“Everyone has the right to a stable job that can sustain them,” says Mike Biddulph, director of SE16’s Goldfinch Furniture.
The company makes ethical, custom design furniture pieces and supports young people from the area into work through job opportunities: “We set up Goldfinch to act as a vessel to employ young people that no one else is going to employ. A lot of young people have a lot of skills and potential but, for whatever reason, dropped out of school early, get caught up in the wrong stuff, or don’t have the support or drive, it’s really complex.”
Biddulph explains that there is an inequality in job distribution: “In the area, there is a lot of wealth, but there is also a lot of deprivation juxtaposed to it.”
But he says that “Bermondsey is fantastic”, adding: “It’s such a wonderful melting pot of everyone. There are so many different businesses and opportunities in Bermondsey but, also, you have pockets of Bermondsey where young people are destined to not succeed if they follow the natural trajectory that’s been put in front of them.”
Biddulph was a youth worker in the local area before founding London Reclaimed – the larger piece of work behind Goldfinch – in 2011. Realising there was a lot of talk around a lack of jobs for young people, he wanted to change that: “We decided, naively, let’s start creating some jobs.”
He tells The Biscuit how his dad was a furniture maker growing up, “so I was used to the furniture”. He set up making pieces as London Reclaimed using old wood, working under a railway arch in SE16, and the furniture-making side morphed into Goldfinch a few years ago as the business grew.
‘Goldfinch is a vessel to employ young people no one else is going to employ’
The business also processes London trees that have to come down and then use the timber to make beautiful furniture – and always champion grown in Britain, certified and ethically sourced timber for their products.
“We’re kind of the antithesis of that flat pack throwaway culture,” he tells us. “It’s undeniable that the people who buy furniture from us are in the privileged position that they can afford to. Where we help in society charitably is our employment of people, as opposed to giving furniture to people that are in most need. It’s giving jobs to people that are in most need.”
Although, Goldfinch is in the process of trying to fundraise to be able to create a line of furniture for people who don’t have any. Biddulph is in conversation with food banks and other local places where the recipients of food bank parcels or other situations in need can be identified and Goldfinch would be able to provide them with “quality but lightweight furniture that can be assembled and disassembled and moved”.
The “most important part” of the business is the young people that enter the doors. Goldfinch’s current head of design is a former young person, and one of the main baristas at Lumberjack – a cafe that London Reclaimed set up in January 2016 in Camberwell – is also a former young person.
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Each year, the business hires around 15 to 20 young people, who mostly stay with them for a year, says Biddulph.
Young people get in touch with Goldfinch through referrals from different charities and, having been in the area for so long, they also get people walking into the workshop saying: “You helped my cousin”. So people self-refer that way as well.
Jeuwel, a workshop assistant at Goldfinch, says: “Getting a job for young people in my area seems impossible, most people call it a day before they have even tried.”
Tarell, also a workshop assistant, says Goldfinch has “given me an opportunity to work when I believed I wasn’t able to, and I can’t imagine where I’d have been without them”.
‘Goldfinch has given me an opportunity to work when I believed I wasn’t able to’
And a trainee at Lumberjack Cafe in Camberwell, Naliah, says: “This (paid) trainee job has helped me gain confidence and experience in hospitality.”
The aim of London Reclaimed, Goldfinch and Lumberjack is not to give young people a niche – like becoming the best furniture maker or the best coffee maker – but, as Biddulph explains, it’s a “catalyst for change” and, more than anything, what they’re learning is soft skills. He says: “You’ll often have young people that have no work history or knowledge, it’s the soft stuff like turning up on time, conflict resolution, expectations, there’s a whole host of things that they’ve got to master for any job. And they are some of the biggest things we do.”
Building beautiful, sustainable furniture and supporting young people into work are “not mutually exclusive”. Biddulph tells us: “People buy furniture because it’s good. They go into Lumberjack because it’s nice. We were quite clear at the beginning that we didn’t want to sell products or services based on a charitable cause. What we wanted to do was sell exceptional furniture and have an exceptional cafe. And it’s also about employing, mentoring and training local young people, not at the expense of the product or service. But if you strip everything away, what we are really passionate about, and why we actually started, isn’t because we want to get known as the best furniture, we want to be known as the place where you could turn up with a good attitude and get a job in an industry that it would be very unlikely for you to be able to get a job in otherwise.”
Biddulph explains how craft is a privilege: “Most crafts people have had the privilege of time to learn, have had the privilege of low paid or completely non paid positions. I’m not talking about manual labour, I’m talking about artisan craft – furniture makers, painters, artists, poets – real craft, in that sense, is dominated by white middle class men. It’s a privileged industry.
“We don’t hold the key to a demographic widening of furniture making, but what we can do is open the eyes of young people and give them an opportunity and say: ‘This world exists.’”
When Goldfinch looks at young people, in Southwark, in Bermondsey, what they are saying is: “This is a world that you could get into and you might just get that bug.”
Although it’s not the primary reason for Biddulph and Goldfinch’s work, the primary reason is employment full stop and getting more young people into paid jobs. Because, as he explains: “Having a job, I think, is the single biggest factor for change, for social mobility, socioeconomically. If you have a stable job, and you get enough money to live and to enjoy life, and you have been provided an alternative positive, then I think that’s huge for society. However, very specifically in furniture making, occasionally a young person comes along and doesn’t even know it’s a job. Then it’s our job as London Reclaimed to say, right, we are now going to do everything we can to even things out and to get this young person trained.”
Biddulph adds: “We always want to operate from a place of hope. We don’t want to operate from a place of fear mongering or being condescending. There’s so much potential in our local young people. It’s about us, as the wider society, creating opportunities for that potential to come out. We’re an opportunities-based organisation rather than a needs-based organisation. There are lots of opportunities and talent in our local young people, and it’s about engaging with that.”
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Unit 2, 7 Spa Road, Bermondsey, SE16 3QP
70 Camberwell Church Street, SE5 8QZ
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