THINK you know your local plumber? Watch out – he could be the bloke who has written a fascinating new book about the business, revealing many of his most difficult customers.

Nicholas James, (not his real name) explains in Pipe Dreams how he took up plumbing back in the late 1990s to earn extra money to support his growing family.

In an interview with Review he advises people looking for a new plumber to go by recommendation rather than pick one out of the blue who might be inclined to make it up as they go along.

Working mainly in Camden and Islington, Nick, who lives in Crouch End, is not quite your average geezer. For a start, he was privately educated and wasn’t always meant to be changing stopcocks as a living. He has a degree in law and politics, and once worked in marketing. When he decided to do a plumbing training course his friends suggested he was having a mid-life crisis.

“My parents thought I’d gone completely mad. I was, after all, entirely rejecting the life that they’d envisioned for me,” he writes.

Nick admits it may not be an easy job at times, with customers being off-hand and over-demanding, but he’s never been out of work. He says today he has a good relationship with most of his customers, many of whom have been with him throughout his career. Best of all, he maintains that, according to a recent report, plumbers, electricians and nurses will be the last to lose their jobs due to artificial intelligence – humanoid A1 robots – because their jobs require “dexterity, hand-eye coordination and flexibility”.

He remembers being extremely nervous on his very first big job 20 years ago, trying to fix a faulty stopcock which was on the point of flooding a flat near Exmouth Market, Clerkenwell. It didn’t help that the family were Spanish speaking, and as he desperately tried to turn the water off a member accused him of “sleeping on the job” not realising he spoke and understood their language.

Today Nick’s an established and successful plumber with access to a team of highly skilled workers who he describes as the “merry band of misfits”.

The misfit team included electrician Fiona, or Fi for short. She wore dungarees and Doc Martens and according to Nick everyone was scared of her.

He describes her “without doubt the most misogynistic person I’ve ever met but I was never sure if that was just a front. She was, however, a great worker.”

Then there’s Ryan, a burly Irishman with a huge scar down the right side of his face.

“I paid him at the end of each week. He paid his rent and then drank the rest. But he was a very good plumber and he’d turn his hand to absolutely anything.”

Chris, the carpenter is also a good worker: “He’s a bloody good carpenter who wouldn’t put up a shelf unless he could hang from it.”

His mate Ryan used to joke that he (Ryan) wouldn’t put up a shelf unless he could hang Chris from it. Such was the comedy among comrades.

Big Pete was 6ft 7ins and weighed almost 20 stone.

“He was without doubt the most well-read plasterer in London”, Nick writes. “This was partly because he suffered from terrible insomnia, probably because of all the drugs he had in his system. Whenever Big Pete was on site, we always had the most fascinating deep philosophical discussions.”

Dale, over 60, always had a fag in his mouth: “He was the best brickie I’d ever met and one of the best blokes.”

But sadly, Dale collapsed at home one day and died on his way to hospital. Nick describes how he and Dale’s friends had a big drink up in The Faltering Fullback pub in Finsbury Park in Dale’s memory.

“We sent him off in style and, when I left, I burst into tears and cried all the way home.”

In the interview Nick said his book has been well received and now he is considering the possibility of writing further adventures about the trade. “I became a plumber partly as a worthwhile job and also, like a lot of people, I could never find a good plumber.

“The way I get my work is through recommendations. I never advertise now, although I did a little when I first started. There are also various trade organisations that can help find a good qualified plumber.”

• Pipe Dreams: Secret Diaries of a Neighbourhood Plumber. By Nicholas James, Ad Lib, £9.19