The weird and wonderful experiences of a chimney sweep booked to appear at wedding ceremonies
Kevin Giddings is among chimney sweeps continuing the little-known tradition of wishing couples luck on their happy day
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Your support makes all the difference.The saying goes that to guarantee a successful marriage, every wedding should feature something old, something new, something borrowed and something blue - and, according to some, a sooty chimney sweep.
Kevin Giddings, a 56-year-old chimney sweep based in Crawley, is living proof that this arguably unusual tradition is yet to fade into obscurity. Most days, Giddings and his small team at Millborrow Chimney Sweeps in West Sussex are occupied with cleaning chimney flues in Victorian terraced houses and woodfire-pizza restaurants. But for around 25 days a year, he will dress up in traditional Victorian garb of a waistcoat and tails, and surprise happy couples at ceremonies with his lucky black cat clinging onto his shoulder.
Rarely hired by the bride and groom themselves, Giddings and other sweeps are booked by older family members as a surprise. Sweeping his first chimney aged 21-years-old when Millborrow was his father’s business, Giddings has appeared at thousands of weddings over the course of his three-decade-long career.
“At a wedding we basically hide during the ceremony. When the bride and groom appear, we come out and say hello. It’s our job to wish them luck and shake the groom’s hand and kiss the bride," he tells The Independent.
As coal and other solid fuel fires become less and less common in British homes, sweeps too have become less of a necessity, as have their appearances at weddings. But in decades past when women were largely confined to lives of domesticity, Geddings explains, having a relationship with the local chimney sweep was part and parcel of married life for housewives.
“This goes back to Georgian times. When a woman became a wife she was put in charge of the household. She had to do everything, from using hot water to cook and heat the home. Without the chimney sweep none of this happened because it was all done by the open fire. If the bride didn't know the chimney sweep she couldn't become the mistress of the house.”
Woven into this is the belief that chimney sweeps are somehow inherently lucky, after one saved King George II’s life during a royal procession two centuries ago. Legend has it that when a dog bit the leg of the horse driving the monarch’s carriage, sending the animal into a frenzy, a mysterious chimney sweep soothed the horse before disappearing back into the crowd.
“In those days they used to climb up the chimney as flue brushes only came in during the 1880s,so he would have been a rather smelly raggamuffin,” jokes Giddings, “Now we do try to wash,” he adds with a laugh.
“I have seen so many lovely things. I’ve been to some beautiful venues and been able to kiss some beautiful women,” recalls Giddings. “We have been to a few same-sex weddings. One of them was with two girls who got married on Halloween. Everyone was dressed up and I really looked the part."
One of his most memorable weddings took place the grandiose Westminster Cathedral in central London. “The church and the service were fantastic. But when I left to go home with my rods and my cat on my shoulder, my car wasn’t there. It had been towed away. I’d parked in the wrong zone. I went to the main road and I had three taxi drivers slow down, look at me and drive off.
"There I was, stuck in town with a cat. How frightening was that! It cost me £120 in the end to get the car back,” he adds.
But Giddings isn’t alone in not having the best luck. "In 28 years with a cat on my shoulder I've gone through 12 cats," he says. "They keep getting run over. The eldest have been 14 and eight.”
And if the idea of red wine splashing from the glass of a drunken wedding guest onto a bride’s clean, white gown sends chills down your spine, the tradition of surprising a happy couple with a sooty chimney sweep might sound baffling. Giddings admits, neither are some of his unwitting couples.
“I have had several brides who were allergic to cats so I kept away from them. The last wedding I did they were a bit curt with me,” he adds. “It was fine but their faces said ‘who the hell are you?!’ I had to reduce my speech because you could tell they were thinking ‘we want to get on here and I realised knew it was organised by the couple but a loved one'," he adds.
“Two weeks later she phoned and apologised and said they just didn't know what to do at first." But after his lengthy career Giddings isn't put off, and as long as chimneys need to be swept and people get married, he and his cat will be just a phonecall away.
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