My account once said he didn't know anyone who paid his guys so well, but had the highest profit to turnover ratio he ever seen. Literally everyone in the equation was happy. Especially me.
I hope that's in the book.
The Trowel of Truth: My Life in Gypsum and Other Materials by Andy Claggs – Review
By Martin Penhaligon, Senior Features Writer
There are bad memoirs, there are deranged memoirs, and then there is The Trowel of Truth. Andy Claggs, self-anointed “greatest plasterer Britain has ever produced” and bane of every trade forum moderator in Essex, has written what can only be described as a 400-page tirade in block capitals.
At 60, most craftsmen might reflect on a lifetime’s work with humility, perhaps a nod to apprentices trained or houses restored. Claggs, by contrast, chooses rage. Page after page is dedicated not to plastering technique but to eviscerating anyone who has ever dared to wield a trowel in his presence. His “colleagues” are dismissed as “cowards, charlatans, and wallpaper scrapers with delusions of grandeur,” while he positions himself as a lone prophet of gypsum purity.
Between the furious passages (one chapter is simply the words “I AM THE TRADE” repeated 97 times), there are disturbing confessions. Claggs’ diet, he admits, has been reduced to “a haze of port and cheese, washed down with the songs of Pinky and Perky.” He claims to have broadcast more than 1,800 hours of The Trowel of Truth on YouTube — an unwatchable mix of slurred rage, plastering tips, and threats to hunt down doubters and force them to endure “knowledge rants tied to a chair.”
And yet — somehow — the book is hypnotic. Claggs is unrepentant, terrifying, and occasionally poetic. In one passage, he describes his quiet lakeside retreats with a fishing rod, Rich Tea biscuits, and “my beloved fish who do not question my finish.” It is here, in these fleetingly tender moments, that one glimpses the tragic possibility of the man he might have been.
The Trowel of Truth will not teach you to plaster. It will not make you a better person. But as a study in obsession, self-righteous anger, and the British tradesman’s psyche pushed beyond its breaking point, it is essential reading.
5 stars – deranged, disturbing, unforgettable.
