The Little Things Add Up
Like an interconnected circle of delicious mushrooms, a bunch of people and businesses have come together around our print magazine BOTHER since its launch a year ago. It’s a community of folk who like to dig into similar veins of adventurous and independent fecundity.
People are buying and reading BOTHER. Some contribute words and features. Businesses are being featured and some have even taken the bold move to put their money where their mouth is and advertise in our humble magazine. They must be mad. We only print 1000 copies and run selected features here in our blog that we like to call Bothering and in our long read newsletter. They’re clearly not daft though.
When we talk to our advertisers they say they like what we do at HebTroCo and they like being part of the magazine. They want to be in it and show it to people. I use the magazine like this as a kind of calling card (I don’t have a business card). It shows what our interests and values are beyond the immediate sphere of clothing. I’m really proud to be part of the BOTHER culture and there’s been increasing feedback that others feel the same way.
Ashley Clarke has taken out a year’s worth of adverts in the mag to promote his hand crafted leather goods business. He makes high quality gear in a unit near Newark in Lincolnshire. His range spans leatherwork from heavyweight travel bags that will survive the apocalypse, all the way to the niche market of making falconry gloves. He’s made wallets, bookmarks, key fobs, gloves and cable tidies for HebTroCo in the past and that’s how we got to know him.
We’re making a BOTHER film about people in Britain that make things happen and Ashley is the first person that we’ve visited. His workshop is a treasure trove of tools from a press that can put twenty tons of pressure onto a leather stamp, all the way to a collection of vintage Stanley knives. He showed me how to use a machine to sew two thick straps together. “Mind your fingers because it can go through inch thick leather.” He didn’t offer me a job after seeing my work, but I didn’t maim myself and I love the ‘aggressive bookmark’ that I think I made.
He’s a thinking man and loves to talk business as well as philosophy. The walls are covered with cool collected stuff, motivational messages and products, all the signs of a creative mind at work in a creative space. His copy of The Daily Stoic is well thumbed. “Today’s quote is a good one.”
“Well-being is realized by small steps, but is truly no small thing.”
-ZENO, QUOTED IN DIOGENES LAERTIUS, LIVES OF THE EMINENT PHILOSOPHERS, 7.1.26
Ashley is a self taught craftsman and as a one man band he runs his own business as well as designing and making all the products. Impressed? I am. When you operate like this you need a network of other people you can talk to. Turn ideas over, listen to advice, talk shop and just talk shit with others who get it. We did a bit of this and it was good for me too.
Having a good snoop about in workshops, seeing products in the place of their creation, perving over tools and picking the brains of a craftsman is one of my favourite things to do. Hopefully we can pull this together into a film and show different people, from the one man in a shed to a factory with management and machinists working together. You will be the first to see it.
Ed Oxley
BOTHER MagazineIssue 5
Published 28/05/25. The HebTroCo print magazine. 148 pages, 436g. Backyard Skating, Todmorden's Golden Lion, Rude Places, The Pennine Way, Music, Cars, Beer, Recipes and a £20 HebTroCo voucher. Keep an eye on your email inbox, we'll send you a voucher code as soon as your magazine is in the post.
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