Base camp

You can climb the highest mountain, stop half way to come back down again and return to base camp. We return to base camp when we come home. At home we know that we belong, and it is love that we rekindle in our hearts to give us the fuel to climb once more. You can find love in your home, or maybe your home is somewhere that love is rediscovered.

The climb can begin, for instance, when for the first time you pick up a shovel, a trowel or a paint brush. Josh had to leave school aged 16 and a half, and work for a firm that carried out small building, landscaping and repair works for people's homes. Josh's feeble frame would at first take the weight of heavy materials, with sharp brick edges that gave dusty scars through padded gloves and there was always the danger of a twisted ankle.

Building concrete drives, dwarf garden walls and grinding out brick mortar joints prior to re-pointing were the main exercises for a 6 month contract. A van would stop outside the grand, red brick bus station of Maybury town and carry ten, maybe fifteen, 16 and 17 year olds to the brick yard where dreams were underpinned before they slowly emerged.

A separate team of five workers, including Josh and Mr. Longstand, took part in an outdoor project concerning the back gardens, fences and driveways of a Victorian estate of terraced properties that historically served the mining community. Josh was very nervous and self conscious, in a group of people that he now feels empathy towards. They were uber-male and the group mentality of the situation often led to insulting and derogatory remarks being presented to Josh, or other young men who were less outspoken. Most of the conversations were sexually related, which left Josh feeling very awkward due to his desire for a relationship, with a girl, centered around friendship, love and maybe romance. Is this something out of the ordinary, or must young males conform to a stereotype not akin to who they are?

A large man, with scratched, navy-blue padded overalls and a chubby face covered in brick dust enters the site cabin. This was the imposing figure of the foreman Geoff Longstand. The room was dark and dusty, with hardwood Victorian chairs that had cushions which fell through when you sat down on them. If you looked over your shoulder, you could see a wire-mesh birdcage that had been found in a skip at the roadside.

'Tell us a story then mucker. Have you got a missus?' the foreman says whilst rolling cigarettes on the Victorian wooden table, where battered varnish revealed striking thin grain lines and hard knots in the oak surface. It was the front room of an old terraced house, with no floor coverings present, an open staircase and a dark dusty feel.

'You want love? That's only found through experience', said Mr. Longstand.

It was a warm summer's day, in the middle of the month of May. Josh with a plastic float in one hand, was gradually smoothing the wet concrete surface. One, then two, then three, then four and then a small shower of hand shaped balls of sludgy aggregate thump against the small defined work area which included the over-sized visibility jacket around a slight figure. Josh reaches for a handful, and launches it back at three work colleagues idly circling a concrete mound on thick tarpaulin.

Compassionately, in support of the work progressing, another supervisor in a course and grainy tone shouts 'Gerrrover here and back to work!'

The days would drag, and the young man would be watching the green fields that were imprinted with a square net of hard and windy roads with rugged dry-stone borders. He judges no one who went there; because he believes that we are all equal and need to be loved. However, when he looked down at his phone to take his mind off the insults that were being hurled at him, he would soon be distracted by the next obscene image or statement from someone Josh considered being very misdirected. Therefore he very seldom retaliated, because most of the time he didn't know how to.

With each passing minute, that keeps adding up to stretched hour after lengthy daydream, how much does a man begin to learn? A smooth shell, gradually being re-hardened, covers a fragmented sub-surface and a wavering core. Pilot holes are dug deep, and layers are re-formed to form foundations to support a base. The creative process of a striking, sculptured, work of art created from that which has been utterly scattered.

Towards the end of his placement, something beautiful happened. The day was overcast, with clouds that threatened stormy rain. Josh and his supervisor, Longstand, were working on a jet black painted cast iron gate. The two halves of the gate weren't flush, by roughly two inches, across the opening swing. It seemed as if the gate would always be out of line, as it didn't seem to be correctly installed originally.

The bolts, on the two outward supporting gate posts, were rusted and little movement was possible with ordinary tools. At this stage, Josh had lost motivation and heart. He was happy to leave the task as it was, incomplete and unsatisfactory, as the day was nearly done.

"I'm tired, I can't do any more", said Josh in a small voice, thoroughly fed up and resigning 'I need to go home Mr. Longstand'.

Longstand looked hard at Josh, and thought quietly to himself. Then after a cigarette, then a sigh and looking up to the fluffy greyness, there was something that moved him from within. The truth is that he didn't know where it came from. It was a cold and quiet inspiration, soft like the small patches of grass next to the driveways.

'If a job needs doing, we do it properly', said Longstand "and we'll do it together as a team".

With engine oil, a pair of special steel grips and builders sand to rub the stains off their fingers, the two of them worked solidly for two hours until the level sat perfectly across the gap in the middle. In this small snippet of Josh's life, his opinion of Longstand changed. He recognized someone who really had a caring heart despite of his abrupt outspokenness. Maybe as human beings we are built up by the compassion that is shown to us. From this small instance as a quivering teenager, with even greater adversity Josh would go on to do even greater heights.