’ve cut them off at the knee, Robinson Crusoe style, and I just wear them for going to festivals in now.”

Later on that day Richard was spotted dancing the night away in his new trousers at the Trades Club, our local music venue. We also seen him wearing them while out with his kids on Father’s Day having a pint in the Old Gate and in fact every other time we’ve bumped into him. With this in mind it was obvious to catch up with him when he was working to take some photos of this man who in his own words is, “born, bred and trousered in Hebden Bridge.”