Black and white portraits of Master Cooper Alastair Simms at White Rose Cooperage Ltd, Yorkshire. Alastair started his path with a school holiday job aged 14 years old, and then an apprenticeship, at Theakston’s brewery at Masham. He is now Master Cooper at Jensen’s Cooperage Ltd in Ripon. “The whole ethos of this cooperage is it’s about quality and not quantity, so when we’re repairing casks or making casks it’s done correctly, it’s not done in a rush.”
I found visiting Alastair great fun; a very dry man (a sense of humour I appreciate), I chatted and watched him work for several hours, asking now and then for him to slow down, so I could take a frame or two, and for a handful of posed portraits. If memory serves me correctly I believe we talked at length about rugby and, as this was in the north of England, when I say rugby I mean league. I love watching people hand make items, be they suits, shirts, shoes or, in this case, casks. I love seeing how craftsman and artisans bend, fold and manipulate materials to their will, sometimes ever so gently, in order to create. “I’ve probably forgotten more about casks than you will ever know about them.”
As you can see by these images what struck me most about Alastair Simms was his hands which is why there are the focus of a significant percentage of what I photo’d that day.
The word ‘‘cooper’’ is derived from the Latin ‘‘cupa’’, meaning tun or barrel, and the number of people who used to make and repair casks in England is reflected by the number of people with the surname Cooper.
A cask is the broad term for any wooden vessel used to age or store spirits, including whisky, wine. A barrel, though often used interchangeably, is a specific type of cask, defined by size and shape.
