Gansey Nation

My father passed away last week, and we went down to be with the family for a few days. Strange how the house I did most of my growing up in, which had seemed smaller each time I visited it, should now feel so much larger again; and, of course, emptier.

Down south we discovered the country was experiencing a heatwave—temperatures 24-28ºc—which caught us out rather: it was a brisk 12º when we left home, so we arrived incongruously dressed in jumpers and scarves. I’d forgotten just how inescapable heat can be, how it comes at you from all sides (when I’d removed all the clothing that decency allowed, plus a little bit extra just to be daring, I found myself starting to dissolve into something resembling a sunburnt strawberry blancmange). On the drive back I noticed all the animals in the fields aligned in geometric rows wherever there was shade from hedges, trees or pylons: I found myself wondering if they shuffled round as the sun moved, like a living farmyard sundial, so balloonists could tell the time.

The Hebrides cardigan has necessarily had to be put on hold—hopefully we’ll get to it this week. I took a cone of Frangipani navy yarn with me though, and cast on the stitches for another gansey. This one will be for me, so it has the regulation 336 stitch welt, increasing by 32 to 368 stitches for the body. It will have a plain body, but I honestly don’t know what the yoke pattern will be yet—I can’t make my mind up between four or five patterns. At least I’ll have a few weeks’ plain knitting before I have to choose one.

Finally this week I’d like to share with you some of my favourite lines written by Philip Larkin:

By way of variety this week I thought I’d share with you an extract from Iain Sutherland’s book on the Fishing Industry of Caithness (2005). It’s about ganseys, of course, and I think it’s interesting because it’s written from the perspective of a historian, not a knitter:

“The visiting fishermen all wore ganseys, which varied from area to area, with the Highland fishermen the most distinctive of all. They wore the Highland bonnet, which was similar to a Tam o’ Shanter, and their dress ganseys had a distinctive pattern knitted into them. Every fisherman had at least two kinds of gansey, one for working in and the other was a dress gansey for any social event, including the kirk.

Nybster Harbour in fog

“The work ganseys were knitted round with thick wool, very plainly, and had no buttons on which a net could catch. The sleeves were knitted short and stopped in mid-forearm with deep cuffs down to just above the wrist to keep in the warmth and to prevent the chafing if the sleeves got wet. Similarly there was a deep midriff to grip the area around the kidneys and to keep their backs warm. The dress ganseys were where their wives really showed what they could do with knitting needles, and nearly every port had its own patterns which usually involved the Horn of Plenty, cable stitch, an anchorage, the shore, all knitted round on needles so fine that the knitting looked like weaving.

Mervyn’s Tower at Nybster – a gansey in stone?

“They also had certain button arrangements, grouped on the shoulder, which could be undone to stop the neck from stretching when the gansey was being taken off or on. Most Highland fishermen wore horn buttons, which appeared white, and fishermen from the east coast wore their buttons in groups of up to four on either shoulder. Wick fishermen usually had four evenly spaced on the left shoulder while others could have groups of two, three and one, so that the home port of most fishermen could be identified at a glance if they were wearing their buttons. The buttons on their ganseys could sometimes identify the origins of a drowned fisherman.” [Sutherland, p.103]

I hadn’t come across the information on buttons before, and, leaving aside the water-muddying reference to identifying drowned fishermen (let’s all agree not to go there), even if was only in part a “rule”, it shows that there’s always something more to gansey lore than one may think.

With regard to the gansey cardigan, we had friends up for the weekend so I wasn’t quite able to get it finished: just a few more inches to go. The first step will be to get it washed and blocked, and after that—coming soon—the be-steekening!

The end of April in the North Highlands of Scotland is noteworthy for two striking phenomena: first of all, the hillsides are awash with flowering gorse, a stunning display of bright yellow that turns the countryside into something resembling the inside of a sickly god’s handkerchief; and secondly, of course, it’s my birthday.

Last week I celebrated my 57th year under heaven. Paul Simon once tried to imagine how terribly strange it must be to be 70; but I expect it will turn out to be much like 57, only with a few more parts missing—the damage, you might say, already having been done. I did worry that as I got older I’d have said everything I ever wanted to say; but as it turns out whole new topics of fascinating conversation pop up all the time: viz., medications, operations and what shows actors used to be in. (And did you know that the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album is 50 years old in June? Yes, I’m scared too.)

The gorse at Helmsdale

Bill Bryson once observed that the British are one of the happiest races on earth, because all it takes to make their day is a cup of tea and a digestive biscuit. In my case, I’ve discovered, it’s a new flat cap, a CD of Herbert von Karajan conducting Bruckner’s 7th symphony, music so transcendentally perfect it’s what God listens to on his iPod when he’s having a bad day; and a leather-covered notebook. (Well, yes, all right; and a cup of tea.)

Bench with a view

I’ve wanted a leather-covered notebook ever since I read PG Wodehouse’s masterpiece The Code of the Woosters. It’s what Gussie Fink-Nottle uses to record everything he dislikes in people. (“Have you ever heard Sir Watkyn Basset dealing with a bowl of soup? It’s not unlike the Scottish express going through a tunnel… Have you ever seen Spode eat asparagus? It alters one’s whole conception of Man as Nature’s last word.”) Of course I don’t use it to detail the foibles of my fellow men—there’s only 192 pages, after all—but I am using it to make notes on Caithness history, shaking my fist at the 21st century and writing by hand with a fine-nibbed fountain pen (though not both at the same time, obviously).

Waiting for Gordon

Speaking of Caithness history, I read today that the Earl of Cromarty and his son, Lord Macleod, who’d been recruiting for Jacobite cause in the county, missed the dreadful battle of Culloden because they stayed too long in the castle of Dunrobin “to watch the tricks of a juggler”, and were captured. Isn’t that great? (This is an excuse I now intend to use at work to explain my next missed deadline.)

In gansey news I am well down the first sleeve. Now that I’m back at work I have less time for knitting, of course, but I still hope to finish this one in a fortnight. The patterns are essentially the same as the body, except that the starfish are slightly smaller—the reason for this being that they will be on the forearms, in full view, and I didn’t want them to dominate the rest of the gansey’s patterns. (It’s possible I may be over-thinking this.)

I’ll post a chart next week if I remember—but as far as today’s concerned it’s a bank holiday, the sun is shining on the hills and somewhere in the distance I can hear a god sneezing…