The office was behind a plastic framed door, the white UPVC lost underneath black fingerprints. The floor was now a mix of brown and green. If you so much as rested a mop on it, you would need to chuck the whole bucket of water away. The air was visceral — a mix of hot metal, oil, and sweat.
A corridor led to the hangar with a serving hatch in the wall on the right so customers could interact with staff in the manager’s office. The hatch was protected by brown, varnished, horizontal, wooden bars. They seemed out of place, but I guess metal has a greater value in a place like this. The ends of the bars had neat corners; the centers were stained black and rounded by countless forearms and fingers.
The manager was in his late twenties, wearing glasses, and neglected hair. His baggy cargo trousers were exactly the same hue as the old office chair that he seemed to be fused with. His face — expressionless. He let me wait at the hatch for 10 seconds or so before looking up. No greeting.
“I’ve got some farm scrap, a bit of lead, and some copper.”
A skinny guy was resting in a brown leather armchair. He glanced up from his phone and back again, his face registering slight contempt. I was brought up in the south, and my accent marks me out as an outsider even though I have lived here a long time.
The manager’s voice was surprisingly high-pitched and scratchy as he sent me to the roller door around the side in as few words as possible.
I drove around avoiding the potholes. An eager-looking lad in his mid-teens was waiting. His demeanor announced his status as the victim of the scrap yard social hierarchy. Two of his fingers had dirty black plasters around the knuckles. The metal of his steel toe caps was through the rubber of his boots.
I gestured to my trailer and said, “All this to weigh.” His eyes widened, and he paused before saying, “And the trailer too?”
“No, I’ll hang on to that. Just what’s in it, please.”
He seemed momentarily embarrassed before giving a hint of a smile, perhaps grateful that I had answered him with more kindness than he was used to.
I handed him an old bucket full of copper. He placed it into what looked like the battered bed of a wheelbarrow; it was actually a set of scales. 7.2kg. We did the same with some lead (5.8kg), brass (6kg), and some stainless steel (3kg). He touched a magnet to the stainless before accepting it, satisfied that there was no attraction.
I drove onto the weighbridge and waited for his pale arm to emerge from the booth with a thumb up. I found a corner of the yard and dragged everything from my trailer. An excavator with metal jaws was nibbling away at an old school coach, delicately sorting the bodywork into separate piles. There were numerous vehicle gearboxes and engines laying around, old lawn mowers, transit vans, even a trampoline. I could have spent a whole day wandering around this amazing place.
I reluctantly drove back onto the weighbridge some 300kg lighter. Back in the office, the manager already had a docket in his hand. His fingers moved quickly across the keys of an old Casio. Without looking up, he raised his empty, meaty hand toward me. I decided to wait for the courtesy of some words from his mouth. After a second or two, he turned his face toward me. His torso and shoulders remained facing the desk. There was no eye contact or expression.
“ID and bank details.”
I handed them over; they looked iridescent in this setting. After copying what he needed onto the docket, he passed everything back to me. I was delighted to see a total of £129 at the bottom of the page in his surprisingly neat handwriting.
All in all, this was an excellent day out on so many levels. I’ve been back a dozen times or so, I highly recommend it to you.
Thanks for reading. If you enjoyed this story, I’d love to hear from you — just drop me a comment below.
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