2024 – The end of the dry stone waller?
I usually write these end of year reviews to showcase the work that I’ve done. No-one really ever reads them on the web site, but I would post the link to my 20000 followers on Facebook and Instagram. Some people would read the words. Some would comment, but essentially I’d be writing for the benefit of search engines. But I deleted my social media in 2024 and now there is no-one to read it, so who cares what I write!
2024 proved itself to be unlike any other.
The year just ended proved itself to be the most illuminating of the 20 or so years that I’ve been working with stone.
One theme carried over from 2023 – my removal from involvement in the dry stone walling scene. I’d been doing this for a while. It’s been a natural progression. First you find out that people you thought were friendly, were in reality anything but. Then it just grew into an acceptance that the community I had thought existed was only really welcoming if you accepted their rules. Which I don’t.
Always on the outside looking in
I was never comfortable with the DSWA craftsman tests that so many seemed treat as gospel.
So after years of trying to be part of the scene, I removed myself. I took myself out of the various stone groups on FB – there was just way too much tension there. Then I started to unfollow all of the stone wallers social media pages because I came to realise that I just wasn’t interested in what people were up to. Finally I cut myself out of the personal connections to most of the wallers I personally knew – these people were not friends, no matter how friendly I thought we were.
Social media gone
I’d spent years building up my followers, reaching 10k in each but I was never really convinced of the reason for doing so – partly ego to get my work out there for likes and comments, partly trying to be part of a “community” and partly because I thought it was good for business.
But the reality is that there is no community. The social media brought in virtually no business, and doing anything because of your ego is bad for the soul.
At the start of the year though I was offered the tempting chance to make some money on my FB account – the more I posted, the more likes, comments and interactions I got, the more I would earn. Why not? Free money. And for the first two months it was easy. I just had to post enough reels and images to hit engagement targets and I would make some money. Not much but £300 in my pocket was better than nothing.
But then the targets increased, requiring me to post more content every day and add larger numbers of new followers each week. But if I was having trouble getting enough new engagement through posting content, then I could pay to advertise to get my posts in front of 1000s more potential followers. So essentially FB acted like a casino, offering me some house money up front with the expectation that I’d pay it all back and more through advertising.
All of this would be positive if work enquiries came of it. But the truth is that social media never did lead to work – I can think of two actual jobs that came from Facebook and nothing ever from Instagram.
And when the trolling increased as I posted more frequently, I decided that social media and me were done.
So I deleted both of my accounts in June and you know what, life has carried on.
The aftermath
The weirdest part of deleting the social media accounts was the reaction, or more specifically, the lack of it. Now, I have never assumed that people followed the accounts for any other than their own vague interest in what I posted online. I knew there were a lot of people who like to live vicariously through others – you post a pic, they like it. Interaction completed.
But when I had made the decision to delete the accounts, I gave a weeks notice. I had asked those who wanted to stay in touch, to let me know and I’d set up a Whatsapp group for people. Take up was minimal.
The number of people who got in in touch to ask if I was ok – in this new world of opening up about your mental health – was virtually zero. One to be correct. One person asked if everything was ok.
The best way to find out who your friends are is to ask for help.
Where is this all leading
This is a good question. I’ve been here before at various times, wondering if I want to carry on my business. At the moment I’ve set myself a deadline of the tax year end on 31 March to officially wind-up the business. I have work on until then.
After that? There is no plan.
And what did I actually make?
Well, amongst all of the angst, I did build some things.
This was a continuation of low walls built on this property in Perth.
I finished Wavey Wall at the Japanese garden in Fife.
I made a curved bench in Edinburgh.
And a fancy wall and some paving in Livingston.
And another fancy wall and chunky steps in Fife.
I finished the edging and cap stones at the tea hut in Fife.
I also laid tens of metres of edging and built a short section of path using spare setts.
I did a small repair to a damaged wall in Falkirk.
And then spent the last quarter of the year building this large free-standing dry stone wall in North Lanarkshire.