One day out of the blue, on the last working day of the week, I received a rather unusual job advertisement by email:

"Like to be constantly out and about wearing smart vintage formal attire no matter the occasion? To be always suited and booted with the likes of a bowler hat, collar and tie?

Yet is also one who wouldn't mind becoming an increasingly muscular scruff, getting hot and sweaty while doing some good old-fashioned dirty work in the same clothes? To be a working gentleman tramp, always to be wearing out completely your former Sunday best to filthy, tattered and torn rags while getting perpetually covered in used engine grease, grimy motor oil, and thick muddy clay?

Are current employment opportunities not sufficient to even keep a roof over your head, never mind feed you enough to put meat on your bones, or to keep yourself in boots and fine tailoring? Well, work for us instead, as part of our Edwardian period themed engineering and mining community!

We offer a generous benefits package, including full board, lodging, and all modern conveniences, located in an idyllic rural setting no less, access to traditional cobblers, milliners and tailors, as well as covering all relocation costs, a great health plan, gym membership, and company pension! We've also got a wide variety of career opportunities available and are willing to provide any and all clothing, education, training, tools, and equipment required for you to grow to become an integral part of our working community!

All we ask is that you're someone who prefers getting dirty, muddy and sweaty while also being dressed to the nines, doesn't like frequent bathing or laundering of clothes, wants to develop and grow your muscles to the point of bursting out of your fine formal rags, and is also willing to commit to a minimum of a five year contract. No experience or qualifications necessary, just a willingness to work hard by the sweat of your brow as an always well-dressed Edwardian navvy is all that's needed!

We'll cover all interview and travel costs too, just give us a call!

(Disability confident)."

Well, after years of being treated like dirt by the horrible hyper-competitive job market, finding a job like this was almost too good to be true. Indeed, it sounded just like the sort of thing only very old people from back in the day used to talk about in terms of how easy it was to get work and earn a decent enough living to be able to support an entire family, doing nothing more than basic manual labour.

So, needless to say, while fearing that the job had already disappeared like vapour, and thus initially not taking it entirely seriously, to protect myself emotionally after years of abuse and disappointment resulting from more than a quarter of a century of perpetual job hunting, I nevertheless took the chance towards the end of that very same Friday afternoon and made the call.

To my great surprise, the person on the other end of the line promptly responded, while sounding oddly like I was speaking to a person of another time. It was if he were the host of an early 1920s BBC radio show who spoke nearly impeccable English, with just a trace of a Cornish accent. Still, that he was actually willing to talk to me, never mind consider me for a role there, even after finding out about my health conditions through me being honest with him about having a history of back problems with dyspraxia. However, he was able to reassure me that such issues wouldn't be a problem, thanks to their willingness to make adjustments as required, along with their access to good doctors, physiotherapists and other health care professionals. It wasn't even necessary for him to see my (less than stellar) CV!

The other odd thing was, he was exceptionally curious about my measurements, along with what I typically liked to wear, and even my personal hygiene. So when he found out that I was one who was fairly tall, still slimly built despite being well into middle age, liked to be physically active, yet still preferred being traditionally dressed at all times in a three-piece morning suit, shirt, collar, tie and bowler hat, complete with accessories such as a pocket watch, leather gloves, and a furled umbrella, while also being one who didn't like dry cleaning and generally preferred not to wash more than my face, moustache, hands, feet and privates, there was an audible gasp of surprise on the other end of the line, accompanied with the brief sound of cloth being ripped in the background. The sepia image of the muscular interviewer, having gone to all the effort of dressing for the evening in already tight fitting formalwear, now trying to hold back from becoming The Hulk, suddenly came to mind.

It apparently took a moment for the interviewer to compose himself again before going on to list the following stipulations for the forthcoming interview. Firstly, that I was to be so formally dressed for the interview session, but not to concern myself with having my clothes cleaned, beyond giving them a good brushing. That I was to clean my teeth, but otherwise not to bathe beyond the basics previously mentioned. That my nails were to be well trimmed, along with a short back and sides haircut. Also, that any facial hair was to be cut, trimmed and styled as preferred, but to otherwise do nothing more for a couple of days prior to the interview so that I would come generally unshaven and unwashed. Finally, not to administer any deodorant.

