Well sadly, no. The fact is if your young pride and joy started to express an unhealthy interest in mesh counts you'd have them straight off to Dr Fruitcake for a thorough inspection. So we have a problem; to begin with, nobody ever dreams of being one of us. And is doesn't end there. You grow up, and for reasons you don't understand, chance encounters, lost bets, whatever, but you end up with a squeegee in one hand and a disk in the other. Now what do you tell people?

I was at a dinner party recently, which to me always seems to be a kind of middle class way of going round to your mate's house for tea, and had the good fortune to be sitting next to an accountant. Well as the standard ice breaker I enquired about his employment status. Two hours of self promotion followed: his humble beginnings, the hardship, the victory over almost insurmountable adversity, and the inevitable rise to number crunching superstardom. Damn he was impressive and throughout I nodded, cajoled and looked interested - I'm English and can do no other. It wasn't easy for him, but eventually he had no choice but to ask me what I did for a living......pause....'I'm a T-shirt Printer', I said......and he said.....'Hmmm'.....and immediately turned his attention to a profiterole.

For him, our dark art wasn't even worth a word, and all he could manage was to simply make a sound. I considered letting the tyres down on his new Mercedes that he'd been boring me about, but that would be small minded, petty and achieve nothing. Well as we were leaving and he was waiting for the RAC to arrive, I heard him making a different kind of sound. So I ran my hand across the water based print I was wearing and smiled, ever so slightly to myself.

There's a job going at my place at the moment for a T-shirt printer, and how am I supposed to advertise that? No kids want to be one, and anyone who is one may not relish the thought of staying one: “Don't leave me here to die with ink on my hands Billy, say you'll come back for me one day...” I might as well see if I can find Yoda in the jungles of the Degoba system, unless of course we look at it a different way. Let us face it; we are at the very least purveyors of momentary happiness. The doctors, the teachers and maybe even flat tyre boy each might save a life, educate a child, file their accounts, and then to ease life’s strain, pull on that favourite tee shirt and just for a second, well maybe feel good about themselves. We add the colour, they feel the texture, and their friend compliments them on their choice; only grains of sand I know, but that's enough for me.

At best we're a mobile gallery, the last place the masses go to buy art: a vehicle for social and political comment; a billboard to shock, inspire and increase awareness; it was only a fraction of a fraction of a small percent, but we once ran the world, and freed Nelson Mandela. Now you might say that's an overblown delusion of grandeur, you might even just say 'hmmm', but if you think I could have a point, and if you can print T-shirts because it matters, give me a call. I might have just the job for you, and maybe, we get to be Wizards after all.

If you think you could be the next screen printing Wizard, Paul Stephenson has a job to offer and can be contacted on 07771 964 974.

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