Gansey Nation

Someone asked me this week about my worst experiences in archives during my 30 years or so in the profession; and I didn’t have to think very hard before coming up with a short list of about 100 instances. Maybe more.

Of course, an honourable mention goes to that ceilidh I attended at the end of one discouraging Society of Archivists’ conference in the 1990s. The whole thing was like a scene from one of Bosch’s visions of hell—discarded cardigans, naked bodies, demons and flames and pitchforks—only much worse, because this involved archivists and folk music. (Even now, when a stranger sees me drinking alone in a bar and asks me what’s the matter, I can only stare into space and whisper brokenly, You weren’t there, man; you weren’t there.)

Then there was the time I was examining a dirty, mould-encrusted 18th century ledger and looked down to see my hand completely black with filth, all of it except for the shiny pink tip of my index finger, and I realised I’d been unconsciously licking it as I turned the pages. When I looked in the mirror my tongue was liquorice black.

Moon above St Peter’s Church, Wick

Detail of side pattern

But perhaps pride of place belongs to the time I was cataloguing coroner’s records in Wales. The papers had got all mixed up in the trunk of the coroner’s car, and I was sorting them into order. There was this small envelope, and something in it clinked when I picked it up. I tipped the contents into my palm and realised too late that they were two blood-covered bullets—you see, one day in the 1930s a man had come home and found his wife in bed with another man, and had shot them both. I was holding the actual bullets in my hand. In a sense I’m holding them still.

With Margaret being away my evenings are no longer devoted to reciting modernist verse or eurhythmic dancing, so I’ve been progressing the gansey along nicely. I’m about 2/3 of the way up the back, and should finish it this week. I’m glad to say that the central panel is starting to make sense—it’s one of those patterns that you really need to see large.

One thing, though— the anchor’s diagonal rope is asymmetrical, which means that I have to be careful when I read the pattern to count from the left, or the right, depending on whether I’m knitting the row from the front or the back. This requires a level of concentration that does not, you will not be surprised to learn, come naturally to me.

Some other rainy Sunday I’ll drunkenly stagger down memory lane with more Tales From The Strong Room—such as the time I was stranded in the basement of Lowestoft library in a power cut the night before the hurricane of 1987; being called out by the police on New Year’s Eve when the security alarm went off; and of course who could forget the case of the Abandoned Police Cell Toilet?

Ice on Wick River

But for now I’m going to play my CD of archivists’ folk songs and get drunk to such timeless classics as, What Shall We Do With the Drunken Archivist, Thomas The Cataloguer, All Around My Pencil and (my favourite) I’ll Go And List For A Records Manager.

There’s an inlet just south of Wick on the old maps with the wonderful name of Dog’s Haven. Legend has it the place got its name when a ship was wrecked there ages back—all the crew were lost, but the dog alone survived.

I was trying to think what this reminded me of, and then it struck me—when Dracula reached England he came by ship, to Whitby. In the story the ship ran aground, all the crew were dead, the captain’s body lashed to the helm, and a great dog (i.e., Dracula) sprang ashore and disappeared towards the ruined abbey.

And just for a moment I wondered… Suppose there had been another vampire on a second vessel, one who was hard of hearing, and who’d misheard Whitby as Wick. I like to imagine this vampire—Eric, I think his name was—stranded, wandering disconsolately round Caithness, doing odd jobs, unable to fly south to rejoin Dracula in bat form because of the winds.

He tried his hand at the fishing but kept getting sacked when they found he could only kill herring one at a time (and then they came back to life, vampire herring escaping the barrels by dead of night to go and bite other fish). In the end he married a local girl and settled down, but perished on the morning after his wedding when she innocently flung open the curtains to let the sun in and he crumbled to dust.

Meanwhile on the gansey I’ve started the yoke pattern and the gussets, always a red-letter day. (I’ll post the pattern next week when I’m a little further on, so you can compare the theory with the practice.)

Half the shawl. Photographing the whole thing means getting the stepladder out.

I had to re-do a couple of rows when I discovered I’d miscalculated the number of stitches I needed (something that happens more often than my biographers let on). But here’s the strange thing: I only found out in the second pattern row. Somehow I’d made two separate mistakes on the first row, each of which made it seem as though I’d the requisite number of stitches by the half-row end, so I never noticed.

Margaret’s been busy too, finishing another of her lacy-shawly things, the kind of garment I imagine an elf superhero would wear for a cape while keeping the branches of Lothlorien safe for decent people to walk (“down these mean twigs an elf must go…”).

Grey!!

Julie’s been in touch to ask what I do with my leftover gansey yarn stash (mittens, scarves, etc.). I’ve mentioned before that I’m saving mine up till I have enough to knit a multi-coloured gansey, the kind of thing a clown fisherman might wear. I know Judit’s knitted some dashing cellphone covers; but what do you use yours for? Any examples, ideas, please let us know.

Finally this week, Jan and Russ of Frangipani have sent me samples of two new colours in their already impressive range, both shades of grey, viz. pewter and cinder. Grey is my favourite colour (it matches my hair), and I’m particularly taken with the lighter shade, pewter: it has the same sort of sheen I associate with some of the old Scots ganseys, and I think I know just the pattern for it…