I also had to assure him that I was indeed the sort to not be too bothered about "a dash of mud and grime" with "a bit of wear and tear" ruining my interview outfit, what with the requirements of the job and all. However, their willingness to cover all interview related expenses, right down to any clothing damage that will almost certainly be inflicted during the course of proceedings, along with the unique opportunity being offered, had me deciding there and then that this was all well worth the sacrifice of my current formal wardrobe.

Apparently, he was used to people being sceptical of the unusual advert, to the extent of many not even responding to it, while also being disappointed in the precious few who did so, most of which turned his offer down flat on hearing his additional requirements to be granted an interview. So, as it turned out, he was as happy as I was that he'd finally found a suitable and willing candidate.

He then went on to mention (notably with his Cornish accent becoming more prominent throughout, along with further background sounds of clothing being torn a little bit more at a time) that there was "many a fine buxom maid within the community of child rearing age", who preferred their men to be dirty, sweaty, muscular and strong, as real men should be. Also, that they would be happy to partner with, be courted by, wed and even breed with such men. After all, recruiting "fresh blood" from outside wasn't the only way in which the community maintained and grew its working population!

So, the interview process would involve ascertaining all my potentials, including my mental and physical abilities, to then recommend any "special adjustments" to my diet, education and exercise regimes to compensate as required, in order to help me find my purpose and, in time, grow to find my place within the community.

Nonplussed, I responded with asking if I were to become breeding stock myself, as it occurred to me that what was being described had at least some parallels with the raising of a prize bull. He responded in the affirmative, having gone through the process himself and reaped all of its rewards.

His example revolved around how he had first met both his equal and the love of his life while working on an engineering design project. The resultant fruits of their happy union were three darling children to their name, with another already on the way! This may never have happened had his talents in the arts and sciences not been discovered then developed during the first few years of his recruitment. He had also been given ample encouragement to progress through the ranks as he gained experience through putting his skills to practice while working alongside master tradesmen in their respective fields. Yet all of them had started out as lowly single navvies up to their tailored knees in mud!

Promotion didn't mean escaping the clay pits or other dirty menial engineering tasks altogether though, as skilled staff and tradesmen were still rotated in as required to perform alongside other navvies, so that others would have time to train and develop themselves, or to simply have some personal time off. This was a policy that was supposed to ensure that such men "didn't get too big for their boots". In practice though, this was how they liked it, either to break in a new outfit, or to break out of an old one, by wearing out their boots until they fell apart and getting too big for their disintegrating formalwear instead!

Afterwards, on looking up the place, I found out that it was actually a privately funded and subsidised heritage China clay mining town, located in Cornwall, kind of like the Beamish Museum town up North, but instead a closed community, with added mud and grime. Just as with the Beamish Museum though, the gentlemen there were also (at least initially) finely dressed in already well weathered but still well maintained period style, such as silk top hats with frock coats, or bowlers with chalk-stripe business suits, complete with stiff collars and ties, as they went about their business, mud splattered trouser cuffs over broken in Balmorals and all.

However, with later photos on the given website, their formal attire looked to have then undergone further authentically harsh industrial working conditions while labouring in and around the clay pits. At first, the progressive muscle growth from their efforts, combined with the mud, sweat, oil and toil inflicted upon their garments, had their finely tailored wardrobes steadily shrinking around their increasingly mighty frames. Their period costumes then gradually exhibited further stages of "going to seed" as they were slowly worn and torn to the point of no return. All of which resulted in the men slowly hulking out of their deteriorating tailoring stitch by fraying stitch!

By the end of the series of photos, the men who had been wearing their present suit of clothes the longest had become powerfully muscled gentleman tramps, the worst cases of which having had their once fine wardrobes reduced to filthy, worn and torn remnants, the shreds of which barely maintaining their dignity over their privates, while still managing to retain what little was left of their worn out formal hats, collars, ties, boots and gloves. Yet the whole time though, they seemed happy with their lot, looking as if they were thoroughly enjoying their transformation from refined gentlemen to filthy scruffs in tattered old rags while crawling around the rough insides of oily machinery and rolling about in all that lovely mud!

