In 2022, I was selected at random to write a chapter of the memoir of artist, musician, and provocateur Bill Drummond, to mark his upcoming 70th birthday. Each randomly selected writer was given a year of Bill’s life, and the instruction to write 1000 words, in the first person, about what he did in that year. I was given the year of his 58th birthday, 29th of April 2011 to 28th of April 2012. The work was published online in 2024 on Bill’s Penkiln Burn website, both in written and audio form, as part of a work called ‘The Life Model’. The website has moved on since it was published, but the piece as published, edited and read by Bill, follows below. To read the original unedited version of the piece, contact me.

I Am Fifty-Eight

29th of April 2011 to 28th of April 2012

My Folly Is Bigger Than Your Folly
by Lee Ashcroft

As I write this text, I am on a coach travelling between Hua Hin, in the Prachuap Khiri Khan province of Thailand, and Bangkok. I glance up from my iPad and look out of the window. To my left, just over the river, I see a giant building with a few words in English:  

SIAM STEEL WORKS COMPANY LIMITED

I am immediately excited. I love steel, and steel works. I want to grab the emergency hammer, smash the window, jump out of the speeding coach and break in. Moments later, the coach passes a Thai jail, and I think again.

I spent some time working with a steel works in Sheffield when I was 58. Honestly, that’s not really of concern at this point. I’ve already written about this elsewhere, and you probably can find that text on eBay for a massively inflated price. But returning home to bustling North London, the idea of working with steel stayed with me. There is something beautiful about its imposing nature. The cold, smooth texture. The uniform grey tone. Its immovable nature, tamed only by those men and women, whether Thai or Sheffielders, brave enough to bend it to their will.

It brings to mind the future. Optimism, something unknowable. I know it’s 4000 years old, but look at the stainless leg of an IKEA dining table and tell me that an Anatolian weaponsmith in 1800 BC would have created that. Nature is as old as time itself, and all around us – one of the few birthrights every living creature has. Steel, meanwhile, is a creation of man.

Weeks passed by back at home, and as I look out of my kitchen window into my back garden, I feel something is missing. I see the grass, with the tall grand oak toward the back. I see the past.

I fucking hate the past.

I immediately phoned Sheffield Forgemasters. “The phone is the most powerful tool you can have.” I demanded to commission a stainless steel rod – 3 feet in diameter, 30 feet long – to be delivered to Stoke Newington as soon as possible. They responded with a price and an ETA – four weeks. Next, LG Trees on the Belgrade Road. They visited the following day, and offered a quote to remove the oak. Inflated, on account of their clear reluctance at the task in hand. Thank heavens for royalties. Next, a call to B Everett Transport Limited, who hire out cranes. Some heavy lifting is going to be involved. Finally, Gimpo. He has a cement mixer.

Four weeks later, and like a child on Christmas Eve, I could not sleep. The garden was ready, bearing a massive round scar where the tree once was. (I later turned this into a bed, so rest assured, it lives on.) Gimpo was outside, all the time protecting the hole and cement mixer. With the sun rising early, I got out of bed and joined him. The crane arrived at 9am precisely, along with Keith, its operator and the man who would make my vision a reality, along with a group of teenagers in overalls likely young enough to be his grandchildren. A few minutes before 10, I heard the articulated lorry roar through suburbia, bearing the name ‘Sheffield Forgemasters’ on the side, before finally, flanked by two “long vehicle” escort cars, it arrived.

The steel was beautiful. The rays of summer sun were trapped by its cold, matt surface and, even on its side, it was an imposing sight to behold. Keith and his teenage crew sprung into action. Chains were wrapped around every side of the steel, while in the garden, Gimpo began to mix the concrete. The process took hours. Though the day was long, I was concerned that we would not be finished before sunset, and that this would become a 2-day job, minimum. But by half past 3 in the afternoon, Keith was ready. As he climbed up the crane, I could barely contain my excitement.

With a deafening groan, the unmistakable sound of metal grinding against metal, the giant metal rod began to upturn. The process seemed unbearably slow, but within half an hour, the rod was now standing tall and proud. At 58, I was convinced that this was the greatest thing I had ever seen in my life. I watched this giant rod of steel rise from the surface of the lorry, and into the air – fully vertical, an I in the sky, for all of North London to bear witness. It went higher and higher, past the bedroom window, parallel to the roof, then finally hanging fully above the house. With a firm, controlled push of a lever, Keith advanced the steel over my house, to begin its descent into the garden.

I have seven children. That said, I had never seen anything more beautiful than the sight of that giant, floating, brutalist angel. Until I reach the pearly gates, I doubt I ever will again.

Gimpo frantically moved the cement mixer into position, and quarter-filled the hole with cement. On cue, Keith lowered the rod into the cement. As he did, the cement poured out of the hole, as Gimpo began shovelling it back into the mixer. The first chain was loosened, and the others followed. Finally, when it appeared the cement had fully set, the steel was free of the crane.

I stepped back and saw what I had done. The tree, which I had found so uninspiring, was gone. In its place, a stunning, imposing, permanent symbol of the future. Trees will die eventually. This steel rod will last millennia. This will always be the future.

My wife and children were not impressed. Nor was the landlord. Nor the council. By September it was removed and replaced with a sapling. I would learn from this architectural folly in 2017. But that’s a story for another time.