A bit about how this book came to be, before we dive in: I grew up around the Stalybridge area in Tameside, proper local lad, know these streets like the back of me hand. The idea for this story first popped into my head about 15 years ago, sparked by a character I actually knew who lived and worked round here – a larger-than-life sort who inspired the whole thing. Of course, the name Daz is pure fiction, and a hell of a lot of the other details are made up or exaggerated for the laugh (and the drama). I started jotting down notes here and there after that initial spark, but it wasn’t until late 2022 into 2023 that I proper knuckled down and started writing it. Turned it into this book that’s been brewing ever since. Anyway, enough about that – on with the show…
It were one of them July mornings when the sun’s out like it’s got a point to prove, baking the streets of Tameside till the whole place shimmers like a greasy kebab tray under the heat lamp. Air so thick you could chew it and still taste yesterday’s chippy. And slicing right through the middle of it all, parting the crowds wider than the M60 at rush hour, came Daz.
You’d get the whiff of him long before the sight.
Not just a smell, mind – that’s far too kind. It were a full-on assault: a knockout punch of week-old Cheddar festering in a wrestler’s sweaty jockstrap, parcelled up in a bin liner and left to ripen in the boot of a knackered old Vauxhall Cavalier. Flies swarmed him like he were the messiah of muck, a proper buzzing crown. Biblical levels of grim.
He were pedalling that ancient 1957 Raleigh wreck of a bike, the one that looked like it’d been sunk with the Titanic and fished out by some scavenger with a fishing magnet. Chain clattering like a ghost with a chesty cough. Tyres balder than a coot, basically just liquorice rims on the road. Saddle – once red vinyl, now the shade and feel of a sliced bit of corned beef. Every stomp on the pedals sent a fresh wobble through the massive overhang of his belly, spilling out the bottom of a T-shirt that’d surrendered any claim to decency years back. Stains layered on stains – a proper abstract masterpiece of curry drips, engine grease, and mysterious brown smears that definitely weren’t Nutella.
Daz didn’t sweat. He bloody fermented.
He swung round the corner by the war memorial (where the poppies had faded and gone black years ago) and the pigeons perched up top actually keeled over. Plop, plop, plop – little feathered casualties hitting the deck like they’d been hit with tear gas. One old lass waiting for the 236 bus clutched her handbag tight, muttered “Jesus wept,” and scarpered toward the library like the apocalypse was nipping at her heels. Though there was only one rider of the apocalypse here – and he reeked of the slimy gunk at the bottom of a wheelie bin that even maggots turn their noses up at.
He didn’t clock any of it. Never does.
Daz just flashed that massive daft grin (teeth like nicotine-stained custard, gaps you could thread a rope through) and gave the bell a hopeful ding. Bell hadn’t rung since 1983, but he dinged it anyway. Tradition, innit.
comedy written by Owen Croft
A squadron of bluebottles trailed him down Acres Lane, buzzing in formation like they were on a kamikaze run. Kids on BMXs veered sharpish. Dogs started retching. One fresh-faced lad in hi-vis (newbie on the bins) caught a glimpse, went green as kale, and spewed straight into his own wagon. Daz waved a lazy mitt in hello.
“Morning, soft lad. You’ll toughen up to it.”
He won’t. No bugger ever does.
Cos this is Stalybridge in 2025, and Daz the Binman is fifty-two years young, two hundred and eighty-four pounds of unapologetic, unwashed legend – the undisputed king of stench across Greater Manchester. Cheese running through his veins, Pot Noodle in his heart, and a brother who once shagged his missus in the downstairs khazi. He brews Yorkshire Tea strong enough to rouse the dead and downs Newcastle Brown to put ’em back under. Hasn’t seen the business end of a shower since the 2012 Olympics (and that was only to fish out a missing sock).
And he’s content as a pig in proper shite.
This is his manor.
These are his roads.
That pong? That’s the signature scent of a bloke who’s found his true vocation, lost his wife along the way, and never bothered glancing in the rear-view.
If you can hack it, hang about for more.
If not – well, that’s why bookshops stock air fresheners by the till.
But whatever you do, breathe through your gob.
The Knobfather out May 11th 2026