Mark, Fiona

Mark Finney is a self-employed builder in Leicester. He looks like he's in his mid-50s, but perhaps he's a little younger. With a shaggy mop of snow white hair and a grey-white moustache from under which protrudes a perennial rollie, it's hard not to like him. He has a frozen shoulder, and the NHS haven't been able to do anything for it yet, so he hasn't worked in 2 months. He spends most days in his shed, building guitars, though so I don't think he minds too much.

Mark is good with his hands. Chisels, sandpaper, electric routing tools, they're all in his shed and he spends 10-12 hours a day with them. His guitars are brilliant, especially considering he only built his first about 5 years ago.

He has two students. Gazza comes on Thursday evenings and is building a mini-jumbo spruce-topped jobbie. Looks very good. And Ian comes pretty much whenever Ian can. Mark spends quite a lot of his day building Ian's guitar for him (he's a bright lad, but a bit slow, bless him), but of late Ian has been learning a few lessons in the art of wielding a chisel against the forces of tonewood.

Gazza used to come more often, but he's had lady-trouble of late. Ian is also a bit more sporadic these days, but his issue is money.

Fiona is a very different kind of person. She's about 28, attractive, and a very strong character. She works as one of the personnel managers for Kensington Mayfair in Loughborough, recruiting temporary workers for catering jobs. She hasn't been in Loughborough all that long herself, but already she has the locals feeling like she knows her way around better than they do. She's a traveller, you see...she learns new places very fast. She grew up in Swansea, studied in Lougborough, worked in Bradford (and retained the accent) and is now back in Loughborough. Once she knows a place, she asserts herself on it. She's a pop-culture girl, always knows the right thing to say in the right situation to make a client feel valued, or a temporary worker feel legitimate and useful. She also has the invaluable skill of turning common knowledge into a recognised training program.

Today she had a busy day, and revelled in it. In the morning 6 new recruits were in the office, and she inducted tehm, trained them in silver service and plate service, and managed to keep a potentially uncomfortable situation fairly relaxed for one and a half hours. As well as her regular work. There were 4 students, one old lady, and one ex-student today. The ex-student (Ian?) had the experience, but the girl with the car was the one to get ahead, and the bloke who liked working pubs would always have plenty of work this time of year, with all the Freshers' events going on.

Well, only time would tell. Training over, she got back on the phone to clients.