Mike Smith, Craftsman, Metal Spinner, R.I.P.
Writing about web page http://www.skillspin.co.uk
One of the best things about working for WMCCM is getting out and meeting owners, managers and many skilled and interesting people.
The project’s best assistances have been, not surprisingly, where we have built up a close working relationship with our company contact. Mike Smith has been one of those.
I was introduced to Mike by Iain Robertson of MAS-WM three years ago. Mike’s business Skillspin had lost their biggest customer as a result of changes at Laura Ashley’s furnishing business. With some excellent pictures of his work we were able to help him straightaway with a catalogue. The combination of words and pictures were so effective Skillspin became an early case study for the marketplace.
I continued the assistance by setting up an easily modified web-site and our team got to know Mike better as he attended events and spoke at one. Mike introduced me to Tony Ashford and Peter Davies, friends with small businesses in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter and so I have found it easy to keep in touch.
In recent months Skillspin’s business has been picking up some excellent new business from the web. He was also battling on another front with cancer and chemotherapy treatments. A battle he recently, sadly, lost. This came as a shock to our team, many of whom remember Mike as “a really nice guy”. Dr. Mark Swift and our director Dr. Jay Bal both expressed their deep sadness as they remembered Mike from some fine times.
Mike’s business will probably be run to an orderly close meeting outstanding obligations. Just another craftsman, metal spinning, business to fold in the West Midlands? Sadly probably true.
I did get to learn something of another side of Mike’s life, his family. Married to Bridget with four daughters, two have grown up to become pharmacists. I know more about the youngest, as she is the same age as my son John. She is another academic high flyer, a talented musician and choral singer and at the last I heard considering reading Mathematics here at the University of Warwick. A NAGTY kid she will not need any more orienteering tours of this campus!
Mike has left us too early. He lived life with a smile on his face and often a cigarette in his hand. He has left behind a family that Bridget and he were very proud of and he lived to see the next generation of grandchildren set off. Mike and family are Catholics and I am sure that his family will be supported by their wider Church family at this difficult time for them. There will be prayers said for them at St. James’, Whitley and in other places around Birmingham I am sure.
Robert McGonigle
07 Mar 2007 12:51
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Tags: Memorium Mike Smith
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7 comments by 3 or more people
[Skip to the latest comment]Sharon Tuersley
I did leave a comment earlier honest – I just don’t know where it’s gone!
Anyway, I remember Mike very well and I use to enjoy chatting to him on the phone, a real character that will be missed, very sorry to hear this sad news.
07 Mar 2007, 16:05
Iain Robertson
Rob,
Sad News; thanks for the reminder that behind the companies we visit lies a real person. Mike and I had great fun clearing a space in his (crowded!) workshop to take his pictures. He put the words together and I rushed home to make and print 10 leaflets. They were delivered to him by Special Delivery; just in time for his first venture out to a “meet the buyer” event! I have often referred to him as an example of a company fighting through the odds. I won’t forget him.
08 Mar 2007, 06:54
Mark Swift
Rob,
A truly fitting obituary to a traditional craftsman, all round decent chap and businessman trying to compete in today’s high competitive environment. In the early days of the project, we (the WMCCM team) learnt a lot from him in terms of what a small business really need. Sad news for all of us.
09 Mar 2007, 15:18
Jay Bal
One of the great pleasures of the WMCCM project is meeting people like MIke. He was a great friend of ours in the support he gave to us, and we all were very fond of him. How are Skillspin doing? was a common question in our office. A company takes on the personality of its owner! we remember MIke as a warm hearted, friendly master craftsman. He will be a big loss to the wide group of friends that he has built up over the years. and also a loss to his industry.
12 Mar 2007, 22:28
kevin bonell
im a metal spinner and have worked and laughed with mike over a number of years,and im very saddend by this unexpected news, my heart goes out to his family and hughe his brother .mike to me was kind, funny and a real mans man.i will miss him and the lovely deep conversations we had.
04 May 2007, 12:47
Therese Smith
Hello,
My eldest sister just sent me the link to this blog, and I have to say thank you very much for all the lovely tributes to and comments about my dad. I’m the youngest daughter mentioned above, and * fingers crossed * I will be coming to Warwick to study Maths and Physics!
Thank you again,
Therese
22 Jun 2007, 14:13
Tony Ashford
Bygone Memories.
Ninteen seventy three. Ah yes the good old days, business wise I mean, lots of work, lots of money to be made and above all, a sense of purpose, Northwood Street, Cannings Jigs, who I did work for, the 2 Petes. Peter Davis of Acorn being one of them and just up the road was Mike Smith (Spinner).
I got to know Mike like most people in the Jewellery Quarter just by passing people every day and saying hello, then stopping for a chat, and the usual, what do you do and so on. In those early days I did a few jobs for Mike, but as with most people they used a particular person and would get other people to do jobs if their agent was on holiday or sick. So it was with Mike, then years later probably in the mid 90s Mike rang me and asked me to quote for a job, after that I did quite a few jobs for Mike. We got on well together becoming quite friendly.
Somedays having a cup of tea and a cake each that I had brought from Gregs on the way round to Mikes workshop, we would sit and talk about work, politics, religion and so on. He was a fairly religious man who did not need proof of his beliefs, a family man who had suffered the blows that life brings, but still held his head up high, and above all was a good craftsman and business man.
Always wanting to push forward he had a web site built and set up by Rob McGonigle of WMCCM, which was to bring Mike a lot of business. Mike had put me in touch with Rob with the prospect of doing the same for me, which I am glad to say came to pass. In the last few years of Mike’s life work had picked up a lot, mainly due to the web site, and of course the spin off for me was obvious, during the last few months the E-mails, phone and fax had not stopped.
Mike said to me when he knew he was ill, that his illness had come at the wrong time, how true this was for all of us.
Rest in peace, Mike.
16 Aug 2007, 09:33
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