Tuesday 26 August 2014

Hands

And twenty-three boxes later I was increasingly amazed at the stamina and output of past generations, the dedication Mr Sanctuary showed to conserving the many and the various facets of the industry, and to the fact that this ongoing rock of Bridport’s employment and production had barely shown its modest ankle to the public over the preceding five years.

I’d been to Bridport Museum often enough to know the town’s historic wealth was built on turning hemp into rope and flax into netting, and I was, until recently, under the very common misapprehension that the long, narrow gardens came about because of the outworkers’ rope and net making work, rather than the more historically accurate facts of the burgage system.

However, I'd had almost no knowledge of what went on in Bridport’s contemporary rope and net industry, beyond the odd, mysterious job advert in the local paper, a fellow gigrower journeying to fit a net into a plane, and discreet talk about defence industry contracts. Clearly it has a mighty form connected to that demure ankle.

For me, the donation of the Sanctuary Collection to the Museum seems to be a marker of Bridport’s past and present uniting, and over my weeks of research it’s become dazzlingly, glaringly, gloriously and scarily clear that what I have the chance to do, is grasp the moment, and the modest budget, to celebrate the skilled work of each and every one of our named and un-named knot makers. But what exactly is involved? It was time to roll the sleeves and attempt at least a knot or two myself.

The word on the street, after Bridport’s unbelievably inaugural and successful 2014 Ropewalk Fair, was that Dee was the person to track down for expert tuition. So I did, quite swiftly. Bridport’s population is around the thirteen thousand figure, and there is no train station. Given this context, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’d known Dee in another capacity ever since I moved here. And now, yet another of her superpowers had been revealed.

If anyone could teach me how to make netting Dee could, and luckily for me she would. On a sunbleached, Saturday afternoon standing outside the History Centre with our twine tied onto the park railings. Traditional, and a very public challenge for a shy knotting newbie whose fingers were revealed as too slender and tapering for robust knot making. To be fair though, I've always aspired to be an Aye-Aye. 

Naturally a passing policeman turned out to be an ex-netmaker, keen to chat and observe the newbie losing a wrestling bout to over-twiddling twine. I believe that’s a technical term. Antique, natural fibre. Vintage some might say. An eccentrically over-twiddling material I’d say.

I can still sense my old BA sculpture tutor smiling wryly and walking slowly into critical analysis position. Ideas and materials indeed Douglas. Ideas and materials.



ps. 23 is nowhere near the total number of boxes.



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