Poems And Crockery Offer New Careers For Scouthead Couple

The cover of Ghosts Of A Low Moon. (image courtesy Andrew Oldham)

One way to try to get through difficult economic times is to start up on your own, and a husband and wife from Scouthead have been telling Saddleworth News about two very different ventures they’re currently involved in.

Andrew Oldham has just had his first book of poetry published, while Carol Oldham has left her old job to concentrate on her own vintage crockery business.

Andrew’s collection is called Ghosts of a Low Moon. He explained: “It deals with lost love, and people who are forgotten in society. In 2006 for our honeymoon we went on a road trip across America, and that’s a major part of the book. The people we met, and the real America if you like.”

He said he and Carol travelled from Las Vegas to San Francisco in a U shape: “It meant we could go through Arizona, and see all the small and derelict towns which are no longer on the map.”

Andrew added that he was partly influenced by the Beat Generation of writers: “There’s a kind of homage to Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg in there, and also how that bleeds into, for example, the Liverpool poets and even Dylan Thomas.”

Poetry’s not a new development for Andrew though, as he explained: “I’ve had 23 years of writing poetry, I’ve been doing it since I was 13. And I’ve been taking it seriously for the last ten or 15 years. I’ve been published in a number of magazines, but this is the first time I’ve gone out consciously to get a collection published.”

Andrew, who teaches creative writing at two universities, said he’d built up a following over the years, particularly in the US, saying: “I’m more widely known in the US which is quite frightening. Over the past couple of years I’ve even been getting students who are seeking me out to teach them.”

Andrew’s book has been out since December, and his next public reading close to our area will be at the Leeds Independent Poetry Festival on 6 June.

The book can be ordered from Andrew’s website here, or from publisher Lapwing here. It’s also available on Amazon and from other retailers.

Meanwhile, Carol recently took voluntary redundancy from her old job in communications to focus not only on freelance PR work, but also on her Dormouse and The Teapot business, which she established in 2008.

The idea behind the company is very simple. Carol takes old pieces from china sets, and puts them together to create new sets for the vintage market.

She explained: “It’s shabby chic. I get part sets of china, and then mix and match them together by colour… I source the items from all over the place, auctions, car boot sales, I’ve even got a team of people that buy things for me.”

Carol added: “It’s just something that gets thrown away, and I’m turning it into something new. Some of the stuff is beautiful, and it’s stood the test of time.”

The items in Carol’s vintage sets usually date from between the 1920s and 1960s. She’s found herself doing increasing amounts of work for the trade sector in recent months, with famous ad agency Saatchi and Saatchi one of her biggest clients.

She’s also hit upon another way to get her sets to people who might want them for special occasions, such as weddings. She sells sets to people, but agrees to buy them back after they’ve been used. Carol explained: “It’s a step between buying and hiring. It’s good because people haven’t got that worry of putting down a huge deposit.”

The couple first met when they worked as BBC journalists. Andrew’s originally from Horwich, while Carol is from Oldham. They moved to Scouthead just over a year ago, and have a baby boy.

Andrew, who also writes articles on gardening, added that they both have various skills which have helped encourage them to strike out on their own: “We’ve got a bit of that entrepreneurial spirit. But we’re both also environmentally minded, as well as being digitally minded.”

You can find out more about Carol’s business at the Dormouse and The Teapot website here. There’s also a Facebook page here and a Twitter account here.

Author: Jude Gidney - Editor

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