Michael John Howard was an electrician in a farming community, an extremely clever bloke, and - like most dads to their sons - my hero.
He re-built this Fergie tractor from rusty parts he found in an overgrown hedge, and built the generator it’s towing from scratch.
I often heard him referred to locally as ‘a fourth emergency service’.
He would head out at midnight or 5am, having received an urgent call from a farmer whose dairy or lambing shed had lost power.
He would work late into the evening, fixing the element on a £5 kettle for an elderly neighbour - usually refusing a fee.
He would do installations for state-of-the-art silos, super-modern (for the time) parlours, and gigantic coldstore sheds.
He died one winter, suddenly and far too young, of pancreatic cancer.
It snowed hard the day of his funeral, but the church and churchyard were packed anyway.
The roads in all directions were lined with the tractors and trucks of those who had braved treacherous conditions to pay their respects.
Later, we held a farm sale to clear his work stuff.
Stretched out in lines up and down fields were the contents of his workshop; tools, ladders and consumables.
Electricians came from across the Midlands and Wales to grab a bargain - but dad’s wily farming mates bid against them to make sure nothing went too cheap.
In amongst the sale items were all manner of hand-welded resistors, coiled springs, devices of one kind or another screwed to plywood or cased in resin.
As auction lots, these items defied classification.
Each was a bespoke and tailored solution to someone’s specific problem or brief.
When I set up my own business earlier this year, I put a lot of thought into making it something Dad would be proud of, and that takes its lead from the way he did things.
The ‘bespoke’ part of Bespoken Media is there because - like Dad would have - we will find your specific solution, for your specific circumstance. We will help however we can.
What mattered most to M J Howard Electrical was integrity.
Because of this, it matters most to Bespoken Media too.
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