Nicholas James’ life might have been very different. He could have been wearing a suit and tie, with a barrister’s wig atop his head as he practiced law in a courtroom. Instead, he made a dramatic switch to train as a plumber and embraced a new profession as a bathroom fitter. 

Now a published author, with his first book, Pipe Dreams: The Secret Diaries of a Neighbourhood Plumber, Nicholas has clearly refused to be pigeonholed throughout his lengthy career.

Originally from Derbyshire, Nicholas studied for a degree in law and politics at City, University of London. His mother was an English teacher and he had wanted to follow in her footsteps studying English before becoming a writer. However, his father persuaded him to study a discipline that would lead to a profession. And, ultimately, law was the choice. 

Retrospectively, Nicholas admits that this was a mistake as he knew he never wanted to be a lawyer. He completed his law degree but upon leaving university, instead of going into the law profession, he embarked on a varied career, mostly centred around jobs in marketing.

Hard to find good help

It was when Nicholas was working for a small marketing agency, that he met Jo. The pair had what Nicholas describes as a “real love affair” as they “fell in love over Excel spreadsheets in Potters Bar and Peterborough.” 

The couple were simply meant to be, but the arrival of their first child, Oli, precipitated what Nicholas calls a premature mid-life crisis – realising that he could no longer work in the confines of an office, he knew he had to do something else. 

As luck would have it, a new career found him. While renovating a flat and finding himself unable to locate a decent plumber, he ambitiously decided that he could do it himself. 

Nicholas ended up retraining as a plumber, although he admits that it was much harder than an academic degree. He recalled: “It’s bloody hard work, much harder than a law and politics degree. I’m really pleased that I did. It’s been great, I’ve been really lucky.”

A band of misfits

Over the next few years, Nicholas put together a merry band of misfits to help with his business of property development. “We were essentially a very loose coalition of tradespeople who regularly came together to renovate people’s flats, sharing the work between us in a collaborative way,” explained Nicholas. 

The team was composed of Ryan, the accidental assistant, a burly, heavy drinking Irishman with a shady past that Nicholas met while doing a bathroom refit in Belsize Park and that he describes as “one of the bravest men he’s ever met” after seeing him confront someone trying to steal tools from his van. 

Next on the roster was Big Pete, the 6’7” plasterer, with huge hands, who could plaster ceilings without a ladder. Nicholas describes him as “an original thinker who enjoyed philosophical conversations and was the most well-read plasterer in London, who likely read so much because he suffered from drug-induced insomnia.” 

As a youth, Chris the carpenter served 18 months in Pentonville after being caught with a quantity of cannabis, but he was keen to make up for his mistakes by being honest and hardworking. Nicholas says that Chris: “took communication to the next level, explaining everything in great detail, and was always ready to go the extra mile – for which he was adored by his clients.” 

Not influenced by any stereotypes that surrounded them, those men were, in his own words, “fundamentally very decent people and very good at what they did.”

Telling tales

Nicholas only ever intended to take work as a plumber to pay the bills and support his writing. But it didn’t quite work out as he’d hoped. He found himself in demand and ended up becoming a full-time plumber. 

“I’ve always had an ambition to write, but once I started up as a plumber and got a bit of business, I just couldn’t turn the work away.” Yet it was the nature of the job, going into people’s homes and seeing how they live that gave Nicholas the subject matter for his book. 

“I got an insight into people’s lives and I began to realise that their stories could be turned into my story,” he said. Nicholas told these stories many times over the years, at the pub with friends, or at dinner parties, but it wasn’t until the global upheaval in 2020, that they finally found a home on the page.

Like many other people whose lives were somehow changed by the pandemic Nicholas says that it was only really during lockdown, when he was prevented from going into people’s homes to work, that he began to put pen to paper to write some of the stories from his many years of experiences. 

In Pipe Dreams, Nicholas relates many tales, including one about “a lost dog named Jesus that looked like a rabid Alsatian”, which he has supposed to be looking after while on a plumbing job. But there is of course a twist. 

Nicholas also lays out his theory that life is like a game of chess – no matter how much you try to plan ahead – you will always end up reacting to what is in front of you. 

A raconteur

Nicholas believes that a large part of being a successful plumber lies in having decent social skills, a genuine interest in people, and an understanding of what makes them tick. He says he found more work through creating relationships with people and having them recommend him to other than he ever would through his old profession of marketing. 

It’s clear that Nicholas has a genuine ability to write interesting, captivating stories, having perhaps gained some of his ability to turn a phrase from his mother, or to hold the attention of an audience from his father who he says was a “bit of a raconteur and an engaging public speaker.”

The book deal

As for how the book deal came about, Nicholas says that after showing the manuscript to friends, he was encouraged to get it published. He duly researched literary agents, and having chosen four, he sent his submission to them. 

“Within a couple of days I’d secured a meeting with the man who would later become my agent and, after he sent my manuscript off to several publishers, I was delighted to be offered a book deal,” he said. 

Fast-forward 15 months and the book was published in March 2023. Sales figures are currently unavailable, but Nicholas says: “I just hope that people read my book and enjoy it.”

What the future holds

After over 20 years of plumbing and as he reaches his mid-50s, Nicholas says that his days as a jobbing plumber are numbered. He doesn’t know many in the profession over the age of 60. 

“Most older plumbers are either working behind the counter at a merchant, or have retired to Spain,” he explained. 

But with his first book published, and a second in the pipeline, Nicholas has a new career to explore and into which to invest his time and energies. “The awkward locations, and age will at some point get the better of me, and after 22 years of plumbing, it’s nice to finally be doing what I originally wanted to do, which was always going to be writing.” 

However, Nicholas says that he wants to keep plumbing for as long as possible. “My knees may be starting to go, my days of carrying cast iron baths upstairs have come to an end, but I’d like to keep my hand in as a plumber because I have a loyal client base, and enjoy the variety of the work and the chance to meet so many different people,” he said.

Pipe Dreams is a book replete with colourful characters, amusing stories, and funny anecdotes. The situations it describes will be immediately familiar to plumbers and tradespeople, but it will also win over the casual reader as Nicholas exhibits an aptitude for a fine turn of phrase. 

The stories are charming, and for a book ostensibly about plumbing, it’s quite the page turner. Whatever Nicholas does next, whether it’s with a pen, or a spanner in his hand, he is destined to continue to find success.