Three Rights Make a Left

Last week I was busy in my workshop listening to music as I worked when Leon Russell’s version of “If I were a Carpenter” came on. It was a version that was popular when I was in high school, and it brought back some fond memories.

I sang along as Leon crooned: “If I were a carpenter and you were a lady, would you marry me anyway? Would you have my baby?” The next line gave me some pause, “If a tinker was my trade, would you tinker with me?” It made me think, “What exactly is a tinker?” To be sure, it is a trade that time has mostly forgotten but I decided to do a little research and was pleasantly surprised to find that I had a lot in common with the ancient trade. I had always had an image of a tinker in a little shop fixing clocks and mechanical things. But I learned that might have sometimes happened but that description would have rarely occurred.

In reality, a tinker was a tradesman who fixed broken pots, pans, bowls, and utensils used in the kitchen but would fix just about anything. In reality he was a journeyman metal worker who didn’t employ his trade in a workshop, but rather traveled from farm to farm across the countryside of the British Isles looking for honest work. A journeyman is a term that is still used today and has its roots in antiquity. When person had no land or place to call home, he would journey across the countryside in search of people who needed his particular trade.

As I read about the history of tinkers, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that I had a lot in common with tinkers of old. In my younger years, I was a journeyman sheet metal tradesman. I mostly built and installed air conditioning ductwork, but I also did my share of tin smithing. Roof flashings, chimney caps, and copulas. I learned that my sheet metal trade had its roots in work done by tinkers. There are a lot of trades that had roots in ancient times. For example, fish hooks used to be crude things made of bone or stone, and I can hardly imagine how you could keep a fish on the line with one. Then needle makers started making modern fish hooks out of iron and steel. There were tradesmen who specialized in making fish hooks for a long time until mechanization took over their production.

Typically, a tinker was very poor and came from Ireland, Scotland, or Romania, and often didn’t even have a horse or a donkey. They carried the tools they needed in a sack or backpack. Traveling across Britain and Europe, they would come to the gate of a farmhouse and announce their presence by banging a pot on the gate. Anyone at the house would know that a tinker was at the gate to repair anything that needed fixing. Very often they would be chased away with no small degree of contempt. Not by the Lord or Lady of the house, but usually by the lowliest servants in the house, status wise.

Often, however, something did need fixing, usually pots and pans but it could be just about anything. It was commonly felt that if a tinker couldn’t fix it, you might as well throw it away.

There is a term that is sometimes used even today. I always thought it was a swear but now I think, not so much. The term is: “Not worth a tinker’s dam”. Notice there is no “n” at the end of the word dam. That is because it is a reference to a process used by a tinker. If there is a crack in a pot that needed to be mended, a tinker would build up a little “dam” around the crack that would keep solder from simply running off. The dam would keep molten solder where it was needed until it set up, then the “dam” was no longer needed and was just brushed away. The dam was just temporary and after it served its purpose, it was no longer needed.

It is unlikely that anyone ever got rich as a tinker but as Mr. Miyagi said in “The Karate Kid”, “The dignity is in the work.”