So, this could well confirm the interesting mental image I had of the gentleman who interviewed me over the phone, sitting in his office at an antique polished wooden desk with an old-fashioned "dog and bone" rotary phone with brass accents in hand, now sporting a thick walrus moustache similar to my own and a few days worth of stubble, with a gold rimmed monocle no less, along with a battered old silk opera top hat and well worn kid leather evening gloves, desperately trying to hold back from hulking out of his thoroughly brushed, yet still greasy from months of accumulated sweat and grime with oil and mud stains, ill-fitting 1920s BBC Radio presenter's three-piece tuxedo outfit. Indeed, he may well had gotten a little too hot and sweaty under the collar with excitement on hearing how much of an unusually good fit I was for the opportunity being offered, along with him talking about his personal experiences with the community only making things worse.

The resultant involuntary flexing of his muscles during the call, as the complex chemical brew of growth hormones and testosterone mixed into his protein enriched diet took full effect, would then have had him begin to burst, rip and tear out of his straining sweat soaked formal garments!

Starting with his grimy stiff wing collar springing wide open, the upper buttons of his yellowed French cuffed shirt, undershirt and lapelled waistcoat bursting free from his expanding hairy chest, his shredding silk bow tie unravelling, his meaty hands blowing out the fingers and ripping open the seams of his oil stained kid leather gloves, thickening wrists straining the chains of his tarnished gold barrelled cufflinks, his rock hard torso also straining his double Albert gold pocket watch chain and his remaining waistcoat and shirt buttons, the cloths and seams of his well worn tailcoat, waistcoat, shirt and undershirt, particularly around his shoulders, biceps and broadening back bursting and ripping open, exposing his heavily stretched button-on braces and elastic armbands, then accompanied with further ripping sounds of cloth and leather emerging from below the table, with his powerful thighs tearing open the silk striped side seams of his fishtail trousers, exposing his yellowed long johns, his thickening calves snapping open his double-grip sock garters, and his growing muscular feet bursting the laces and seams of his heavily scuffed Balmorals and ripping through his merino wool socks and the worn out calf leather of his boots, with him helplessly relishing every sound and sensation of his now uncontrollable muscle growth slowly but surely destroying all of his vain efforts to preserve the once fine evening wear that he's now hulking out of, all while still trying to maintain his composure throughout!

So I was under no illusions about how long the individual pieces of my cheap eBay based morning outfit would last the course. Indeed, my poverty was already showing in the frayed edges of my stiff wing collar, the French cuffs of my collarless shirt, and the cuffs of my jacket and trousers. Yet the generous package being offered would assuredly keep me in fine old-fashioned boots, hats, tailoring, and all other accessories for many years to come.

I had thought that the days of wearing your "former Sunday Best" to do dirty work, had gone with the arrival of the yellow safety vest and the insistence of modern society to always be so uncomfortably clean, the enforced wearing of casual dress, and having to wear deodorant.

So, to find a place that offered the prospect of finally being free to get really dirty, grimy, muddy and sweaty while thoroughly wearing out fine Edwardian era attire over and over again, as apparently many labourers and tramps of old did from looking at turn of the 20th century photos. To no longer need nor require undue concern for cleanliness or preservation of my clothing, beyond perhaps the regular use of a stiff clothing brush to take the excess dried mud off, with the freedom to otherwise rarely bathe and enjoy simply being a working gentleman scruff. To always end up wearing such attire to filthy shreds without judgement from those around as it will simply be the norm. That I could even grow so big and strong that I would end up bursting out of the civilised confines of my wardrobe even before it all wears out completely with my transformation into a hulking muscular beast of burden, I had to admit all this alone was enough to excite me no end!

That there was also the possibility of finding someone to love that I could settle down and have kids with, a partner in life who would in turn find me attractive, even with stinking of sweat, mud and grime with my tailoring frequently reduced to filthy remnants barely holding on by mere threads to my muscular body and all, only added fuel to the fire.

So, after years of feeling like I simply didn't belong in the overly demanding modern world of employment, for the first time in my entire working life, I had finally found a place where I would be able to fit right in!