Gansey Nation

There are ten parishes in Caithness, and of these Olrig is the odd one out. All the others have a settlement—a village or town—from which the parish takes its name. So there’s a Wick in Wick parish, a Thurso in Thurso, and so on. But there’s no settlement in Caithness called Olrig; it’s just lines on a map. Not only that, but the principal village is called Castletown, which is something of a misnomer as it’s not really a town and has never had a castle.

What it does have is a stunningly beautiful harbour, called Castlehill, albeit one noticeably short on castles or hills. Castletown and Castlehill were once home to the celebrated Caithness flagstone industry, shipping stone all over the world. It’s mostly abandoned now, the Caithness landscape a palimpsest of lost industries, ecologies and people. (Maybe it’s time we borrowed the slogan from that military academy in the Simpsons: “A tradition of heritage”).

“Take a seat . . .”

Castlehill lies on the north coast, in the glorious sweep of Dunnet Bay. It’s bounded on the east by Dunnet Head and on the west by Holborn Head, with Orkney off somewhere to the north. The harbour is unusual, much of it built using rows of flagstones laid on their ends, like stacks of mahjong tiles stood upright (flagga, in old norse, means a “slice”, or of course a flag). We went up there on Saturday and it was deserted, apart from a family of ducks out for a swim, so we just stood for a time and watched the waves. The motion of the tides is as relaxing as stroking a cat; with the added advantage that you don’t have to clean out its litter tray later.

Looking towards Dunnet Beach

Meanwhile we enter the gansey endgame, also known as the sleeves. The yoke suffered a sort of elephantiasis—it’s a risk with this sort of pattern—and expanded to almost an inch wider than the body. Usually I’m on top of this, and decrease by a few stitches at the yoke (or increase by a few when there are cables to pull it in). But even Homer nods, and this time I just didn’t think of it. To compensate I shall make each sleeve half an inch shorter and will decrease by two stitches every fourth row, instead of every fifth. No, as they say, biggie.

Olrig is thought to derive from “the son of Erik” in old norse, and to date from the time of the Vikings. It contains one of my favourite place names, Murkle, which always sounds to me like the sort of place an heiress in a Victorian novel would go to live with her murderous uncle; or possibly one of the lesser-known Muppets with a troubled past. In fact it’s even cooler than that and derives from “Morthill”, meaning field of death, supposedly the site of an ancient battle. Come to think of it, I’m not surprised they named the village Castletown. Imagine the meeting with the marketing department: “We can’t call it Castletown, there isn’t a castle. Now, I like this other idea, what was it, Mortown? Reminds me of Detroit, somehow. What’s it mean?” “Let me see: Town of Death.” “Ah, right. Castletown it is, then…”

Well, that’s summer over for another year. The Gala’s ended; the fireworks are all snapped, crackled and popped; the funfair’s packed up and departed. All that’s left are the smouldering embers of a bonfire on the little island in the river, as though some rather confused vikings had turned up late, sacked a garden shed just for the look of the thing, and sailed off back into history. (While walking down by the river on Friday I passed three council workmen on the island, standing by the crane they’d used to erect the towering mound of wood. One noticed me and shouted proudly across the water, “Is that a bonfire or is that no’ a bonfire?” Well, I was glad to put an end to his confusion: it was a bonfire.)

It’s funny the way the calendar seems to determine seasons, isn’t it? When I lived in England and Wales summer lasted all the way through August: it only ended with the bank holiday, and with schools going back the first week of September. Now I live in the far north of Scotland and autumn is already flicking the lights on and off in the public bar of Time, urging summer to finish its pint and get off home. There was condensation on the inside of the window the other day. So it begins.

Smoking remains

Still, autumn is perfect weather for wearing, and indeed knitting, ganseys. It’s time to reveal the design: it’s the classic Henry Freeman pattern, identified with Staithes in all the books but actually ubiquitous wherever ganseys were knitted. It’s part of my farewell tour of favourite gansey patterns; this was the first I ever knitted (though sizing was something of a problem back in those days; it might perhaps have fitted John Goodman, or possibly John Goodman and a couple of friends).

Spots of colour at Asda, Woking

I do love these simple, textured patterns; they always make me think of the elegant geometric designs of Islamic art, always supposing the Caliphate had had a flourishing herring industry. Plus, this one has the added attraction that it can double as a cheese grater in times of need. The atonal composer Arnold Schoenberg once famously said that despite all his theories there was still plenty of good music to be written in C Major. That’s how I feel about these patterns: there are still plenty of good ganseys to be knit in moss stitch (or double seed stitch, or whatever the hell it’s called). Besides, if it’s good enough for Daniel Day-Lewis, it’s good enough for me.

240-year-old handbells

Ah, well. Enjoy the rest of your summer, guys. Here the plums are already swelling on the tree and an autumnal dankness suffuses the woods with the piquant fragrance of locker-room socks. I’ll leave you with some of Tennyson’s most beautiful lines which, although not about autumn exactly, always come to my mind with the arrival of the season of mists and mellow fruitfulness:

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.