Gansey Nation

I’ve been signed off work these last few days with a chest infection and stress, which is probably mostly down to overwork. I was aware I’d been running on empty for some time—the cold that refused to die was a bit of a clue—though I’d hoped to make it through to Christmas. But then I suddenly reached a point when my body more or less shut me down, and that was that.

Apart from the infection, which sometimes feels like a fat and lazy cat is lying on my chest, the other symptoms are not dissimilar to what I’ve read about shellshock, if I can be forgiven so extreme a comparison; and given they used to use shellac to make the wax seal resin of very old documents I’ve coined a new word for stress experienced by archivists: shellac shock.

It’s not a very nice feeling, to be honest. But after a week’s resting up I feel much better, to the extent that I’m no longer going through three or four handkerchiefs a day. I’m well enough to potter about the house, although climbing the stairs currently requires a team of sherpas, some huskies and a plentiful supply of oxygen.

In keeping with my biography in What Archivist Monthly (“his hobbies include ganseys, creative writing and brooding”), I’ve been doing a lot of knitting—and I mean a lot. To be honest, there’s not a lot else I can do right now: I can’t concentrate for long on reading or writing; and besides, the therapeutic benefits of knitting are well known (and, I can now testify, accurate).

So, here we are, well into the pattern and embarked on the underarm gussets. The usual way with yoked ganseys is to start the yoke pattern about the same time as you start increasing for the gussets. But interestingly a number of the old photos of Caithness fishermen in the Johnston Collection show the pattern starting several inches below the gussets, like this one does.

It’s not always easy to tell, mind you—partly because of the resolution of the pictures, and partly because a number appear to have very long ribbed welts which are folded up, reaching almost to the armpits (I’m guessing this was done to provide greater insulation?). Anyway, you can see the original photo of Donald Murray in his gansey here. And, although it’s not possible to replicate it exactly (different yarn, needles and gauge), here is Margaret’s recreation of this distinctive Wick pattern.

Finally this week, some sage advice I’ve been following from Merlyn the magician, in TH White’s wonderful The Sword in the Stone. The young boy nicknamed the Wart is unhappy on a dreary wet day and goes to see Merlyn, who he finds knitting himself a night-cap for the winter:

“Oh Merlyn,” exclaimed the Wart, “please give me something to do, because I feel so miserable. Nobody wants me for anything today, and I just don’t know how to be sensible. It rains so.”

To which Merlyn replies sagely: “You should learn to knit.”

With less than a month till Christmas, Caithness is sliding inexorably into midwinter darkness: already the sun is rising at 8.30am and setting at 3.30pm. Mind you, the sunrises and sunsets have been stunning, enough red skies at both ends of the day to alarm and then delight any bipolar shepherds or sailors.

We’ve had a week of sharp frosts, the pavements slick with ice, so that I’ve been going out each morning dressed like a member of the Captain Scott Re-enactment Society who’s just discovered that walking on thin ice isn’t only a metaphor. If we have a really bad winter my current plan is to set up a dog-walking business and sneakily train the canines to pull a sled, so I can still get to work.

Sheep at sunrise, near Clyth

There was something of a thaw on Saturday—judging by the forecasts this will be known as the 2016 Caithness Interglacial Warm Period—so we went for a stroll out to the south head of Wick Bay, past the old quarry, which I remembered as a lovely spot with picnic benches and artistically recreated standing stones. Well, we were in for a shock.

The scene is now a store yard for the council apparently, a muddy basin filled with muddy pools and dirty mounds of tarmac, grit and builders’ supplies. It reminded me of the Scouring of the Shire, the epilogue to the Lord of the Rings when the hobbits return home to find it transformed into an ugly industrialised wasteland. I expected any minute to be beset by marauding orcs with whips and forced to go work in the salt mines (or, as I think of it, “Monday morning”).

Oh, well: we could still turn our faces to the clean horizons of the ocean, which has yet to be tarmacked. And I daresay people a hundred years ago felt much the same as we when the quarry was being worked. But that passed, in time, allowing nature to reclaim it; and so, I guess, will this.

Where’s the next gansey at?

The Matt Cammish gansey has now, as you can see, been taken for a test drive and it holds up pretty well. The body has settled back to a comfortable 47 inches in the round, but the purl stitches act like ribbing so it can stretch a bit if it has to. All in all, a modest success.

Sunset, Coghill Bridge, Wick

The new gansey will be another Wick pattern inspired by a photograph in the marvellous Johnston Collection. We haven’t charted it out fully yet—there’s still a fortnight at least before I have to worry about the yoke—but it resembles Fergus Ferguson’s in general style, without being quite so ornate (what I’m coming to think of as a typical Wick pattern, in fact). By way of a change I’m knitting it in Wendy’s aran Guernsey 5-ply yarn (they had a sale). I cast on 336 stitches and increased to 372 stitches after a welt of 3.75 inches.

Meanwhile Judit has sent me this nifty idea for a Christmas gift which she’s devised. The patterns are tree of life, Betty Martin panelling and diamonds and the overall effect is rather splendid. (It looks like it could also be adapted into stylish knitwear for the dalek in your life…) It should serve as inspiration, too, if any is needed—so what are you waiting for?