During a recent business trip to Singapore I happened to walk into Raffles Hotel. I found my way into a small seating area complete with wicker chairs and timber tables overlooking a courtyard. The city of Singapore was completely obscured by the original colonial building to my front and right and a wall of vegetation to my left. The courtyard was flanked by palm trees and the only discernable obtrusion was the endless noise of the traffic penetrating the vegetation.
I stood there dressed in my light-weight wool blend suit, polished shoes and all the other external symbols that make up the façade of respectability. In my hand my brief case containing a lap top computer and organiser, my coat pocket the mobile phone, international roaming and infa-red enabled.
I was the living embodiment of the nature of business in the new millennium. A man linked to the world and ready to obey without question the call of technology.
It was 3.30 pm, it was hot and humid and I was tired from the day. I sat in one of the wicker chairs and imagined a past era of early Colonial development in the fledgling trading port; Somerset Maugham sipping Gin. Instead of a kilometre of land-fill and commercial development the gently lapping of the beach that once was just over the road. I even managed block the noise of the traffic and indulge myself in fantasy ..
As for me, I was born and bread on a sheep farm in the Western District of Victoria, Australia. I crutched, dipped, injected, yarded, butchered and lived of the producer of what must be one of the most remarkable fibres that nature has ever produced.
When I finally left home I thought that I had said goodbye to farm life and the wool industry forever; as sheep don’t graze in Collins St, Melbourne. Little did I know then that the best part of my working life was going to be selling wool. You see, I belong to a diminishing number of people who have made a career from Wool Felt.
Wool Felt was first made by the nom
By: Colin Read
Submit Date: 6/7/2010 18:00