After 58 years in the barrel making business, Les Skinner, 74, is looking to take some much deserved time for himself.
Les's cooperage sits a five-minute walk away from the Bootle Oriel Road Merseyrail station, its back against the bank of the Leeds-Liverpool Canal.
And it's been there for generations - but may not be for much longer.
Les spoke to the ECHO about his life as one of Britain's last coopers - and said: "I stated serving my time in 1960, I was a 16-year-old when I started a five-year apprenticeship before I bought my own business, I moved my workshop here in 1973."
The building is old, built in 1899 and showing its age.
Les said: "This place used to be a borax works before my time here", adding that history is etched into the fabric of the building as he points out the cracked red bricks speckled with moss.
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Les recently tried to sell his cooperage to a neighbouring company, but the sale fell through. forcing him to keep working.
He said: "Once upon a time this whole back yard and the inside would be stacked three barrels high, all the way to the back. At one point we even had to put up scaffolding poles on the back walls to stop kids throwing barrels into the canal."
Sadly, those moments are lost to history, without even a photo to remember the past.
Les chuckled: "You never think to take pictures when you're working away, in those days I never even thought I'd get to a point I could retire!"
As time has gone on, the need for barrels has dropped as newer, cheaper materials have become more usable for storing liquid alongside corporate monopolies' held on production of alcohol.
He said: "Nearly every brewery in Liverpool used to fill their own barrels, meaning they needed their own barrels made. Metal casks being used for beer have affected us too."
Most of Les' work now comes from making props and replicas for television, movies and historical sites. But as time goes on, sources of income are dwindling.
"Over the years I've done gunpowder barrels for the Tower of London and pretty much every castle with English Heritage."
The quality of Les's barrels mean that for clients like these there is little need for repeat business.
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"A lot of it is decorative now, movie props. I think the last film I worked on was the Robin Hood film with George Clooney. That was alright, they paid me around £12,000 for the barrels they used.
"I also made barrels for the Assassins Creed film but I never saw any barrels in the film at all."
That said, Les doesn't mind what happens to the props he makes, if they're blown up, shot or otherwise - to Les "a barrel's a barrel".
On having to retire Les said: "I don't really want to retire, but I've got to do it, I need to sell this place, otherwise I'll have no pension."
How are barrels made?
A barrel initially begins life shaped like a shuttlecock before the the individual staves are bowed inwards, put under tension by the metal rings on the outside pulling the wooden staves into a more familiar shape.
To bend the wood each stave is often steamed or charred with heat to make the wood take shape easier.
American white oak is Les's timber of choice but over his time he has seen barrels made from pine.
He said: "I once had to repair rum barrels from Bhutan and they were made from teak! Very unusual.
"Yeah, It's a shame, I mean there's around 200 coopers in Scotland looking after all the whisky, but in England no one's looking to fill barrels apart from the rum company I work for."
Having already started to pass on his tools to a younger generation of apprentices, Les is getting ready to shut up shop, as well as ensuring some tricks of the trade won't be lost to time forever.
Not quite ready for a life entirely full of leisure, Les said: "I still love it. I've never regretted coming into work. But I'm sure I'll find something to do."
