Do you know who Sheffield’s last “Little Mester” was?

1-minute read • 194 words

Stan Shaw died in 2021 aged 94, the last in the city’s long line of self-employed craftsmen making cutlery and tools from their rented workshops…

This week, it’s been announced that 59 of Stan’s handmade knives will be displayed at Cutlers’ Hall to celebrate Sheffield’s “history and legacy of cutlery manufacturing”. But it was something else in the BBC article about the announcement that caught my attention.

It’s a video from 2018. Stan, 91 then, is in his workshop in Kelham Island.

With knotted hands, Stan files and shapes his steel blades. A caption onscreen says his skills are still in such high demand that he’s got a four-year backlog of orders to fill.

He’s wearing a grey factory coat and talking about his job. Then he looks up for a moment from his workbench:

“I try an’ mek t’next knife better. You never do, like, but that’s the attitude you’ve got to ‘ave.”

You might make knives, or t-shirts, or garage doors, or websites. Whatever you do for a living, I reckon that’s pretty good advice:

Try to make the next thing you’re working on better than the last.

What do you think?

Until next time,

Adam

PS H/T to Now Then Magazine where I saw this.